The time for the NBA one and done rule has come and gone as the relationship between the NCAA and the NBA becomes more and more questionable from the perspective of fans and athletes alike. The recent years have allowed for NBA players and future professionals to develop their personalities and brands easier through social media and playing basketball. This creates much more opportunity to earn money and sign sponsorships and build brands. One recent case of this is the number one pick of the 2016 NBA draft, Ben Simmons. Ben is a strong example of future athletes to come, bringing many questions of the legitimateness of the relationship between collegiate and NBA basketball.  The NBA one and done rule restricts the freedom of future professional athletes, encourages the risk of injury through rigorous academic schedules and poor lifestyle habits commonly associated with college, while preventing the ability to build the athletes brand and net worth until they finish an ultimately useless freshman year of university. 

The NBA one and done rule was established for the 2006 NBA draft and has stuck around since then. Originally titled “Article X” the NBA one and done rule declared that “Basketball players who wish to perform in the NBA must be at least nineteen-years-old and one year removed from high school” (Heitner). This rule was created in order to ensure maturity and full development of the players by playing longer in collegiate basketball rather than quickly advancing to the professional level. This inevitably led to the takeover of college basketball as the main source of playing and growing as a basketball player before entering the sport as a profession. With college basketball as the only real possibility of the athlete entering the NBA, the NCAA and NBA had entered into a nice agreement that would be making them both quite a lot of money. The NCAA reports that it gained 10.8 billion dollars in revenue during the 2013 NCAA tournament, mostly from media rights and broadcasting. 

Prior to the 2006 NBA draft there was no rule to limit the participation of NBA draftees and young athletes could enter the league right after graduating high school. This however did not mean that there was a large abundance of young athletes entering the NBA at the time. Take for example, the 2017 NBA draft which included a record breaking 16 freshmen drafted in the first round. This means that not only is the NBA getting younger, but that the rule is now encouraging players to come to the NBA younger and less prepared. The path is shaped for the athletes to go to college for one year and leave, not giving them the real decision to stay and help their teams in college or develop as players and teammates. When the players leave their college teams to enter the NBA they also leave the possibility of returning to their teams if they are not chosen in the draft. This can leave a likelihood of players being undrafted and still not be able to play college basketball for their past teams. When the athlete leaves the team, it leaves a hole for the team to fix which is most likely a rather large one considering any player able to enter the NBA draft is most likely an asset and essential to its collegiate team. Collegiate teams who recruit one and done style players can become powerful and championship caliber teams, but also can be set on a constant cycle of rebuilding and recruiting new players just to leave their program after one year. 

Freedom is a very important concept in the world today. Its boundaries range from freedom of speech, dress, or even freedom of choosing your career. For college basketball athletes under the grasps of one and done rule, they either have the option to continue their collegiate studies or begin a professional career after one year of being high school removed. The rule does not leave a lot of forgiveness, and can often ruin careers or delay potentially amazing basketball that fans are missing out on. In reality college basketball is the only solid option for high school athletes looking to make their way to the NBA. Ben Simmons moved from Australia to the united states just to play in our college basketball system because his family recognized the necessity of playing college basketball to get in the NBA. The one and done rule has created a very linear and one-sided path only benefitting college basketball while weakening other aspects such as European basketball leagues, the NBA G-League, and Professional-Amateur leagues, and completely discredits them as legitimate chances to be stepping stones to the NBA. 

The biggest threat to any athlete of all ages is risk of injury. If a young prospect for professional basketball injures his knee or his legs in anyway many times it can be the end of their chances of playing basketball as a career. Nerlens Noel tore his ACL playing basketball for the University of Kentucky in February 2013. Noel was a projected first round pick and still ended up being drafted at an astounding sixth overall, but never fully recovered from his injury he sustained. Noel still battles knee injury in the NBA and fails to find himself in a starting lineup, even though he was considered one of the best players in college basketball at the time. Since injuries in sports are often reoccurring playing in environments without professional trainers, individual coaches for athletes, and rehabilitation conditioning that only the NBA can offer is a death wish for basketball players. NCAA basketball only furthers the likelihood of injury as team doctors and one to two physical trainers is often the only thing the athletes have access to until they become professional. 

