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The foundation - and a flimsy one it is - of the proposition to raise the legal age limit of the NBA to 21 is that both the league and the colleges will be best served by the restriction.

The colleges will benefit because the great players that would otherwise be pros will be plying their talents for their dear old schools for an additional year, raising the level of the college game. And the NBA will benefit because rookies coming in will be armed with the requisite skills and savoir-faire to better represent themselves and, by extension, the NBA's product.

These seem to be sound arguments, on both sides. The only thing they ignore is the voice of the one in the middle - the athlete himself.

Let's say you are a 20-year-old college basketball player, and gifted. You're six-eight or six-nine, you can run like a horse and fly like a bird, and you're busting at the seams to test your mettle in the crucible of the NBA.

But the powers-that-be say you need to wait another year - for your own good, of course. Even though you're old enough to be sent overseas to fight and possibly to die, you're not quite mature enough for the rigors of professional basketball.

Another year of school is what you need, they agree - another year of seasoning and sophistication. Never mind that you have yet to see the inside of a classroom - that the only two buildings on campus you've visited are the field house and the cafeteria.

Your university is all for you staying - at least your coach and the fans are - but you can't see how hanging around for another year is going to make you any smarter. And for the life of you, you can't see how one more year at State U will satisfy the people who are always shouting about the importance of higher education.

No, you're no scholar, but you can't help but get the idea that you're being used.

You see that your college is getting your services for another year when you could be offering them on the open market. And you figure out that the NBA is keeping its future labor down on the farm, cultivating it at the college's expense. But since the college is raking in millions in revenue from its basketball program...

The age-limit restriction is patently unfair to the athletes, and maybe even an illegal violation of their right to earn a living.

Learn more about this author, Paul Erland.
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