A Draft Idea for the NBA-NCAA

[valporun]

I was listening to Carmen, Jurko, and Harry, and they were discussing the corruption of the college game due to the "one-year out of high school" draft rule. A thought came to me about this, Why not let the NBA teams draft the 18-year-olds, but their first year is down in the NBDL developing and taking some life courses that help them understand their contract, their paycheck, and actually putting most of this money into better investments than 7 vehicles/motorcycles, 5 mansions, and all the extravagant amenities that most rookies throw their money away on?

This would allow those 18-year-olds the ability to help their families financially, and keep them from corrupting/degrading the college game with their attending enough fall classes to stay eligible for the spring, and then quit going to class in January, but still be able to play ball. I suppose it would also be the best way to get a coach like John Calipari out of the college game for good?

Any thoughts?

[sectionee]

I think any student that goes to college on an athletic scholarship of any kind should have to take some kind of personal finance class so they can avoid the pitfalls you mentioned.  I'm ok with kids being drafted out of high school, but maybe (and perhaps they already do) all professional teams should have their draftees go through the same type of finance/good decision making course.

[valporun]

I think they have a course on it during rookie orientation, but it seems like it is one that is treated more like a lecture course, rather than a lab. If they treated it more like a lab, then each player would have someone who isn't just out for their money looking over what these kids are doing to spend their money, or save it if their career doesn't pan out.

I like your idea of the personal finance course, but then the NCAA would really have to regulate how it is taught very closely, and we know how well they handle classroom issues. I mean, do you really want a personal finance course taught by Jim Harrick, Jr.? The big concern I would have about this course is how some of these athletes are with math courses, since so many high schools teach math by use of calculator, instead of answer tough math problems by using the old-fashioned pencil, paper, show your work methods many of us grew up with. I mean if these kids can't balance their own checkbooks to make sure their personal accountants and bankers are handling the money correctly, then they'll never know just how much money they really have, or how to count it without a calculator.

[rlh]

While I don't like the one and done rule, the facts are that almost all of us would have been frivolous with that kind of money when we were 18-19-20 years old.  There just is no practical way to expect a person that age to take care of the money because we never thought we'd get old (remember?).  The only possible answer is to make these salaries annuities to a large degree, where much of the money is put away for later...otherwise, having fun and buying things will happen still all too often....