Conditioning and rehabilitation services are not the athletes only worry, as they are only given scholarship money not outside grants or handouts. This can be problematic because many athletes grow up poor, and their only access to college is through a possibility of athletic scholarship. When that athlete finally reaches their collegiate athletics they then find out they will go to a school for free, but still sometimes pay for food, living expenses, and personal care even though they have no more money than they did before their scholarship. Ben Simmons briefly discusses this in his documentary One and Done. Ben gives an example of a time when he went to the grocery store and only had five dollars in his pocket to buy groceries and feed himself for a week, even though LSU was reportedly making 25 million dollars of his imagine alone in merchandise and jersey sales. This doesn’t include ticket sales he encouraged and attention he brought to LSU. 

For celebrities and athletes one of the most important things is image or brand. New and upcoming athletes are always looking for a way to get their name out to the public and be recognized at a marketing level. As society becomes more and more obsessed with social media this becomes easier and easier for the athletes to build their own images before ever even entering college basketball. LaMelo and Liangelo Ball are prime examples of the next generation of athletes who are finding ways around the one and done rule and going straight to the money. LaMelo Ball left his high school in Chino Hills, California and signed with a professional NBA agent during his junior year of high school. This makes him ineligible for any form of collegiate athletics and forces him to either European, Chinese, or amateur level basketball. This is a very new thing for basketball as not many players before have done this and succeeded. When asked about his motives for taking his son out of high school Lavar Ball, LaMelo’s father, responded with "I don't care about the money, I want them to go somewhere where they will play them together on the court at the same time. The priority is for the boys to play on the same team." With this new direction and path towards the professional level of basketball one can only wonder if the requirement of college basketball is necessary since many other paths are available and valid.

There are many who are against the one and done rule on the grounds that it doesn’t make sense or just is a rule that shouldn’t exist, but there are still some supporters that have their own reasons and logic. One supporter of this is Sean Gregory, a sports writer for Time’s Magazine who states that the NBA one and done rule is effective because teams like Kentucky are successful and competitive while being the face of the rule. This is a very small sample size and covers one team that has a winning background, plenty of freshman, and a coach built to coach one and dones. Because this sample size is so small and cherrypicked the article becomes less credible and relies on redeeming qualities like Gregory stating “…But that approach works only if the teams win. Conventional wisdom holds that experience prevails in the NCAA Tournament” (Gregory). This allows for the article to more credible and useful as a counter argument because it solidifies itself as having downfalls and not being the perfect opinion or source but just primarily an example of how other teams could adapt to the rule like the successful Kentucky Wildcats. The source can be evaluated as logos based, as it attempts to plea towards the logical side of the argument in that the Kentucky men’s basketball team is successful, and therefore others can be if they follow in its footsteps. However the source doesn’t recognize that recruiting these types of players is near impossible for every team and that most will be left hurt by one and done athletes that only benefit their college of choice for one year, and are replaced by less talented athletes.

The NBA one and done rule has left little room for people to work around it and find alternative paths. Most whom don’t enter college basketball never play on an NBA court in their life although they are prosperous and exciting young athletes. The NBA has many different options and resources available to it like its new developmental G-League for players unready for college basketball. If the NBA could create new legislation repealing the one and done rule and creating a pathway through its own G-League, cutting out the middle man in the form of the NCAA then the future of athletes taking their game to the next level could be safer and all around more skilled. Through the G-League young basketball players could earn money, build their brand without violating and rules or guidelines that inhibit them making money as an athlete, and show NBA teams their potential and abilities without risking the ability to be drafted and eligibility to play sports for their teams. 

The NBA’s one and done rule has finally reached a time where it is ready to be repealed and replaced as society approaches a new style of basketball and a new faze of building image and brand from the very beginning of careers takes over and becomes the norm for all athletes. New basketball players and families are entering the spotlight and changing the way that the game is played, seen, and eventually compensated. Collegiate athletes of every sport deserve great treatment and all around care as they work for their university to advance and compete in their respective programs. The NBA one and done rule negatively effects the athletes it controls, forms an unhealthy relationship and reliance upon the NCAA and NBA, and can lead to more injuries and likelihood of never securing a career in professional basketball for players who work so hard to do so.
