Scouting of high school players is likely better than it was back in the mid-aughts too. Don’t have the numbers to back that up but I’m sure someone can look at the reliability of recruiting rankings back then versus now.
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Well, it wouldn’t work with two rounds. You’d need more. And it wouldn’t have worked years ago before the GLeague became a viable minor league.
As for who it would help, I would argue it helps everyone.
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NBA Teams - They can draft guys on potential buy mitigate their risk and cost by letting players develop in college until both the player and team are ready. They can consult with players and coaches in the off season.
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NBA fans - They get to watch their draft picks play in college knowing they are likely headed to their school.
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Players - They know who has their rights, they know what sort of landing spot they have, decide when they want to go pro or stay in school on their schedule…which is now aided by NIL versus the situation with their NBA team.
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College fans - They can watch the teams who drafted their players to get a feel for who’s on the team, what their system is, and a reason to watch.
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College teams - They theoretically get to keep their players longer. Five stars may jump right away (like they would with a 17 year old rule) but marginal picks may not rush to leave.
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Portal chaos - This is uncertain… Maybe it remains chaotic as players look for exposure or maybe guys won’t transfer if they were already picked in a later round.
The NHL is the closest parallel to the NBA in the major sports and it works for them. MLB is different, but it works there too.
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There is no draft and follow in the MLB.
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Well, it is different I guess…and wouldnt work for basketball. You can be drafted out of HS and then make a decision whether to accept the draft offer or go to college. If you stay in college, then you can be redrafted after your junior year. So the players have the power over whether to go pro…but if you go to school then you’re “stuck” there for three years.
I’d like a version of this but I think the option to come out after your sophomore year would work better. If it were three years, every kid in the top-20 would skip college.
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Isn’t the second round and some of the first essentially draft and follow guys? Like wasn’t Poole?
They just “followed” him under their coaching aegis in Santa Clara, not playing Beilein’s system in Ann Arbor
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It is interesting to think about. Go with the MLB model but make it a two-year handcuff instead of three. So the NBA gets to drive players out of high school if they want, but anyone who chooses to go to college has to go for 2 years before they can be redrafted. It might be a fun thought experiment to go through the first round of the draft this year and see what that would have meant for a lot of players.
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Not really because they are being paid and signed to contracts.
The only thing comparable is with European prospects who don’t sign NBA deals right away and just stay overseas and play in Europe while the NBA team owns their rights.
I honestly think that some sort of forced two-year rule would just force more players away from college.
The reality is that young players can help NBA teams, NBA teams have resources to develop young players. There are a bunch of new paths (GLI, OTE) to help players who don’t want to go to college.
I don’t know that the situation needs any sort of major shuffle at this point. If there was draft and follow, I imagine most of the guys who were one-and-done this year would have just been in the previous draft.
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Yeah, that’s why I was promoting the NHL model. In the NHL you still get talented players going to college for more than 1 year while they develop but you also have guys that want to go straight to the league. I think it promotes both sports and gives the player, team, and school options that suit their needs and preferences.
What’s the down side of a draft-and-follow model? I guess the complexities of having a larger draft and small rosters is complex, but that’s what the G-League is for.
I don’t see any reason that the NBA would want kids to be committing to college for multiple years. Who does it help in the NBA if Jaden Ivey has to stay at Purdue for a third year?
If an NBA team wanted to “draft and follow” someone, why wouldn’t they want to coach them in the G-League?
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There are 450 NBA roster spots (not all get filled)
There are 736 NHL roster spots
I think the size of the draft reflects this
It helps fans of college basketball if ivey stays a third year.
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i think all of these draft-and-follow ideas are coming from the perspective of “here’s what i would like, as a fan.” which i’m not immune to! but at this point, if an nba team is willing to spend a slot on a specific player on their team or in the g-league, it’s probably better for the player and the team to go there.
the reason it works so well in the NHL is only the top few picks are even ready to contribute on day 1, and most won’t be ready for years. that’s just not true of basketball, and there aren’t enough rounds of the draft to warrant drafting guys who are that far away from contributing.
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These are NBA rules though, they are made to do what helps the NBA.
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The NHL has 7 rounds, the NBA has 2. That’s not the same ratio as your roster spots. The NHL drafts players in the later rounds with the knowledge that they need time in the minors.
As I said, I don’t think the MLB model of FORCING players to stay in school would work in this sport (even if it would be cool). The NHL model allows those players to leave for the team that drafted them at any time. This year the goalie on Minnesota left college mid-season to join his NHL team because their top two goalies got hurt.
I think it allows the players to stay if they want and it allows teams to tell kids to keep working on their game in college before they come up. But it isn’t forced.
Funny discussion on the Simpson hook shot at the 27:40 mark:
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Dad was a Michigan fan…too bad these kids didn’t absorb dad’s fanship and also want to play a year of college…
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It’s weird to hear him talk about how his dad raised him to watch Simpson play at Michigan … has it been that long already?
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