NCAA College Basketball: Remaking the game - Part two
by Dan Salem and Todd Salem (11-15-13)
[Part one - League of Children]
TODD:
I don't think you quite understand the term "win-win." It is not a win for college basketball that this is happening. Sure, this one season they will have transcendent freshmen all over the nation. But what about next year? This draft class is a once-in-a-decade type deal, maybe even more rare than that. And is this one year in college actually helping the growth of these guys once they turn pro? I haven't seen the statistics but I wonder how much better the one-and-dones have been as compared to the guys who were coming straight from high school years ago. Obviously both groups have huge successes and huge failures but overall, both the NBA and NCAA make us think this is working. I'm not sold.
To your point that college basketball has become a proving ground for future pros, this is both correct and wrong. It is correct factual, in that it is actually happening. It is wrong morally though, in that it should not be happening.
Many have suggested an MLB-type declaration situation to solve this problem. A prospective pro coming out of high school can either enter his name in the draft right away or, if he decides to go to college, he must stay three years. I like this solution on the surface but it wouldn't have saved college basketball. Remember how eight of the top eleven draft picks are incoming college freshmen? Well, with that draft rule in place, all eight of those guys would have entered the 2013 NBA draft. So instead of having one year of them, the NCAA would have gotten none.
The only solution is to go all-out and throw our cards on the table. College basketball is an inferior product; everyone should agree on this, even the staunchest defenders. No one can argue the basketball being played on the court is better at the collegiate level than at the pros. That would be ludicrous. So why not adopt the 'high school or three years' draft rule with a caveat? Anyone entering the NBA draft out of high school plays their first year of basketball in the NBDL, the developmental league. Right now the asset that is the D-League is being wasted. A player dropped down to it is deemed a disaster or a failure. Remove the galling stigma attached to the NBDL by making it a young man's learning league. All the best 18 year olds in the world will be learning on the fly against guys just short of NBA talent. This would be better for them than a year of college. It would also be better for the NBA by avoiding the flood of high schoolers who aren't ready for the professional ranks just yet that occurred when the old draft rules were in place.
But what about college basketball you ask? Well, CBB gets dumbed down because there is no win-win option here. It loses the elite talent that would otherwise play one season. But what it gains is better: players coming who want to be there, want to learn and want to play for a school. It will grow consistency and the overall product on the floor will be better, even if the top level is slightly worse. College basketball is never going to be as exciting or athletic or as powerful as the NBA game; why try to force it?
DAN:
There is no way to force an NBA level product out of college basketball. There is not nearly enough talent to go around. If there were THAT many NBA level players, we'd have 100 teams in the NBA. So we can safely throw that hope, prayer, ignorant folly out the window. And you're right, improving the NBDL by having draft picks who skip college spend a year there will ultimately hurt the college game. It would also take a huge effort on the part of the NBA to make this work. Can you name me a single D-League player or team? Where are they, who is playing and when do they even play? I have no idea. Talk about a lot of money needed to sell an invisible product. I'm chucking that idea in the trash too. I'm also against forcing three years of college upon someone obviously ready to make millions of dollars. Trashing it!
I love your ingenuity, your willingness to change and find a new model that can potentially elevate both the NBA and college basketball. But I think you're avoiding the obvious. If a player wants to be in college, stay in college, and play for his school for two, three, four years, there is absolutely nothing stopping him. These elite freshman don't have to enter the draft after one year of college basketball. They are choosing to. They have a choice. And you know why all eight of them will most likely make the choice to leave, because all of us in the public and the media would consider them stupid to say in college. Take your money when its on the table. Don't risk injury. Blah, blah, blah. They would get lambasted for going back. Andrew Luck practically did, but because college football is held in such high regard and there is less money in the NFL draft now, it wasn't deemed such a bad decision.
I agree, having the freshman earn their stripes against NBA bench players is better for their careers than playing in college. But the glaringly obvious truth you've missed is that college basketball has changed. The whole reason you want to 'fix' things is because you can remember a time when it was great. When players played in college and rivalries were real and school spirit meant something. That era is dead. Money and a booming NBA killed it. Accept this fact and move on.... Are you good now? Tears all dry? Cool, now we can have a real debate.
