Woj: NBA, NBPA 'Struggling to Reach an Agreement' on End of One-and-Done Rule

Tim Daniels @TimDanielsBRFeatured ColumnistOctober 20, 2018

FILE - In this Dec. 13, 2017, file photo, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver gestures during a press conference in Indianapolis. The commission proposing reforms to college basketball wants 18-year-olds to be eligible again for the NBA draft, and the NBA Players Association would make that deal today. Change will take longer than that. NBA Commissioner Adam Silver senses the league’s age limit isn’t working. Requiring U.S. players to be 19 years old and one year removed from high school has sent many of them to a year of college they don’t want, and delayed the full-time basketball instruction pro teams prefer. But whether the league would agree to allow players to come straight from high school again, or want them to wait two years before becoming draft eligible, has been a sticking point practically since the age limited was enacted in 2005 and remains unclear now. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

Michael Conroy/Associated Press

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and National Basketball Players Association executive director Michele Roberts are reportedly "struggling to reach an agreement" on ending the one-and-done rule to make 18-year-old players eligible for the NBA draft.

On Saturday, Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN.com reported the NBA is pressing for agents to provide medical information on all potential draft prospects coming out of high school and wants mandatory attendance at the draft combine, with "some level of participation."

One NBA general manager told Wojnarowski teams are worried about making a massive investment in an 18-year-old prospect if they're not given all of the relevant details about their health history.

"We're investing millions of dollars into players who we'll now have even less information about coming out of high school, and we should have the right to have all the information available on who we are selecting," the GM said.

Although the players union has "felt significant pressure from the agent community to resist the NBA's push on ceding control of medical information," the league remains hopeful an agreement can be reached to implement changes beginning with the 2022 draft, per Woj.

In July, Sam Amick of USA Today provided comments from Silver about his desire to make players eligible for the draft right out of high school for the first time since 2005:

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"My personal view is that we're ready to make that change. It won't come immediately, but…when I weighed the pros and cons—(and) given that (former Secretary of State) Condoleezza Rice and her (NCAA) commission has recommended to the NBA that those one-and-done players now come directly into the league and, in essence, the college community is saying 'We do not want those players anymore,' I mean that sort of tips the scale in my mind that we should be taking a serious look at lowering our age to 18."

Meanwhile, the G League is going to offer "Select Contracts" worth $125,000 to elite prospects starting in 2019 that will present top prospects with a path straight to professional basketball if they don't want to play college ball, according to ESPN.com's Jonathan Givony.

Wojnarowski noted discussions about the combine should create far less resistance, as the NBA only wants prospects to partake in interview sessions, athletic testing and measurements and doesn't have a hardline stance on whether they participate in scrimmages.

Conversations between the sides are expected to continue "soon."