Adam Silver has openly talked about wanting to raise the age limit for players wanting to leave College Basketball early to make the jump to the NBA. Unlike the NCAA though, Silver seems to at least have thought of an actual solution to the problem.
Silver essentially told ESPN that the NBA would be open to helping to provide expenses beyond what is covered in an athletic scholarship so that players like Shabazz Napier don’t go to bed hungry:
Silver said he could envision the league potentially contributing to make up the actual cost of attendance gap above what the players get for their scholarships and getting involved in a more complete insurance plan, which could include total disability insurance should an athlete return to school and injure himself so badly he could never play again. Currently, the NCAA provides only a preferred loan rate to elite athletes whom it deems to be potential high draft picks.
“It does, in my mind, need to be a three-way conversation,” Silver said. “You heard college administrators at press conferences around the [NCAA] tournament say that it’s the NBA’s problem or the union is putting up resistance. It’s a more complex problem than that.”
There is still a long way to go with all of this but it is nice to see that the NBA is willing to step up and take a leadership role.