The NBA won’t be lowering its minimum age requirement any time soon.
The league and the National Basketball Players Association have halted discussions about lowering the minimum age for players amid their negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement. according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
Currently, American players must be 19 years old to enter the league. Both the NBA and NBPA had discussed lowering that to 18, which would allow players to enter the NBA Draft right out of high school and end the “one and go” era in college basketball, in recent years. CBA discussions.
Those talks, however, were postponed. According to Wojnarowski, neither party felt strong enough on the issue to make a change.
The NBA raised the minimum draft age to 19 in 2005. Amir Johnson was the last player to be drafted out of high school, and Hall of Famers LeBron James, Kevin Garnett, and Kobe Bryant did as well. Players can play on the G League Ignite team right out of high school instead of playing in college, an option that was introduced in recent years.
According to Wojnarowski, NBA owners and executives were “largely indifferent” or “absolutely against” ever going back to looking for high school players. Because players can now get paid before they hit the league, either through G League Ignite or through NIL deals at the college level, there was less pressure to lower the age than in recent years.
The NBA and NBPA are still negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement and face a Friday night deadline to reach an agreement. If they don’t, the league faces the possibility of a July work stoppage if either party opts out of the final year of the current CBA.
