Teague reignites the debate over the NBA’s draft age rule.
It has been some time since the NBA implemented the rule that players can’t go directly from high school to the league. In 2005, it was decided that prospects needed to be at least one year removed from high school to declare for the NBA draft.
Before that, some top talents, like LeBron James, opted to go to the NBA immediately. Whether that was the right decision has been long discussed, and the debates have intensified recently.
In the recent episode of the “520 Club” podcast, Jeff Teague called out that decision once again while singling players like Cooper Flagg, AJ Dybantsa, and Ace Bailey, who have to “waste time” on college.
The rule was implemented to allow the players to develop in college, overseas leagues, and other professional avenues, but for some talents like Flagg and Dybantsa, it feels unnecessary. In the past, numerous legends like James, Kobe Bryant, and Kevin Garnett skipped college to thrive in the NBA.
Flagg also reclassified so he could leave high school one year earlier and come to Duke. Cooper is already showing dominance on both ends of the floor and is the best player on the team, even though he just turned 18 and was 17 for the first two months of the season.
Dybantsa is also already being touted as even better talent than Flagg, and he just received a record-breaking NIL deal.
To Teague and some other people, college feels like an unnecessary stop in their career, a halt that wastes their time, which they could use to adapt to the pros. NIL deals made college a little bit easier to swallow, as they finally allowed the players to get some real money before becoming professionals, but the NBA may soon need to reconsider its policy, as players are getting better earlier in life than ever before.
