LeBron James Is Wrong About The NCAA Rule, But That Doesn’t Make The Rule Right
It’s another case of the NCAA not seen the forest for the trees.
You’ve probably heard about what LeBron James has dubbed the “Rich Paul rule:” the NCAA is requiring agents who are contacting college players who are testing the waters, as we call it, of the NBA Draft, to meet a number of requirements, including having a Batchelor’s degree.
This seems obviously aimed at Paul, and we understand why James, who of course also lacks a degree, would be offended and the whole thing has caused an uproar because whatever the NCAA allegedly is good at, PR is not on the list.
However, that’s not who the rule is aimed at. Paul’s clients include James, Anthony Davis and Draymond Green. It’s pretty high end. He’s not going to spend much time looking at marginal prospects at Portsmouth.
It’s aimed at the next Christian Dawkins.
We don’t know what Dawkins’ educational accomplishments are honestly, but the basic idea that an aggressive young guy can get in and cause such chaos - that’s what’s behind the NCAA’s attempt to regulate agents.
They’re looking at the FBI case and as bad as it was, it could have been far worse. Anyone who follows college basketball could easily count a dozen guys who are suspect, and every one of those dozen coaches probably knows a dozen or two others they suspect.
It’s an existential threat to the game and to the cash cow that the NCAA tournament has become.
This rule is part of the same somewhat hysterical reaction that brought about NCAA recruiting camps and changed the schedule for observing talent so drastically.
It’s a large, cumbersome organization and turning it around is never easy. Even by NCAA standards though, the willingness to look away from the real cause of the problems is staggering. You have kids who bring a talent to a market eager to pay them, and we don’t mean just the NBA. There are AAU teams, shoe companies, some college coaches and lots of other people who want a piece of them.
And while we don’t know how the socioeconomics of college basketball players breaks down precisely, we’ve all heard stories of young basketball players who have had very tough lives and some who grew up in grinding poverty. One of the underappreciated aspects of Maryland legend Juan Dixon is that both of his parents were heroin addicts who died of AIDS related issues when he was still a teenager and how he overcame such heartbreak and tragedy. He’s not the only guy with a story like that.
Who in their right mind expects kids who grew up with nothing to turn down money when it’s offered to them for something they're good at? It’s just irrational, as is the NCAA’s unwillingness to come to terms with the amount of money that now flows through every level of basketball from puberty on. It’s impossible to regulate human nature. We should have learned this lesson from Prohibition but in various ways, we keep trying to force human nature into a box and treat symptoms rather than conditions.
If they want to deal with this comprehensively, the NCAA needs to just be honest and realistic about how money has changed the game, scrap the model and start over. This rule is as useless as almost every other one they’ve passed after the Adidas/FBI scandal.
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