Brandon Jennings: It's About Time

I have a background in law, business, economics, and common sense.  Allow me to walk you through a simple logical process that will show you why David Stern and Brandon Jennings are geniuses—and why Myles Brand can thank the Lord for college football.

First of all, the NBA has the legal right, as a taxpaying corporation in the USA, to arbitrarily determine the age requirements of its employees.  Therefore, the commish was able to flash his financial genius by raising the age limit.

This not only saves NBA franchises money, as they no longer have to scout so many high school games and add a year to the lifetime earning potential of new draftees, but it also increases the overall talent level and professional readiness of NBA players.  No longer do teams have developing 18-year-olds wasting roster spots.

So the quality of the product increases, and the cost of operation decreases.  Genius.

Secondly, in the USA, we are legal adults come age 18.  We can vote, we can get drafted.  We can incorporate a business, we can wait tables.  We can invent new technology, we can play professional tennis.

Brandon Jennings is 18, and he is looking to maximize his earning potential to support himself and his family, as any rational adult should do.  The NBA is no longer an option.

The next best option is the European League—and I have 300,000 reasons why.

The NCAA is a scholarship-based corporation and has the legal right to deem its athletes amateur, under the umbrella of providing them a free education.

This is a farce.

If what goes around comes around, Brandon Jennings should begin a wave of payback as elite NBA prospects ditch a year of no earnings for a year of six-figure income playing against superior competition.

The farce is the fact that the same unpaid athletes generate billions in revenues for the NCAA.

While this is technically legal, it disobeys the spirit behind the protestant ethic and has left a foul taste in my mouth.  When I watch athletes like Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, O.J. Mayo, or Greg Oden, I tell myself, these men are getting hosed.

Ever wonder why O.J. Mayo didn't have the most spectacular of collegiate seasons and spent a lot of time on the perimeter?  Just remember—one injury could cost him tens of millions, and he was merely an amateur at USC.

I don't blame any elite prospect for not risking his body in anticipation of a 15-million-dollar payday.

If you don't believe me, you will after watching an entirely new and refocused O.J. Mayo a few years into his NBA career.

The European League is the perfect antidote for the farce that is the NCAA.  Simple laws of economics portray this.

In a free market, quality is commensurate with price.  Therefore, higher salaries under an equatable market lead to more talent and better competition.  This is why the NBA has the best players in the world and the European League ranks second.

This is also why the NCAA depends on market intervention (the age requirement) to remain competitive: In a free market, elite prospects would all bolt to the NBA because the NCAA does not offer salaries.

Therefore, in a free market, the NCAA would largely resemble the NBA D-League—a low-cost and low-margin enterprise that is in-line with the level of talent of its players.

Anything extra—the TV contracts, the jersey sales, the ticket sales—that the NCAA enjoys today is buoyed up artificially by a few profiteers.

Which leads us back to Brandon Jennings, who is pioneering this new wave of European immigration.  He, unlike Demar DeRozan, will earn a fair salary next year.

If the free hand of capitalism runs its course, eventually the NCAA will become like the NBA D-League.  In fact, it has already begun this course—everyone is leaving early for the NBA, and its only star players are freshmen.

Look for more and more freshmen to bolt to Europe, leaving the talent pool even more depleted, which will turn off even more college freshmen.

Watch any NCAA game today and you will agree: The talent level is depressing.  There are no post moves, no offensive creativity, no team motion—just a bunch of headless chickens running around and hustling.

The European League will get an influx of talent which corresponds to the six-figure salaries it offers.  And our very own homegrown NBA will continue to remain at the top as long as loyal fans such as ourselves continue to show love.