Future of Amateurism in College Basketball

By Zach Cone-Douglas

There were plenty of college basketball programs (and fans for that matter) eagerly awaiting the answer to one question.

Where would Jalen Green, the number 1 rated high school basketball player in the country (according to ESPN.com) and potential number 1 pick in the 2021 draft, be playing when college basketball resumes next season. 

To the dismay of college coaches, fans and NCAA administrators everywhere the answer was none of them. 

Green announced that he will be forgoing his opportunity to play what would have probably been his one and only season on the collegiate level, before eventually moving onto the NBA draft. 

By doing so Green is bypassing college offers that have been flooding in since he was 15 years old,

becoming the first official participant in the NBA’s professional pathway program. 

The decision marks the first elite high school player to choose the NBA’s new developmental program, with other high-profile athletes surely soon to follow. 

Now if you're asking yourself “what’s the professional pathway program?” the simple answer would be the NBA’s response to overseas leagues like the NBL, who have recently poached elite talent away from NCAA programs, while also giving a big middle finger to these same programs. 

According to Adrian Wojnarowski sources say the G-league initiative will pay elite prospects $500,000-plus and provide a one-year development program outside of the minor league's traditional team structure. Along with the base salaries, different opportunities and incentives can be placed within the contracts,  

Green's contract, for example, is expected to include financial incentives for games played, completing community events and attending life skills programs coordinated by the G League.

So, going off what we know about the program so far, it’s safe to say the NBA along with the G-league is providing elite athletes coming out of high school a pretty sweet deal, or at the very least a compelling alternative to playing for free in college, or traveling to another country to play professionally. 

This is an obvious potential problem for the NCAA who have been the bridge between the high school and pro game for as long as the sport itself. Sure, there have been players in the past before the “1 and done” rule was instituted in 2005 that made the jump directly to the league with no middleman. 

Lebron James, Kevin Garnett, Tracy Mcgrady, Moses Malone, and the late great Kobe Bryant, these are some of the names that immediately come to mind when the jump from high school to NBA is mentioned. 

All these players are no doubt all-time greats and even adding those who were less successful in making the leap into the equation, these types of situations were still largely a rarity. 

For the most part basketball players have always looked at the NCAA as the next step to further their game and potentially make it to play at the highest level. 

Even other all-time greats like Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Dwayne Wade, Kawhi Leonard, and Steph Curry among many others played in college before heading onto the NBA.

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We could soon see that change however. Although there was a time before the “1 and done” rule existed, in which most NBA players still went through the NCAA pipeline, this time things are much different. 

It’s different because players are now starting to have legitimate options to choose from when it comes furthering their professional careers. 

When talking about the NBL (the national basketball league of Australia and New Zealand) with Adrian Wojnarowski

G-league president Shareef Abdur-Rahim called the league “appealing”, and went on to say, “that's a real program that the NBL has”.

This shows how much the basketball landscape overseas has grown in such a relatively short amount of time, so much so that highly touted high school prospects R.J Hampton and Lamelo Ball chose to play in the NBL over playing in college. 

This is in fact one of the main reasons the NBA’s professional pathway program was created, so that athletes who wanted to get paid right away, could do so without having to move to a foreign country, away from scouts, their friends, family and everything they know. 

In fact G-League president Abdur-Rahim spoke to this when talking to Wojnarowski

“We have kids leaving the United States -- Texas and California and Georgia -- to go around the world to play, and our NBA community has to travel there to scout them. That's counterintuitive. The NBA is the best development system in the world, and those players shouldn't have to go somewhere else to develop for a year. They should be in our development system.”

This shows a clear and concerted effort by the NBA to keep home grown talent here on American soil, but what does it mean for the future of NCAA basketball and the future of amateurism in the sport? It could signal the beginning of the end of basketball in this country as we know it.

Even with leagues overseas taking major steps to lure elite high school talent and with increasingly more prospects opting the overseas route, many high school players have still chosen the NCAA post-graduation. 

But, let's put the NBL and other foreign leagues to the side for a moment and focus on what this new professional pathway program could mean for future of the NCAA and how it could effectively end amateur basketball as its currently known. 

The NCAA and the idea of amateurism in basketball will undoubtedly face some massive hurdles in the not too distant future, as a result of the new professional pathway program. The one issue that is immediately apparent is the lack of incentive college basketball offers players, trying to decide which next step to take in their young basketball careers. 

Previously, after high school players only had 2 legitimate options if they wanted to have a real shot at making the league. 

Go straight to the NBA as an 18-year-old and play nightly against grown men or take a scholarship and spend a few years (or more recently just one) playing for a University before eventually declaring for the draft. 

This provided a lack of competition that has always allowed the NCAA to offer the bare minimum to players based on their actual value to the school they play for and the NCAA as a whole, this enabled them to lay back and relax on the lawn chair that is the NCAA's version of amateurism, not even having to lift a finger to garner the interest of budding superstars.

The brand of the NCAA for many years has been firmly set in stone, until now that is. 

The professional pathway program offers a legitimate threat to the NCAA and what they will be able to offer students under the guise of amateurism. The program allows players to be paid salaries, use their full likeness for profit in anyway a professional could, along with getting professional coaching and mentorship for both on and off the court. 

Now for players who are not elite “one and done” caliber players this may not affect their decision making, most will probably still end up playing for a university as a student athlete and go on to live normal lives in the workforce post-graduation. 

But for the elite NBA talent the discrepancy in what the pathway program can offer you as a professional basketball player versus what the NCAA has historically offered in the name of amateurism, might be cause to pause for many. 

Before the one and done was instituted, there existed elite players that made the jump, but now players won't be faced with that difficult situation, they can instead take the time to develop their games before making that jump, get paid while doing it and all without having to attend a single lecture or seminar class. Not a bad deal all things considered.

The thing college basketball will still have going for it are the fans, the mystique, the atmosphere, but that is really the only thing at this point, it will be interesting to see if the allure of college basketball will be worth more to potential high end recruits than a salary in the hundreds of thousands.

But as they say money talks, so surely over time a large percentage of high-end talent will choose to take the salary and professional coaching.

So, then the question for NCAA becomes this. Do they stay true to their all-to virtuous fight for the purity of sport and try to survive off the brand of major Universities and their fans? 

Letting elite players opt for the pathway program or overseas league for a salary?

Or will they fold under the pressure of the competition and increasingly mediocre product and conform to the shifting basketball landscape by allowing players to be paid, ending the age of amateurism in college basketball for good.