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Collective agreement: the NBA and the players’ union will not end the “one-and-done”

NBA – High schoolers won’t be returning to the Big League right away. On the side of the clubs but also the players, we are finally satisfied with the 19-year-old rule.

There are only a few hours left for the NBA and the players’ union to reach an agreement on the next collective agreement, and thus avoid the next stressful months.

As a reminder, this March 31 is the deadline set, after having been postponed several times, by the two camps in order to find a new agreement in advance. If nothing is signed before tomorrow, Adam Silver has already warned that the league will exercise its right to withdraw from the current collective agreement, which however runs until 2024, on June 30.

Everything would then be put on hold, while the NBA, the owners and the players find a compromise.

Obviously, nobody wants this situation, especially since the league is doing very well financially and has managed the shock of the pandemic rather well.

The “one-and-done” will remain in place

If no agreement has yet been signed, it is because it is still blocking on certain subjects, in particular on regional broadcasting rights. On the other hand, ESPN ensures that the two camps agree on the rule of “one-and-done”.

But while it was thought that the NBA would end the obligation to be 19 years old in the year of the Draft, a rule imposed in 2005 and which forces the best American prospects to a

Wait a year after leaving high school before joining the NBA, the league, its franchises but also the players’ union are no longer so opposed to it.

On the side of the clubs, there is thus visibly fear that the young people and their agents hide more things during the pre-Draft process, in particular at the level of medical data. The fact of “scouting” players playing in structures of trust (NCAA, G-League, Australia, etc.) is ultimately reassuring from this point of view. On the side of the veterans, there are fears of losing places in the workforce with the influx of high school students. As for the latter, they are less in a hurry to join the NBA since the NIL (“sponsorship” contract) arrived in the NCAA, and programs like the Ignite or the Overtime Elite can pay them.

On both sides, therefore, the “one-and-done” is no longer seen as a problem. In any case not one of those who deserve to block the last negotiations on the next collective agreement.

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