Players get shafted on NCAA’s draft rule

Steve Fisher was talking to a reporter in San Diego last week, talking about NCAA Prop 2010-24, about the statute that mandates underclassmen who have declared for the NBA Draft to withdraw their names by a certain date or lose their collegiate eligibility.

That deadline was Tuesday ... 79 days before the draft.

"It's a bad rule, in my opinion," Fisher told the San Diego Union-Tribune. "They screw the kids."

The San Diego State coach couldn't be more correct about an awful piece of legislation the NCAA developed in order to further protect head coaches -- mostly ones of elite programs -- while at the same time disallowing athletes to make an educated decision on their professional futures.

Think about it. Underclassmen who hadn't hired agents once had until 10 days before the draft to pull their names out and return to school, plenty of time to attend workouts and gather feedback and consult others about their projected status.

Some still made a poor choice and entered the draft, but many didn't.

That deadline was changed to early May the past two years. It then was changed to April 10 for this year, 2½ months before NBA commissioner David Stern will walk across a stage at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.J., on June 28 and likely introduce Anthony Davis from Kentucky as this year's No. 1 pick.

Davis is an easy one. So is his Wildcats teammate, Michael Kidd-Gilchrist. So is Thomas Robinson of Kansas. Lottery picks are easy. The only decision they need to make is what suit to wear on draft night and what purchase to make with that first paycheck.

But that's not the case with countless others who might fall into that unknown purgatory of late-first-round to second-round status, to being selected at a spot that comes with a guaranteed contract or one that guarantees nothing.

The NCAA should be embarrassed by this rule, ashamed it over the years continually has made such a decision tougher and tougher and, in the case of this new deadline, nearly impossible for many players to make with a clear head.

The hilarious part: One of the main reasons the NCAA gives for again moving up the deadline is to ensure student-athletes remain focused on academics during the spring semester, which is great news for all those programs that spend at least parts of March -- if not most of the month -- on the road at conference and postseason tournaments.

Academics. Come on.

The truth: Coaches -- specifically, ones from the Atlantic Coast Conference, who spearheaded the proposal for this early deadline -- grew tired of not owning a tighter grasp on what their roster might look like the following season, tired of losing a star player or more in the summer, tired of having to fill major holes they didn't anticipate, tired of fighting others for those last uncommitted players who most often aren't nearly as good as those leaving.

This is about the NCAA appeasing its coaches and not about what's best for those players seeking an honest evaluation of their NBA potential. This is about the NCAA failing to help the group that does the most good for college basketball.

Do you realize there was a time when an athlete could enter the draft, be selected and still return to school? Now, they barely can begin the process without having to declare one way or the other.

This is an NCAA problem. The NBA gives players who have not hired agents a deadline of April 29 to withdraw, meaning there still is a 19-day window for some to secretly consider options. But personnel from NBA teams can't have direct contact with draft-eligible players until around May 3 or 4, far past this ridiculous deadline of April 10.

If the NCAA is about what's best for its student-athletes, it failed miserably in this case.

College basketball will be better next season for the fact players such as Cody Zeller and Christian Watford of Indiana and Trey Burke of Michigan and Deshaun Thomas of Ohio State and Mason Plumlee of Duke have chosen to return to school.

They considered leaving, gathered what little information they could through their head coach and an undergraduate advisory committee and decided against leaping into the unknown world of a draft pool.

But as of Monday, two dozen players had announced their intentions of leaving school early and entering the draft. That list didn't include anyone from Kentucky, which could send five underclassmen to the draft by the NBA's deadline of April 29. None of the Wildcats has declared anything.

Maybe that's the answer to this foolish new rule.

Hold out to the final seconds, walk into your coach's office and wish him and the program the best.

Treat them as players now are being treated.

Who, in the words of Steve Fisher, are getting screwed.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard from noon to 3 p.m. Monday through Friday on "Gridlock," ESPN Radio 1100 and 98.9 FM. Follow him on Twitter: @edgraney.