As we detailed on Wednesday, outspoken basketball dad LaVar Ball announced this week that he intends to launch a new professional league called the Junior Basketball Association for high school grads who don’t want to attend college before going pro.
While Ball has perhaps worn out his welcome with a segment of basketball fans tired of hearing him promote his sons (and himself), his latest idea has some merit. With NBA rules currently prohibiting prospects from entering the draft until they’re at least one year removed from high school, top young players are generally one-and-done in college – where they don’t get paid – or head overseas, where the exposure is minimal and they can have a hard time earning minutes.
Ball’s proposal reportedly calls for an 80-player, 10-team league, which would be fully funded by Big Baller Brand and would pay salaries ranging from $3-10K per month. The idea would be to recruit top prospects who want to focus fully on basketball – and be paid for their work – rather than making a cameo at a college before making the leap to the NBA.
The plan makes sense, but it’s ambitious, and there would be plenty of roadblocks in its way. As Steve Kyler of Basketball Insiders writes, recruiting top prospects would be challenging. And without top prospects, fans are unlikely to pack arenas and the league probably wouldn’t be able to secure a big broadcast-rights deal. In turn, that would make it hard to afford to pay salaries, travel fees, arena fees, and all the other costs that come with running a successful league.
On top of all that, the NBA is reportedly considering altering its one-and-done rule and once again giving players the option of entering the draft out of high school. That could happen as soon as 2019 or 2020, and would limit the appeal of a hypothetical Junior Basketball Association.
What do you think? Will this league actually get off the ground? And if it does, will it have a chance to be a success? Vote in our poll below and then weigh in with your thoughts in the comment section.
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