Before the 2019 draft, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said that the “one-and-done” rule will soon be over and long forgotten. This rule has been bugging a lot of top NBA prospects because usually, those prospects are good enough to go to the NBA straight from high school. The “one-and-done” rule used to not be in effect until 2005 when the NBA announced that 18-year-old high school seniors couldn’t enter the draft anymore. Before the rule was in effect, we saw talent arise straight from high school like current NBA star LeBron James and NBA legend Kobe Bryant, but when it was in effect, we saw that the collegiate level of basketball was a lot more special and it saw an uprising in competition. With this point, I agree that the one-and-done rule should stay in effect, and here is why. 

First off, the “one-and-done” rule should stay in effect because of collegiate recruiting. When you have big-name prospects coming through your school, it makes a lot of prospects want to go to that school to play basketball. You can use Michigan State as an example. When players like Draymond Green, Jaren Jackson Jr, and Miles Bridges come through Michigan State, a lot of great prospects want to come through your school. In recent years, it has been players like Rocket Watts and Cassius Winston that have been big-name recruits that have come through or are still at Michigan State. With all of this talent coming to one school brings up my second point.

My second point is that with all of this amazing talent coming to one school, it almost creates a “super-team”. A super-team is a team with a lot of talent that can win with ease almost. For example, you can use the 1993 Michigan Basketball team, also known as the fab five, who had all the talent in the world. You had future NBA stars like Chris Webber and Jalen Rose along with Juwan Howard, an NBA role player for most of his career who now coaches the Michigan Basketball team. With all of this talent, the 1993 team would be very good but ended up losing in the national championship game to North Carolina. Another recent example is the 2019 Duke Basketball team that featured 3 future top 10 NBA Draft picks. Those players included the number one overall pick Zion Williamson, the third overall pick R.J. Barrett, and the sixth overall pick Cam Reddish. This team would show flashes of brilliance all year, but when it came down to crunch time, they couldn’t get it done as Duke would lose that year in the Elite Eight round of the NCAA Tournament to Michigan State. Even though it seems that most of these teams end up falling short of glory, it brings up another point of emphasis that we can all take from these “super-teams”. 

Finally, why I think the “one-and-done” rule should stay in effect is because of the amount of enjoyment and happiness that it brings to college basketball fans around the world. I remember personally that the 2013 season and the 2019 season were my favorites. As a Michigan fan, 2013 was my favorite season because of that team being one of the best teams in the country. You had a lot of future NBA stars on that team like Caris LeVert and Tim Hardaway Jr while also adding college stars like Trey Burke and Glenn Robinson III. As a college basketball fan, 2019 was my favorite season of all-time because of the number of games that were amazing to watch while watching some of the best athletes in the world play this sport. For example, all of the Michigan-Michigan State games that year and the Duke-Florida State game in January of 2019. It was just a lot of exciting action all year long, and I remember being on the edge of my seat for all of it.

With all of these points now set in stone, I can surely say that the “one-and-done” rule brings a lot more excitement to campuses all across the country, and it brings that hometown feel to a lot of NBA players who played in college. 

Why the “one-and-done” rule should not be in effect in the NBA