On Wednesday, the NCAA announced it would be making changes to its basketball policies including allowing college players to work with agents and letting elite high schoolers to do the same.
Apparently, the governing body for college sports didn’t consult with either the NBA or USA Basketball about the changes because top officials from those organizations were “blindsided” by the NCAA’s announcement about the new rules regarding top hoops prospects.
Under the terms of the policy, the NCAA will be asking USA Basketball to determine which elite senior high school prospects should be allowed to sign with a registered agent. In previous discussions, USA Basketball said it did not want to be responsible for that task and thought the NBA was better suited to take it on.
Still, though the issue was not resolved, the NCAA made its announcement anyway.
“The NBA, USA Basketball, and NCAA did meet and discuss these prospective changes, but the NBA and USA Basketball never believed they had come to a consensus with the NCAA on how they would move forward together on the issues,” sources told ESPN.
The rule changes are also surprising because they pave the way for the one-and-done rule to be eliminated, something the NBA was not anticipating would be happening until at least 2022.
“We will review the NCAA’s planned reforms and continue to assess, along with our players’ association, the potential for any related NBA rules changes,” said NBA spokesman Tim Frank.
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