Kobe Bryant and the Legacy Question

Nicole Kraft

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Should NBA players be made to go to college?

Less than a decade after 18-year-old Kobe Bryant got drafted into the NBA in 1996, the league made all players spend at least one year in college or playing overseas before they could enter the professional basketball league.

That rule may be about to be rescinded, paving the way for today’s star high school players to follow in Kobe’s footsteps. I have seen both professional and college athletics up close, first working for the Philadelphia 76ers in the mid-1980s, then as a sportswriter, and now as a professor of sports media and the director of Ohio State’s Sports and Society Initiative. Each summer I teach a course to help prepare freshmen for the demands of college, so I see both opportunities and challenges associated with the NBA’s collegiate attendance requirement.

The early days

When the National Basketball Association first formed in 1946, it didn’t let anyone join a team until four years after their high school class graduated. That restriction lasted until a player named Spencer Hayward sued the NBA in 1971.

Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the rule in 1971. The league soon welcomed Moses Malone in 1974. Malone proved the poster child for skipping college and heading to the pros as he led the Houston Rockets and then the Philadelphia 76ers to NBA titles. He ultimately earned a spot as one of the top 50 basketball players of all time.