Raising the NBA Draft age limit to 20 would cost new players millions

Commissioner Adam Silver wants to raise the minimum draft age up from 19 years of age to 20, which would just cost his future constituents millions of dollars.

It’s an issue he and the NBA Players Association discussed in the 2011 Collective Bargaining Agreement, but the sides decided to table it as negotiations pushed deeper into a season that ultimately lost 16 games. As we approach the Dec. 15 CBA opt-out date, discussions will again heat up, with the draft age serving as one of the most important issues.

An interview with GQ sums up Silver’s mindset best:

What is the union’s principal argument against raising the age limit? It seems like it would be good for everyone -- the NBA, the college game, the physical development of the players.

Their principal argument is that it’s a restriction on players. And as a philosophical argument, I totally understand that. Of course it’s a restriction, in the same way a draft is a restriction. But our view is that it would make for a better league. You’d have more skilled players, more mature players. The draft would be better. It would be better for basketball in general. Strong college basketball is great for the NBA. And we know those players are eventually going to come to the NBA, whether they are 19 or 20 or 21.

Silver downplays what is a pretty big deal when simply calling the draft age a “restriction.” United States law says anyone under the age of 21 can’t drink alcohol. That’s a restriction. Telling anyone under the age of 20 that they can’t make money doing what they do best is something more.

And though it might not matter to Silver when players are allowed to enter the league, the extra year can change a lot for them. College athletes don’t progress into the working world like normal college students do. They don’t get internships. They don’t have time to work part-time jobs. They essentially already work a full-time one, except this full-time job doesn’t pay.

The league wants players to play another year in college for free. To develop their bodies and train without compensation, instead of doing much of the same in the NBA while also receiving a hefty paycheck. To waste time in a classroom rather than preparing them for the real world -- their real world.

Seeing the actual dollar figures may help put things in perspective.

Next season’s first-round picks will likely see somewhere between one and and six million should they be given the usual 120 percent raise over what the rookie scale allows. Second-round picks will minimally make more that $500,000. These numbers are a bit off from the $0 that 19 year-olds would have to make instead under the proposed rule change.

Many college players need to make that money now. Despite guidance from his coach Kevin Ollie to stay in school, University of Connecticut wing Daniel Hamilton opted to declare for the draft with an agent. Most draft analysts don’t believe Hamilton is close to ready for professional ball -- he hasn’t cracked most mock drafts and he still had two seasons of eligibility remaining. But he had his reasons for leaving.

“I just feel this is the best thing for me, to provide for my family, to help my family out,” Hamilton told the Hartford Courant.

Financially, Hamilton may not be able to wait another year to see if he can raise his draft stock for next season. Leaving prematurely is a risk he feels he has to take to help support his family.

He isn’t the only athlete with a family to think about. Under the proposed age limit, players would be forced to move to another continent to profit from their talent or wait for two years in college until they are able to head to the NBA.

The rule change wouldn’t just affect a small amount of athlete’s incomes either. Since 2006, 99 players have been drafted at age 19 by way of one-and-done, either from college or meeting the international requirements. That’s nearly 10 players per year, or one-sixth of the players drafted.

In Silver’s mind, these 99 players would be more productive in the NBA had they stayed in college for another season. But history says otherwise.

To investigate, I customized a search pulling numbers for all 19, 20, 21 and 22-year-old rookies who averaged 10 minutes per game over at least 40 games since the 1999-00 season. I then sorted them by win shares per 48 minutes using Basketball-Reference’s database.

The numbers told an obvious story: rookies aren’t very good no matter how old they are.

There are a number of reasons for this. Age does not prepare a player to adjust to the major step up in talent and the speed of the game. Many rules are different, which takes time to learn. The complexities of NBA defense are particularly difficult to learn no matter how old a prospect is, and that often determines playing time. Prospects come in with varying degrees of preparation depending on which university they attended.

Though 19-year-old rookies do start off slower, they follow the same growth pattern as everyone else. On average, it takes three years for any rookie of any age to near the league-average win share mark.

That third-year leap is all the more important when considering a player’s long-term financial future. All rookies are eligible for a contract extension after their third season. This deal is their first major contract since joining the league.

This is also the first opportunity for players to sign a new contract. Even though 19-year-olds average lower win share numbers their rookie year, that doesn’t affect their pay grade. Many first-round picks can play poorly in their first three seasons without much consequence because NBA teams are reluctant to give up on them that quickly. Then, after their third seasons, teams are likely to throw more money their way because they are playing at a similar level to the rookies that enter the league older than them. Coming into the league at 19 doesn’t stunt growth at all.

That means players are actually at a deficit having to wait another year in which they could have been paid going through their inevitable three-year growth period in the NBA. Even seniors in college aren’t playing league-average ball in their first season.

Time is also money in a league that sees careers last less than five years on average. The earlier a player can sign his second contract, the earlier he can sign his third and so on. It’s a race against the clock between athletes and their bodies.

This is particularly evident when considering the former Miami Heat Big 3 of LeBron James (a high-school player), Chris Bosh (a one-and-done) and Dwyane Wade (a three-year college player).

James (18), Bosh (19) and Wade (21) were all drafted in the same season. They’re all multiple-time All-Stars who deserve maximum contracts. However, due to their age differences, they will make very different money towards the back end of their careers.

Each of the three signed a rookie scale contract in 2003 as they entered the league, with LeBron, the No. 1 pick, making a marginally greater salary than No. 4 Bosh and No. 5 Wade. All three then signed identical maximum contract extensions after their third seasons. When those ended, James was 25, Bosh was 26 and Wade was 28. James and Bosh were entering the normal prime years for an NBA player, while Wade was hitting his peak.

It’s important to look at the productivity curve as players age. Using the same criteria as with rookies, I collected data from anyone who played more than 10 minutes per game for at least 40 games from the 1999-2000 season to now, based on Basketball-Reference’s database.

Players generally start dropping out of the league as their bodies break down into their 30s, a fact analytics departments know well. Age matters.

With the superstars playing through their prime years, James, Bosh and Wade signed the six-year maximum money deals that the Heat would offer, with each (and especially Wade) taking a slight pay cut to fit everyone’s deals under the salary cap. They all opted out after four.

At this point, Wade was now 32. At 32 years old, it becomes a great risk to sign a player to a lengthy and expensive contract. In 17 years, only 68 players registered meaningful minutes by age 36. Wade ultimately had to settle for a one-year, $20 million contract to stay with the Heat.

Bosh, however, was offered a five-year max contract at age 30. LeBron, at 29, opted to take a shorter-term maximum deal as part of his own strategy to work the rising salary cap, but could have done the same.

Under Silver’s proposed change, players and teams must make difficult decisions around a players fourth contract, much like what happened with the Heat and Wade last summer. It will inevitably cost players money, or at least assured pay in terms of a long-term deal.

Players who don’t make it to see their fourth contract will see less money in their shorter careers because the league forced them to stay in school another year. Worse, all it takes is one bad injury to ruin a player’s career. That can come at 18, 20, 25 or 35. The constant wear-and-tear on an athlete’s body is inevitable and will accumulate whether a player is getting paid as a pro or playing for free for a university. An extra year in college only adds another year of miles on the players’ body.

So, instead of leaving it up to chance, players should go get paid. The NBA Players Association should push strongly against this rule proposal, and they shouldn’t let an offer for a bigger share in league revenue persuade them otherwise.

It is the current player’s duty to protect the future for players who don’t yet have a voice of their own. This potential rule change isn’t a small one. It costs players lots of money.