Should NBA coaches be allowed to scout student athletes prior to high school graduation?

Yes

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by Thos Robert

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Strictly speaking, NBA coaches do not scout amateur athletes. The office of a NBA coach is in charge of scouting opposing teams. It is the office of the General Manager and/or Director of Player Personnel that is charged with the scouting of prospective talent.

That said, it is entirely hypocritical to argue that qualified high school students should not be permitted to freely pursue any career path he or she chooses. Nearly every high school in the nation invites job recruiters onto their grounds to talk directly with its students. It's okay for a military recruiter to come to a local high school and convince a teenager into foregoing college and entering the military. And nobody is wanting to ban corporate head-hunters from luring young people out of a college degree with promises of mid-six figure salaries. If an 18 year-old high school student can sign up for the military and go off and die for his country, that same 18 year-old should be able to play basketball for $18 million if he has the talent to do so.

Legally, the issue is clear. This, despite the 2006 NBA rule that requires athletes, regardless of age, to wait one year after their class graduates from high school before they can be eligible to apply for NBA draft status. The rule is clearly illegal as it denies legal adults the right to enter into a work contract. In 1971, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on this issue stating that such a restriction was in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. At the time, the NBA rule required amateurs to wait four years after their high school class graduated, but whether it's four years or one year, it still represents a restraint of trade as set forth in the Haywood v. NBA ruling and the Sherman Anti-Trust Act.

Finally, it should be said that when a NBA franchise scouts a player, it is usually done secretly. The player doesn't know about it. Unlike the horribly corrupt and distracting system used by college coaches, which actually encourages the harassment of potential recruits. By NBA rule, no employee of any NBA team is allowed to have any contact with an amateur, his family, friends, or anybody who has personal contact with a prospective amateur. NBA executive Danny Ainge was fined a substantial amount of money for merely trading pleasantries with the mother of Kevin Durant before a 2007 NCAA tournament game. NBA teams can only contact players after they have filed official notice with the NBA relinquishing their amateur status and making them eligible for the NBA draft.

It should also be noted that NBA teams usually only have minimal contact with players prior to the draft; usually only the top 10 or so prospects are called in for interviews and work-outs. Most NBA teams don't interview or work-out any players. Selecting players in the NBA draft is a lot like playing poker; to succeed you can't reveal your hand, that is you can't make it obvious which players you're interested in. As a result, players are scouted secretly, usually via game film, third party references, and private detectives who do character background checks. In Europe, one very successful NBA scout had to resort to wearing disguises whenever he went to the games because he began to draw the attention of other NBA scouts in search of the next Dirk Nowitzki or Tony Parker.

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