NBA commissioner once again calls for end to one-and-done rule

NBA commissioner Adam Silver went on “Mike and Mike” this morning and once again called for the end of the one-and-done rule.

In the wake of the college basketball bribery scandal, Silver said it’s “clear a change will come” to the current rule, which requires players to be at least 19 years old or one year past high school to be eligible for the draft. Obviously, the bribery scandal exposed one of the many flaws of the current system, but Silver also noted that in recent years, it’s become clear that more and more one-and-done players care less about where they go to college/if their team is winning than the draft itself, using Ben Simmons (LSU) and Markelle Fultz (Washington) as examples.

“What’s really interesting to me is the last two No. 1 picks in the NBA draft, Ben Simmons two years ago and Markelle Fultz last year, both played with teams that did not make the NCAA tournament. And I think not enough people are talking about that. That seems to be a sea change in the development of players coming into the NBA.

“It’s become common knowledge that these so-called one-and-done players are, maybe understandably, are almost entirely focused on where they are going to go in the draft lottery. Not to say they don’t badly care about winning but the stakes are so high in terms of their placement in the draft lottery, the stakes are so high in terms of the amount of money they can make over a long NBA career as a star player, that that’s front and center, what they’re focused on as college players.”

Silver’s remarks suggest that after 12 years of the one-and-done rule, programs like Kentucky are the only ones where it still serves its original purpose. Players who come to Lexington compete against the best and therefore develop, whereas those who go to less competitive programs merely bide their time until the draft.

“From our standpoint, if the players in that one year of college aren’t getting the kind of development we’d like to see them get coming into the NBA, aren’t playing in the NCAA tournament, aren’t competing against top-notch competition, I think we have to take a step back and figure out whether we are better off taking those players at a younger age and working on their training and development full time.”

What’s the solution? Silver praised the budding “G-League,” which the NBA has been pouring more and more money into recently. If the one-and-done rule goes away, a likely scenario could be players having the option of going to the pros (or G-League) directly from high school or spending two years in college.

When will change come? Silver said he doesn’t want to wait until 2024, when the collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and the Players Association is up, suggesting that meetings on the matter could happen as soon as this season.

Listen to Silver’s remarks below, starting around the 20-minute mark:

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