Message to NBA - no age limit needed. Here is an altervative solution.

The NBA age limit is still at 19 – for now, however Commissioner David Stern has been very vocal to the press on his belief that the minimum age should be raised to at least 20 eventually.  The current collective bargaining agreement doesn’t allow for a change until 2011 unless accepted by the players, however, the timing of Stern’s comments shouldn’t be viewed as simple water cooler speak.

Stern is savvy in his approach to league matters and an astute business mind, so there is no doubt that he started the angling process – much like when he went on record during All-Star weekend regarding “inevitability” of the SuperSonics leaving Seattle. Leaders of the Seattle business community accused Stern of trying to sabotage the talks to keep the team in Washington.

Our view on the minimum age limit to enter the league doesn’t change – if a player has the talent and successfully graduates from high school then allow the young man to earn a good living playing the sport he loves. We won’t reference the tired point that if you’re old enough to go to war then you should be able to shoot hoops. Old news.

If the league is set on restricting its talent base to the elite players and limiting the number of “Ousmane Cisse” stories, then maybe the upper echelon of the NBA management hierarchy should create a board to approve high school players’ respective declarations for the draft.

The board could consist of scouts, general managers and a few coaches – each given a scorecard and if the consensus doesn’t return a “first round” lock vote then the player would have to go to college for at least a year. This method would protect the players’ college eligibility if the board denied his bid to enter the draft.

Would this method open the door for a system that could be constructed to deny the majority of requests? Yes. But there aren’t a lot of owners that would turn down a LeBron James type of talent – nor an Al Jefferson type of player. The bottom line always revolves around money and corporate sponsorship, which is understandable – but corporate America rallied around talents such as Kobe Bryant and James, so if the talent is there let the young man play.

We have to communicate how good we believe the Boston Celtics are this season. Like most when the year began we had plenty of questions, but after watching the team develop and achieve 60 wins with ease there is little doubt that outside of the defending champion San Antonio Spurs, the team from Massachusetts is the team to beat in the NBA.

In a story not getting much shine – we were on press row during the Charlotte Bobcats and Minnesota Timberwolves game on Tuesday night. There were a lot of college reunions going on – Jared Dudley (Bobcats) and Craig Smith (T-Wolves) were teammates at Boston College. The game also briefly untied members of the 2005 UNC national championship team – Raymond Felton, Sean May and Rashad McCants. But in a stunning twist McCants (14.8 ppg) played in less than 5 minutes for the T-Wolves. Keep in mind that McCants played high school ball in Asheville, NC and had plenty of members of the McCants family courtside. Minnesota lost the game 121-119, where McCants could’ve surely been utilized for his scoring prowess. T-Wolves coach Randy Wittman was obviously sending a message to his young player returning to his former stomping grounds. It seems the point was well taken as McCants scored 23 points in 30 minutes of action in Wednesday’s loss to the New Orleans Hornets.

Lang is a senior writer for HoopsVine.com

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