NCAA does right by NBA draft prospects with new rules

The NCAA, that organization so fussy about calling players “student-athletes,” finally decided to do right by the student-athlete with NBA aspirations.

On Wednesday the NCAA changed its rules concerning underclassmen entering the NBA draft. Here’s how it will work:

The deadline for entering the draft used to be the day before college basketball’s spring letter-of-intent day, which was sometime in April. Now the deadline will be 10 days after the conclusion of the NBA Combine, meaning this spring players will have until May 25 to either register for the draft or pull their names from consideration.

That’s big.

This is bigger: Players can now participate in multiple combines (assuming they are invited by the NBA to do so) and do individual or group workouts with NBA teams without jeopardizing remaining college eligibility.

These changes make so much sense it’s a miracle they were approved. For once, anyway, what’s best for the players won out over what’s best for the coaches.

Here was the issue under the previous set of rules: College coaches, particularly the ones at elite programs, wanted both clarity and certainty about their rosters before letter-of-intent day. If you had a kid who was a potential lottery pick, you definitively wanted him in or out so as to recruit efficiently.

It’s true that uncertainty about a star player’s pro status could interfere with how top high school players view a scholarship offer from a Kentucky or a Duke or a North Carolina.

But what’s also true is college coaches just didn’t want surprises to mess up their off-seasons. I used to joke that the old deadline for turning pro should be called the “Coaches need their tee times, don’t mess with us!” rule.

The old system was tidy for the coaches but it put undue burden on kids making potentially life-changing decisions about whether to leave college. Now the players can work out for NBA scouts in multiple settings. That will inevitably lead to more informed decisions about whether to stay in the draft.

If this change messes up, say, Kentucky coach John Calipari’s beach trip or North Carolina coach Roy Williams’ golf outing, I say too bad. What’s best for the kids should always take precedence.

What will be interesting is how the NBA responds. The new rules implicitly obligate the league to give that much more feedback to players. Under the old system the NBA knew which college players were irrevocably turning pro before the draft lottery. Now they won’t know something definitive until after the combine and into the individual-workout season.

I’m assuming the NCAA won’t let NBA teams pay to fly in underclassmen for workouts. So teams may have to go to campuses in May for individual or group workouts.

The other thing to consider is the entry rule: Under the current collective bargaining agreement, a U.S. player must be at least one year removed from his high school class’s graduation before entering the draft.

There’s a misconception the NBA stopped drafting high school kids as a concession to college basketball. No. It was to delay making draft decisions until kids had played at least one season of college ball. That’s a slightly better database on which to make draft decisions that can entail millions in guarantees.

The NBA would like to change the rule again and obligate a U.S. kid to play two seasons in college (or in a handful of cases as an overseas pro) before entering the draft. The NBA Players Association is against that. The union would be fine with going back to the days when a Kobe Bryant or LeBron James was drafted straight out of high school.

It’s good that the NBA is trending toward each franchise owning and/or operating its own team in the NBA’s Development League. In a whole new world of draft entry, any tool that aids player development will be important.

This story was originally published January 13, 2016 at 7:59 PM with the headline "NCAA does right by NBA draft prospects with new rules."