As the college basketball season is getting underway this month, much of the sports world—or at least the basketball part of it—is concerned about scandals in the game. Earlier this year, a report of the FBI’s investigation into college basketball corruption revealed possible NCAA rules violations by more than 20 top men’s teams.
There were ten federal indictments, resulting so far in an Adidas executive and two other men being convicted last month for their efforts to channel secret payments to the families of top recruits luring them to major basketball programs sponsored by Adidas. There will be more trials next year of other men charged with secretly funneling money from sportswear companies to families of high school recruits.
What they did was illegal, but why should it be—if bribery is avoided? What is morally wrong with families getting a few thousand dollars to let their sons make millions for universities, especially when the players do not get a share of that money?
Please do not raise the issue of scholarships. If athletic scholarships are considered payments these athletes barely make minimum wages, for the time they put in.
The biggest “crime” is the sham that is carried out openly, the farce of amateurism where only the athletes—the ones who generate the billions of dollars—do not get paid.
However, change is in the air. Slowly basketball players are forcing changes in the situation.
In 2005 the NBA started prohibiting high school players—no matter how talented—from entering the NBA directly. It is hard to see this move as anything but cooperation (collusion?) with the NCAA.
They require players to be at least 19 years old or have completed one year of college. This forces the high school superstars to go to college for at least one season, the so-called “one and done” rule, where they play one year in college and then go to the NBA.
Through the years a few high school players have opted to play their “freshman” year in European professional leagues, thus earning money. This approach is becoming more common.
To address the mounting pressure to let high school players go directly into the NBA the league is expanding the G League, its developmental league, beginning in the 2019-20 season. This “professional path” through the G League will offer “Select Contracts” worth $125,000 to elite prospects who are at least 18 years old, but not yet eligible for the draft.
Many players choose the developmental league, but the very top high school players are beginning to select other options. The 5-star recruit, Darius Bazley, who skipped college basketball for the G League is now jumping the G League, too. He signed a multiyear, $1 million deal to work as an intern at New Balance this winter. He will train all year for the 2019 NBA Draft rather than paying in the G league.
And yet another route is being contemplated by 5-star recruit, Jalen Lecque. He is currently doing a fifth year of high school at Brewster Academy in New Hampshire and considering entering the NBA draft in 2019.
A Commission on College Basketball, headed by Condoleeza Rice, recently recommended ending the one-and-done rule and concluded that “It is the overwhelming assessment of the commission that the state of men’s college basketball is deeply troubled. The levels of corruption and deception are now at a point that they threaten the very survival of the college game as we know it.”
Eliminating the one-and-done rule would bring a little more sense to the game, but it will not solve the corruption problem. Nothing short of paying the players is likely to eliminate the financial scandals.