martin
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The 2003 draft stampede by Chad Ford
Brace yourselves college and international basketball fans. Come May, the NBA will experience the largest exodus of underclassmen (both college and international) in the history of the draft.
Why? Rumors are running rampant among NBA GMs and player agents that NBA commish David Stern is working out a deal with Players Association president Billy Hunter that would create a 20-year-old age limit for the 2004 NBA draft.
Currently, American high school players are eligible for the draft after their high school senior class graduates. International players must turn 18 by Dec. 31st of the year of the draft.
The new rule would destroy the distinction between American and international players. Essentially any player wishing to put his name into the draft would have to turn 20 in the year of the draft.
Stern, who's been pushing for the rule for years, may have finally found a way to get the NBPA (which has always opposed such a rule) on board.
The rumored compromise would create cap relief for teams that want to sign older veterans but can't because of luxury-tax fears. Older players, who happen to dominate the leadership of the players' executive council, have been complaining for the past few years that aging veterans have been the most adversely affected by the new rules.
NBPA spokesperson Dan Wasserman refuted a report in Sports Illustrated that a deal was imminent. He did however confirm that the age limit was on the table as the NBA and the NBPA begin their next round of collective bargaining.
"I think we've been philosophically opposed to age limits in the past," Wasserman told Insider. "However, if the league makes a serious proposal that addresses some of our concerns with the collective bargaining agreement, we'd certainly take it to the players. Right now it's negotiable."
NBA spokesperson Tim Frank also said that while the league would start negotiationing with the NBPA after the season, nothing was in the works now.
"At the conclusion of the season we'll sit down and everything will be on the table," Frank told Insider. "But I don't anticipate anything happening before that."
If the two sides work out an agreement before the draft expect NBA player agents to begin working overtime with teenagers in high school, college and overseas to get them into the draft this year.
"It will dramatically affect how we handle some of younger clients overseas and some of the kids we're recruiting in high school and college," one prominent NBA player agent said. "If a kid is 17 or 18 right now and NBA teams are interested, it's now or 2005 or 2006. I think some of these kids don't want to wait that long."
It's already likely that LeBron James (age 18), Darko Milicic (17), Carmelo Anthony (19) and Chris Bosh (19) will declare for this year's draft.
But several other players, including top high school prospects like Kederick Perkins, Luol Deng, Charlie Villanueva, James Lang, Travis Outlaw and Kris Humphries, who were on the fence before, may now be pushed into the draft if the rumors persist.
None of them, according to several respected NBA scouts, are ready for the NBA. However, the lure of guaranteed money now, as opposed to two years from now, may be too much to pass up. Of course, if they declare, teams will draft them, ready or not.
"The draft is still about upside," one GM told Insider. "At the end of the day you take the guy who will eventually be the best player, not the kid who's the best player right now."
Expect an even bigger flood of international players to consider bolting. The advantage they have is that NBA teams can keep them overseas for a few more seasons and develop them. Over the past week young prospects such as Yugoslavia's Kosta Perovic (18 years old), Senegal's Malick Badiane (18), Brazil's Tiago Splitter (17) and Poland's Maciej Lampe (17) have all been rumored to be considering throwing their names in the draft because of the rule change.
That puts a heavy burden on international scouts.
The problem, as even the most enthusiastic international scouts will admit, is that international scouting is following the same trend as American scouting. "The kids we are looking at are getting younger and younger," one assistant GM told Insider. "Even three years ago, you pretty much waited until an European kid established himself over there before you seriously looked at him. There were exceptions, like Andrei Kirilenko, but for the most part teams were only comfortable drafting guys who had already become stars on the international scene. Nowadays, we're trying to evaluate kids like Nikoloz Tskitishvili. It's becoming a much riskier proposition."
That's what made Denver's selection of Tskitishvili, currently the second-youngest player in the NBA, such a risk. Everyone could see his skills in workouts, but no one got a good look at him in a game.
Without any real game film to go on, teams must rely on international junior competitions, grainy game film, practices (increasingly difficult to get into) and a lot of second-hand accounts.
This year, Milicic, who turns 18 just weeks before the draft, will be the youngest player ever drafted in the lottery. Fortunately, he starts for his team, giving teams plenty of game film to examine. But for a number of other blue chip international prospects, scouts must increasingly rely on their gut and a little bit of faith.
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