NCAA basketball can be improved. The quality of play has been reasonably consistent over the last ten years. The best coaches have excellent teams and the superstar players stand out when they exist. They are the anomaly. We have at the very most, ten of them sprinkled over fifty or more schools every year. Remove them from this equation. I think the biggest thing holding back the college game is a lack of scoring. They've made strides to address this, but more should/can be done. The best parts of March Madness are when a game gets tight down the stretch, with under two minutes to play. Those games are often 60 to 55 or something ridiculous like that. You get your 70 and 80 point games, but do you see the problem? NBA games are 90 and 100 point affairs. Scoring 80 or less is a fire-able offense. I think some rule changes are in order! Good thing the NCAA already made some. I smell debate.
Let's first address the changes made heading into this college basketball season. You're the perfect man for this job. Did the NCAA do enough with the current changes? I realize we have yet to see the full results, but they only did tweaking as far as I'm concerned; was it enough? I want to increase scoring and remove the annoyance of two minutes at the end of a game taking nearly thirty minutes of my time. Cut that down to ten or fifteen and I'm good. And I'm not talking small changes like shortening the shot clock. That's a good start, but we need BIG game changers. What about adding a line at NBA three point range that would count for four points? Or removing time outs in the first half entirely, except for injury. Light a fire under college basketball.
TODD:
Your complete dismissal of my D-League idea is very pigheaded of you. My idea solves the one problem you touched on. No one knows anything about the NBDL or follows it in the least. This will change instantly if all the best NBA rookies play there. Every season, half a dozen or so D-League guys get called up to the majors. Now, people will follow the progress of their team's top rookie as well as hear about/watch some other potential rotation players that might be on the way as well. The only downside to this is logistically; the NBDL is not setup like minor league baseball. NBA teams do not all have D-League affiliations...yet.
Your defense of the current rule is also disappointing. You stood by it claiming these guys have a choice; they don't have to leave after one year. That statement is obviously true, but the top players do not have a choice when they want one: coming out of high school. At that point, their control in the matter is squished, as they are not allowed to enter the NBA draft even if they want to and are ready to. So why not actually give them the choice when they graduate from high school? Either enter the NBA or go to college with the intent on staying for a few years and learning. There's your choice.
But since you killed off old college basketball, I am glad you brought up the rule "changes." Changes is in quotes because the biggest alteration wasn't really a change to any rule, just an emphasis on enforcing an old rule correctly. No more hand checking or arm bars or two hands on an offensive player. No more slowing down offensive player movement and progress. No more wild running through the lane in basketball, the equivalent to running a gauntlet machine in football practice. This was obviously smart and necessary. It will increase scoring in two distinct ways: more free throws while guys get used to the whistles and better shots on offense since ball handlers can't get checked and held as much.
However, the NCAA did absolutely nothing to help that last two minutes business you mentioned. This is the real killer of all basketball games to be honest, pro included. And there is really no simple fix; anything would be drastic. You could get rid of some of the timeouts available, but that would change the entire coaching philosophy of final possession basketball. You could penalize intentional fouls more harshly, but this would almost completely remove the possibility of late-game comebacks. I think the only change that could even occur would just be a simple shortening of timeouts. Make them all 30 seconds, or even 20 seconds. Or allow a timeout to be used as an advance of the ball to mid-court, like in the NBA, but have there be no stoppage of time at all. These are just small nuanced switches that could be implemented. As sad as it sounds, I see no feasible move that could fix the problem without changing the sport.
I know people would be up in arms, but how would you feel about limiting (or eliminating) timeouts near the end of games? It would reduce a coach's usefulness almost to zero and force the players themselves to make calls and adjustments in the final seconds. It would make things more interesting I assume, but interesting can be both good and bad.
DAN:
I admire your D-League idea, but do we really follow players in baseball through the minors? Really? We keep track of the absolute top prospects when they are close to being called up, but we don't follow their performance, only the date in which they will make their major league debut. And how many minor league games are televised? If the idea is to showcase the rookies, we need to be able to watch them. And we need to care about the teams they play for. This is by no means impossible, just a larger mountain than I was prepared to climb.
On the flip side, I'm all for any rule change that can speed up the dreaded thirty minutes of thirty seconds of play at the end of games. If eliminating, or limiting, time outs accomplishes this, then hell yes! I honestly believe that for regular season college basketball to be interesting to the national public, something drastic must be done. March Madness has held its own, thanks to gambling, but its by no means safe. Change the damn sport. Without top level talent, year in and year out, its going to die anyways.
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