New NBA commissioner Adam Silver may be on the verge of making some drastic changes after taking over for longtime commissioner David Stern. Although it’ll take some time to make these changes, Silver seems intent on altering certain restrictions and increasing revenue to take this league to the next level.
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One of those changes appears to be the minimum age limit in the NBA. Currently, the minimum age for a player in the league is 19, but Silver wants to bump it up to 20 according to BasketballInsiders.com:
Silver said the 20-year-old minimum age was “something we had on the table” in the last round of collective bargaining three years ago, “and when we compromised on a deal well into what should have been our season we agreed to ‘park’ certain issues and return to them, and age limit was one of them.”
The age limit cannot be changed until NBA owners go back to the table to potentially discuss a new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) by opting out of the current deal. This won’t be possible until 2016-17, but it’d be safe to assume that it may happen.
Silver believes that changing the minimum age helps college basketball as well as the NBA:
“It’s my belief that if players have an opportunity to mature as players and as people for a longer amount of time before they come into the league, it will lead to a better league,” Silver said. “I know from a competitive standpoint, that’s something as I travel the league I increasingly hear from our coaches, especially, who feel that many of the top players in the league could use more time to develop as leaders as part of college programs.”
It’ll be interesting to see if changing the age limit in the league becomes the main reason for an opt-out of the current CBA deal. Although there’s no telling at this point if another new CBA is on the horizon, changing the age limit definitely makes a case for talks to start up once again in 2016.
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