What Percentage of the Ncaa's Revenue Comes From Men's Basketball

Ask Spencer Haywood about the colloquially called "one-and-done rule," and the 69-year-old will be quick to correct you. You mean, "The Spencer Haywood rule?"

Of course, no one has heard the NBA's age restriction referred to by Haywood's name. And that is precisely what pains the NBA veteran most. His fight 50 years ago that originally opened the doors for college players to leave for the NBA seems to have been forgotten.

But to fully understand how the NBA's current rule came to be in 2005, you must turn back the pages of history to when the league's rule required players to wait not one, but four years after their high school graduation date before turning professional.

In the 1960s, Haywood was ahead of his time in more ways than one. At 18, with his chiseled 6-foot-8 frame, broad shoulders and thick legs, he was already a "fully developed man," he says. He attributes his matured hand-eye coordination and strength to years spent picking cotton as a child with his family members, sharecroppers who made $2 a day working the fields around Silver City, Mississippi. College coaches had been eyeing the budding basketball star, who learned to play with a ball his mom crafted from cotton and a croker sack.

In 1968, the 19-year-old Haywood became the youngest player to make a U.S. Olympic basketball team, leading the Americans to a gold medal in Mexico City and setting a scoring record that stood for 44 years (broken by — who else? — Durant). A student at a junior college at the time, Haywood transferred to the University of Detroit and led the NCAA in rebounding while scoring 32 points per game as a sophomore during the 1968-69 season.

Then the American Basketball Association, the NBA's rival league with more lenient entry rules, came knocking. Haywood signed with the Denver Rockets, the promise of earning immediate money for his mom, still laboring in the cotton fields, impossible to pass up.

But when Haywood grew disgruntled during an ABA contract dispute, an NBA owner swooped in. Ignoring the NBA's four-year rule, Sam Schulman signed an underaged Haywood to his Seattle SuperSonics, setting the stage for a legal fight.

Inspired by athletes who were taking stands of their own — including fellow 1968 Olympians John Carlos and Tommie Smith — the 21-year-old Haywood greeted the challenge. Haywood v. National Basketball Association volleyed through the courts during a tumultuous season filled with injunctions and appeals. It ultimately landed with the Supreme Court, which voted 7-2 in Haywood's favor.

Haywood was legally a SuperSonic. Soon after, the NBA instituted a rule that players had to show "hardship" in order to join the league early, though the rule was difficult to administer and was abolished in 1976. For the next 30 years, the NBA doors were open for college students and 18-year-old high school stars to walk through.

The NBA's original age minimum was more strict than today's until Spencer Haywood (above) sued the league in 1971 so he could join the Seattle SuperSonics, owned by Sam Schulman (right, center). The move opened the door for student-athletes to consider a pro career before finishing college. AP Images

Some of the best players in history would take advantage of the early entry rule, typically leaving college after two or three years. But players skipping college altogether and jumping straight to the NBA? It wasn't until McDonald's All-American Kevin Garnett tested the waters and was drafted fifth by the Minnesota Timberwolves that the prep-to-pro era truly began.

"I think there had sort of been an assumption that it was really too hard for a player to do, until Kevin Garnett tried it," says Russ Granik, a sports executive who served as the NBA's deputy commissioner for 22 years. "He was almost instantly a productive player and very soon a star."

After Garnett came Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O'Neal in 1996, then Tracy McGrady in '97. Each went on to an All-Star career. Owners began clamoring for the next young star as NBA scouts filed into high school gymnasiums. No owner wanted to miss out on the next Garnett or Bryant, and every elite player hoped to be them.

"When you're projected to be a top-10, possibly top-five (pick), you don't want to sacrifice (it by) going to college at that point, or going anywhere else, because you could get injured or anything else could happen," says Jonathan Bender, who was picked fifth in the 1999 draft out of high school. "So you want to take that opportunity when it's presented."

But the landing to any leap is unpredictable, no matter your talent level, and Bender became one of the early examples. He had a strong NBA debut, becoming the first prep-to-pro player to score in double figures in his first pro game for the Indiana Pacers before that potential dissipated. Persistent knee trouble caused him to step away from basketball at age 25, making him one of several highly anticipated high school draftees to underachieve in the league, including 2001's No. 1 overall pick Kwame Brown. Owners began reconsidering whether 18-year-olds were truly ready for the rigors of the NBA. They wanted more intel to keep them from betting big on the next bust.

"A draft pick in the NBA is extremely valuable," Granik says. "If I'm a general manager and I have to make that pick, I'd like to be able to see the player play in more than only high school games and some AAU games. You wanted to give teams a chance to at least see them play in college at a high level, or the European leagues, or a minor league — somewhere where they weren't playing just against kids."

So, in a hotly contested negotiation over a new collective bargaining agreement, the NBA and the players association agreed in 2005 to add in that one-year buffer. In theory, requiring players to wait a year after high school before entering the draft would give them time to prepare for the NBA, and help NBA teams make better decisions. As a business move, it made sense.

Even Gerald Green, the first prep player to be drafted in the last draft that allowed high school players, told the New York Times in 2005: "I guess it was a smart move because there's a lot of players that come out of high school that are not really prepared. Everybody's not LeBron James. I'm not LeBron James. … There's a lot of players that have to get developed."

No one predicted the impact the rule would have on the college game.

What Percentage of the Ncaa's Revenue Comes From Men's Basketball

Source: http://s3.amazonaws.com/static.ncaa.org/static/champion/the-one-and-done-dilemma/index.html

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