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Monday, June 11
How long until juniors join NBA draft
By Frank Hughes
Special to ESPN.com
With the June 27 NBA draft quickly approaching, and the Major League Baseball draft just finishing up, there is a story right now that very well may link the two sports together.
Perhaps not this season, because all the players who are going to enter the draft need to have already made themselves eligible.
But I'm going to bet that in the not-too-distant future, baseball's worry is soon going to become basketball's concern, as well.
The story is about Jeremy Bonderman, a baseball pitcher from Pasco High School in Eastern Washington who made himself eligible for the MLB draft after his JUNIOR season.
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How can you tell somebody who is qualified and has a GED that they can't play? That (NBA) rule will last only until somebody challenges it. And it will be challenged. ” |
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— Current NBA agent |
That's right, at a time when the NBA is worrying itself sick because there are five high school seniors who could be chosen in the first round this season, including four among the top 10, they are watching as a high school
junior makes himself eligible to play professionally in another sport.
Worse, not only did Bonderman make himself eligible, he was chosen 26th overall, by the Oakland A's, which means he stands to get a signing bonus somewhere around $1.5 million.
Here's the story: Bonderman is 18. He has a learning disability. He doesn't like high school, neither the who's-taking-whom-to-the-prom social part, or the educational part because of his reading dysfunction.
So he dropped out of high school three times, until he was able to pass his GED (general education requirement), which was one of the requirements to get drafted, according to MLB rules.
The rest is now history. He simply became eligible for the draft, and if he didn't like where he was selected, he could go back to high school. Clearly, with his 97-mph fastball, he likes where he was drafted, and the money that
accompanies is spot in the first round, and he will go off to the A's minor league system to learn his craft while the powers-that-be in professional sports worry about what impact his situation will have on the future.
Once Major League Baseball learned of Bonderman's plan, it instituted a rule
where a potential draftee can only be drafted with a GED if he's been out of
high school for a season.
But most people agree, that is baseball's way of "because I said so" parenting. The first time that rule is challenged, agents say, it will not stand up.
"How can you tell somebody who is qualified and has a GED that they can't play?" one agent said. "That (NBA) rule will last only until somebody challenges it. And it will be challenged."
Which is where the NBA comes in. Commissioner David Stern has been trying for several seasons to get Players Association head Billy Hunter to require an age limit on incoming players, which Hunter has steadfastly refused to do. In fact, at his annual state-of-the-league address last week, Stern said the issue was on the back burner because the sides have agreed to disagree.
And as you see more and more high school players make themselves available for the NBA draft, and more and more selected because of their potential to turn around franchises down the road, it can only be a matter of time, I suspect,
before a high school junior emulates what Bonderman has done and decide to skip his senior season.
So I asked Stern what the NBA's stance on the matter is.
"We have a collective bargaining agreement that, although I can't cite the specific words sitting here, provides that players can be drafted if, in fact, their high school classes have graduated," Stern said. "That is our rule. That's the rule and we are enforcing it. I wasn't aware of the Seattle situation, but we have a rule in place that's been collectively bargained with the players, and that is the rule, period. We have no plans right now to change that rule unilaterally."
I clarified to Stern that Bonderman had, in fact, dropped out of high school to take his GED in order to make himself eligible for the MLB draft. Stern said he did not believe that would suffice.
"I don't know that that's good enough," Stern said. "It has to be your entering high school class has to have graduated. We are very comfortable with that rule."
With all due respect to Stern, I don't know that he necessarily answered the question.
And so I ask the question that some high school junior is one day going to ask: Why?
This is not to say that I necessarily advocate anybody coming out of high school, or even skipping college to go the NBA. But if somebody wants to leave school early and try the work force -- whether it is carpentry, ditch digging or playing basketball or baseball -- who is to say they can't?
And from speaking with NBA people about the subject, I suspect that if the issue were taken to court, as long as the player earned their GED, they would not be held back from fulfilling their dream, provided they were good enough to help a team.
That, however, is where basketball differs from baseball. In baseball, Bonderman will have the opportunity to go to the A's minor league system and develop into the player they hope he will become.
In the NBA, there currently is not a system for a 17- or 18-year-old to go to in order to mature. Not fully developed, that player still would have to compete against men, some twice his age and many much bigger.
Perhaps this is what Stern eventually envisions with the Developmental League, where ultimately kids who want to skip furthering their education but who are good enough to compete professionally will be sent, as the minor
league to basketball.
But first, some basketball player will have to follow in the footsteps of Bonderman.
Frank Hughes covers the NBA for the Tacoma (Wash.) News-Tribune. He is a regular contributor to ESPN.com.
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