C'mon...it does seem out of whack that you can serve your country in the military at 18, but you can't shoot hoops for money in the NBA. Ah, but the wink-wink, "scholarships" and other accoutrements offered by college recruiters is OK, it's "for the kids" ensuring their education. Gotta protect the youngins from exploitation.

OK, I know we got a few wars going' on and stuff, but just sayin'...

I dunno, I think its for making sure they get people who have grown up a bit. Of course, this is the NBA. Most of them act like insolent teenagers anyway.

Maybe they should have a starter league like AAA baseball.

God forbid that a kid gets an education first, so he knows how to conduct himself in society.

Seriously, this guy is advocating NOT going to college?

Right, because college basketball players are getting first-class educations.

The NCAA desperately wants to keep this rule so that they get the players for at least one year and can make millions off of them while giving them room and board in return. It's a racket.

If the NBA doesn't want young, immature players, they won't draft them. But to prohibit them from using their talent to make money for themselves, instead of others, is a fraud.

"... a starter league like AAA baseball."

yes!Yes!YES! Football, too. 'Farm teams,' a 'semi-pro' league of both basketball and football, pro-form, (that is, playing for pay). In mid-size and small-size 'markets.' Like baseball.

It is more fun and more frequent (for me) to be a seat in the seats for a Portland Beavers or Salem Volcanoes game, than in the Mariners' Seattle park ... whatever it's called ... where I've never been ... although I have been in Chicago's Cubs park and the White Sox's Comiskey park, Yankee Stadium, and Fenway Park, all 'back in the day.' All those times added together is less than a tenth of the times I've been in Civic Stadium - PGE (Please, Go Extinct).

And I'd watch semi-pro basketball and semi-pro football, to have it, but you'd have to pay me to attend the 'pro' versions ... hey, if they get paid to play, the audience should get paid to watch.

And farm-team leagues would keep the athletic-vocation inclined individuals OUT OF universities and colleges and open the seats for (deserving) academic-vocation inclined individuals.

But I figure screw 'em, let the pro leagues go bankrupt. And you and me, what say we kill TV and get a game up here in the 'hood this weekend, a bit of 'shirts and skins' or 'mudball'? Screw TV. Do and be.

Hey, Oregon's politicians don't miss a beat either:

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2009/06/bill_banning_sementhrowing_on.html

God forbid they deal with something difficult like schools or roads.