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i also know that the 14th amendment to the consitution says that every US citizen will recieve equal protection under the law and therefore this policy can easily be seen as an uncons utional violation of a prospect's rights.
even though I am a liberal I still feel that a company should be able to set reasonable quotas on their employees in order to have a set standard of quality in said company, i.e. a I.T. firm has the right to demand that all of its employees are educated at the college level in computer science.
If NBA owners feel that at 20 prospective employees will be better fit for their jobs than at 18 then they should be able to have that standard, as long as they can prove that this is more than simple age discrimination but instead a buisness necessity. I.E. teams feign at drafting college seniors because the only truly talented NBA prospects are applying before they are ready, forcing NBA teams to take a risk they do not wish to, and at great harm to their ability to operate effecintly.
i also know that the 14th amendment to the consitution says that every US citizen will recieve equal protection under the law and therefore this policy can easily be seen as an uncons utional violation of a prospect's rights.
I don't think you could successfully separate the two in this case. There are some stats that show that one could be a successful player at the league's current age limit and some stats that show the opposite. This means that age above 18 is not really a factor and should not be used as a stipulation.
My thoughts on the age limit:
1) What a person does or doesn't do is his perogative. If he wishes to take the road to the NBA via college... cool. If not, he might have to suffer the consequences of being ill prepared and then have nothing to fall back on. The road of life is a personal choice.
2) Being told you can't do something simply because of your age does deny that person's right to his/her pursuit of happiness. If you are qualified why should you be told NO. Imagine Dr. Houser (???) being told he couldn't be a Doctor of Medicine because he was only 14, when he was clearly smarter than many of the med-school graduates of his class.
3) Owners are responsible for the future of their teams. I don't believe Stern should have a say in this aspect of the NBA's structure.
4) The NBA should have the best product on the floor at all times. If that means that the mean age for players will drop and that veterans will have to keep playing hard... so be it. I don't want to see players like Steve Smith or Cliff Robinson still trying to log 32 minutes a night.
5) If someone told me that players like LeBron, Kobe, T-Mac, KG, J. O'Neal, Amare, R. Lewis, Carmelo, Livingston, Howard, J. Smith, and our own Parker didn't belong in the league when they entered. Well then the product we have now would have suffered not improved.
6) I give the age-limit supporters this: Centers and Point Guards do take more time to develop. But age is not the factor. Playing time (experience) and skills are. Both Ginobili and Parker were playing college level ball well before they were at college level age.
My suggestion to Stern: Scrap the age-limit thing all together and focus all of your energy on developing a real minor league (this way other cities get involved). If a player needs improvement, then he would be placed on the minor league team. Aged stars would complement the development of these players on the minor league teams.
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