This is my idea to encourage NBA prospects to stay in school while giving them the opportunity to go directly into the NBA. This could help the NCAA, appease the player's association, and raise the quality of the game in the NBA, especially for rookies.
1. Do away with the one year rule. Players are allowed to go straight from high school to the NBA.
2. Lower the rookie scale so that the first pick receives 500,000 dollars a year, and every pick after that descends.
3. Give an incentive for having college experience. For example, let's assume a player was selected first and receives a base salary of 500,000 dollars a year. For each year of experience he has at college, he gets more money.
- no experience 500,000 a year
- one year at college 2,000,000 a year
- two years at college 3,000,000 a year
- three years at college 5,000,000 a year
- four years at college 7,000,000 a year
4. Give an incentive for having experience in a foreign league. In order to encourage students to go to college instead of playing overseas right after high school (Jennings, Mudiay), give less incentive on the front end for each year of foreign experience.
- no experience 500,000 a year
- one year in a foreign pro league 1,000,000 a year
- two years 2,000,000 a year
- three years 5,000,000 a year
- four years 7,000,000 a year
This would take a lot of comprises between the player's association and NBA to get done, but the strength is this: Instead of making rules and forcing players to attend college, you give incentives to make them want to go to college and get a degree. This would hopefully create better people in the NBA and a better product for the NBA.