Reason enough for no NBA age limit?
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by user ActiveSports
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A new rule implemented by the NBA says players must be at least one year removed from high school before entering the NBA. Perhaps Livingston can serve as a reminder to the voices who defend this rule and are telling these young athletes about the benefits of staying one more year in college.
He turned down a scholarship to Duke in 2004, choosing at age 18 to jump to the NBA where he was drafted fourth by the Clippers. He had a contract that guaranteed him more than $10 million in salary even before Reebok signed him to an endorsement deal worth millions more. The kid from Peoria, Ill., instantaneously was set for life. Had Livingston gone to college, he never would have made it out. He's had a long list of injuries in the past couple years that would have deterred the NBA from drafting him.
I think Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports had a great point when he wrote, "The worst case would include the chance to do what so many think is the best case to begin with – go to college. Livingston still can get all the education the world can offer because the SAT doesn't care much about lateral quickness."
Maybe the NBA's age minimum isn't such a great thing for these young stars, for the game. Livingston makes it painfully obvious that waiting another year before going into the NBA isn't always the good, safe option. As Wetzel writes, "Having institutions take the freedom of choice away from individuals never can be a positive. Especially when the risks are so great, the money so grand and a college education always, eventually, a possibility."
