Teenagers first two picks next year?

[lapdoggy <lapdoggy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

NBA players likely to get younger
BY RON THOMAS
Of The Examiner Staff
    OAKLAND -- NBA fans who bemoan the fact that the league has become
so young won't want to hear this, but next year, it may get even
younger.

    The current rule states that a player must be 18 and his high
school class must have graduated before he can be eligible for the
draft.

    "But there may be a couple European kids who are going to challenge
that this year because they're not going to be 18 by the time the draft
comes along," said Billy Hunter, the director of the NBA Players
Association who attended Tuesday's Warriors-Denver Nuggets game at the
Arena. "They're 17 and one of them played on the Yugoslavian national
team and there's a strong possibility that if he gets declared
eligible, he may be the No. 2 pick behind LeBron James."

    James is a high school phenom in Ohio and the Yugoslavian prospect
is Darko Milicic, a 7-foot, multi-dimensional center-forward out of the
Kevin Garnett mold.

    This is the fifth and next-to-last year of the collective
bargaining agreement and Hunter said that previously he would have
expected owners to press for an increased age limit. But the demand for
it has lessened within the media.

    "There doesn't seem to be as much clamor anymore about age
limitations, particularly with the onslaught of European players coming
in," Hunter said. "They probably average 19 years old. Two or three
years ago, the argument constantly was age, age, age and obviously on
the Division I college level they would like to see an age limitation
because they contend that they're suffering because the better players
are either not coming to college or they're leaving early."