Will The NBA's One-and-Done Rule Face Legal Challenge?

Myron Medcalf of ESPN.com has an extensive article on the NBA's minimum age requirement, which requires that U.S. players be 19-years-old plus one year removed from high school. He interviews several people for it, including such notable persons as Mike Krzyzewski, Mark Emmert, Rick Pitino, and Spencer Haywood, and far less notable persons, including me.

Here are my thoughts in the article:

Michael McCann, director of the Sports Law Institute at Vermont Law School, helped Maurice Clarett in his unsuccessful bid to enter the 2004 NFL draft after his freshman season at Ohio State.

He's an opponent of the current age requirement for NBA draft picks and conducted a study 10 years ago that revealed four-year players and high school athletes faced similar struggles as they transitioned to the NBA.

"A lot of players, relatively high draft picks who played four years of college, have struggled," McCann said. "I think that's because the college game is so much different."

If the NBA moves toward a two-year rule for players coming out of high school, more players might consider challenging the NBA's minimum age requirement on legal grounds. Although Haywood challenged the NBA alone, today's climate and the union protection attached to the rule might require a class-action lawsuit to gain any traction in the courts, McCann said.

"In terms of the NBA, if it were two years, maybe we would see more players come forward, feeling like it's worth challenging the age limit," he said. "The fact that it's only one year, a lot of players probably calculate that it's not enough to file a lawsuit against the league."

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