Re: The Boston Celtics Mailing List Digest V5 #314

[Peter Delevett <pdelevett@sjbj.com>]

         Reply to:   Re: The Boston Celtics Mailing List Digest V5 #314
It will be interesting to see what happens with the CBA. Besides this new "college pro" league, there is another startup league (the International Basketball League) that's looking to compete head to head against the CBA. The CBA is planning to counterattack by hiring Spike Lee to design a new logo and image! And I think I read they're trying to rework their deal with the NBA - right now the league gets just a few million dollars from "The League," and in exchange they can get their best players called up at any time, which makes it difficult to build a fan base. I think they want to have CBA teams affiliate with NBA teams, as in the minor league baseball system. 
You're right that college scholarships, from a dollar value perspective, do amount to 'paying' collegiate players, but as we've already noted, many of these players arent necessarily interetsed in an education anyway -- they see college hoops as a stage on which to gain notoriety and springboard to the pros. So how 'valuable' to them is this commodity they're receiving, especially when they have to put in long hours just to make the minimum grades that will allow them to play -- on top of which, they're not given any spending money OR the right to get a part time job to earn some? Can anybody out there explain to me how an athlete who plays minor-league pro baseball in the summers, and receives money for it, can still retain his collegiate athletic eligibility, but a player can't get a pizza delivery job during the year to earn some beer money? At least that's my understanding of how it works.

Jim Meninno wrote:
>I'm curious about that league too, although I have to say I would rather >there was a professional developmental league akin to minor league >baseball.  If you ask me, major college athletic programs are >professional already.  Considering that the scholarships athletes are >given are worth, what 20, 30 grand a year or more at some schools.  >Consider that the athletes often couldn't come close to fulfilling the >entrance requirements at these schools, it seems that they are simply >being paid to play sports.
>
>I don't know much about the CBA, but you don't seem to get players with >NBA potential heading there straight from high school as an alternative >to college.  That's too bad, in my opinion.  I think minor league >baseball helps ensure that the players are much better grounded in the >fundamentals than in basketball.  Just think how much better prepared >players would be if they were playing professionally for a few years >before entering the NBA.  Of course, if a player had the aptitude and >desire to attend college, that road would still be open to him.
>