According to NBA insider Shams Charania of The Athletic, the NBA and the NBPA are reportedly “expected to agree on” getting rid of the one-and-done rule by lowering the requirement for draft-eligible players to be one year out of high school to be 18-years-old.
Per Charania, two key points were brought to attention between the League and the players union, figuring out a measure that allows players to cite mental health as similar to physical injury and changing the NBA Draft age eligibility from 19 to 18 to bring back the ‘high school-to-NBA’ pipeline.
This is huge, considering the last time the NBA drafted an eighteen-year-old was Josh Primo in 2021. Andrew Bynum (2005 NBA Draft)was 18 and six days when he played his first game, while Amir Johnson was 18 and 268 days old when he first played in the League in 2006.
The League is no stranger to getting high school kids and seeing them blossom and transition into superstardom. Some star players who transitioned from high school to the NBA are LeBron James, Dwight Howard, Tracy McGrady, Kevin Garnett, and the late great Black Mamba, Kobe Bryant.
The world of basketball as we know it is about to take a significant shift again by tackling another big challenge surrounding the next generation of talent.
This would cause a change to the scope of the sport almost similar to the major ones that we saw surrounding the NCAA when they began to permit athletes to benefit from their Name, Image, and Likeness and allow NCAA players to hire an agent to negotiate those deals, as well as giving them the option to stay in school if they went unselected in the NBA Draft back in 2018.
There are still a couple more details to iron out before December 15, which is the mutually agreed upon opt-out date between the League and the Players Association. However, talks between NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and NBPA Executive Director Tamika Tremaglio have had extensive CBA talks that have all gone in a positive direction. For now, we will all have to hold our breath and wait for the official decision.
