The NBA’s Age Limit Is Broken

Could the NBA’s age limit be on its way out? In October, during an appearance on ESPN’s Mike & Mike, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said that “it’s clear a change will come.” Silver indicated that he was open to working with the players’ union to potentially eliminate or at the least revise the age restriction. It was a reversal for Silver, who, as recently as 2014, made raising the league’s age minimum from 19 to 20 years old his top priority.

The commissioner cited three reasons for his change of tune: recent NCAA scandals; that the two most recent No. 1 overall picks came from programs that didn’t make the the NCAA tournament;¹ and an increase in one-and-done college players declaring for the draft.

Silver’s comments suggest that the league is ready to acknowledge that the age restriction is broken. In fact, the recent draft cycles indicate the draft is trending in the opposite direction of the age policy’s intended effect: Prospects are getting younger, not older.

In 1995, Kevin Garnett was the fourth player ever drafted straight out of high school. His selection that year led the way for the likes of Kobe Bryant, LeBron James, Dwight Howard and other high school phenoms to make the leap. But since 2006, players have had to be at least 19 years old, or one year removed from high school for international players, in order to be eligible for the draft.

Initially, the age limit worked like anyone would have expected. The players who were taken in the 2006 draft were, on average, older and more experienced than the year before. In the first year under the age restriction, only two one-and-done players were drafted.

Fast forward to 2015, when a record-breaking 13 freshmen were taken in the draft. The next year, that number increased to 14, and in the most recent draft, 18 one-and-done players were selected. That upswing in the number of freshmen in the draft has led to an overall decrease in the average age of draftees.