There’s too much bias for whoever’s scandal is freshest in memory.
Of the three, only Farve broke the rules to do what he did. There no rule against infidelity or taking a pay cut to sign with a team after finishing your contract with another team. Farve retired to break his commitments and to screw teams he didn’t like.
Voted for Lebron James but only because I like basketball the least.
I stated my reason. Sorry you don’t find it compelling.
One more time. Why deprive a person the chance to earn a living?
I’d like to hear a compelling reason why 18 year old men shouldn’t be in the NBA.
I think it’s age descrimination.
If an 18 year old is qualified to play in the NBA, I strongly believe they should be allowed to.
I also believe a person who has reached the age of 18 should be hired to do any job they want and are capable of doing. That includes bartender, black jack dealer, soldier or any other job on the planet.
Hell, it’s legal for 18 year olds to be in porn. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but it’s none of my business how another adult earns a living.
Not that it matters, but just as a point of reference, I’m in my mid 50s.
President of the United States?
LOL.
I think the Constitution requires a person to be 35 years old to be President.
And who am I to argue with that.
hehheh.
On a less ridiculous note, googling for “jobs minimum age 21” (or something along those lines) returns links to lists of a crapload of security and long haul trucker jobs. I find it perfectly reasonable to not want to hire 18 year olds for that type of work.
Do you also support raising the age for the armed forces to 21?
If we can’t trust 18-year-olds to drive trucks full of canned goods or electrical appliances, should we trust them to drive Humvees and transports and tanks in the army, and to carry all manner of weaponry?
If the training for long haul truckers was on par with military training, then sure.
But i think this contradicts, or at least calls into question, the argument you made earlier, which was:
It seems to me that, rather than argue that someone needs to “mount a compelling case why the NBA in particular shouldn’t be allowed to do that,” we should look at it the other way around. We should ask that any employer that seeks to discriminate based on age should have to mount a compelling case as to why s/he should be allowed to do that.
It might be that, in some cases, a compelling case can be made. Your argument about 18-year-olds as long-haul truck drivers implies that this is a dangerous job that requires high standards of training. I agree. And i think there’s probably a reasonable case that allowing such young people to work in this occupation might jeopardize public safety.
But i think that the standard needs to be pretty high. I don’t think that “It’s for their own good” qualifies as a reasonable standard. And i can’t think of any compelling argument to disallow 18-year-olds from playing pro basketball.
I should add, also, that the reason for disallowing someone based on age should be directly related to the actual job.
So, we might forbid 18-year-olds from becoming long-haul truck drivers because the job requires a level of training and experience that they do not yet have.
But, in my experience, no-one is arguing that 18-year-olds should be forbidden from entering the NBA because they can’t play basketball well enough. the fact that teams want to sign these kids suggests that they can, indeed, play basketball well enough.
Most of the reasons are paternalistic bullshit.
Newly minted NFL hall of fame lineman John Randle has a good story about how his Viking teams wanted to beat Favre’s Packers so much that they kept the No. 4 jersey on their practice tackling dummy no matter what team they were actually playing that week. Link.
I picked Farve. I can’t stand that cocksucker. I’m indifferent to the other two.
Well you kind of have the burden of proof the wrong way round - if you want to restrict an adult otherwise capable of performing from doing a particular job, you should have either pretty compelling reasons (or the Constitution) on your side.
Those compelling reasons just don’t exist with the NBA as far as I can see. It’s another example (like salary caps) of owners wanting protection from their own stupidity. If you don’t want to sign a rookie to a huge contract, don’t do it. If you don’t want to draft an 18 year old, don’t draft him.
Football at least has the legitimate claim it is for the physical protection of the players involved. But basketball doesn’t have that argument. Some players are good enough when they graduate highschool to compete at the highest level - Kobe, KG, Moses, LeBron etc. Some aren’t. But why restrict those who are when there is a much simpler way of doing it - don’t draft the players who aren’t capable.
And there are good reasons, even if I accept I have to provide the reasons, why the NBA shouldn’t be allowed to. First there is the quasi-monopoly status of professional sports in the US, in particular the restriction on freedom to seek employment with a professional sports franchise that comes about through the draft system. But what particular jars me is the race based element involved with the NBA. You don’t see the same issues with junior hockey, or kids going off to play minor league baseball young. But there aren’t millions of dollars involved there. And it isn’t young black men signing huge contracts in particular.
By that logic, would you be okay with the NBA drafting 18-year-olds directly into the developmental league with minimal contracts like MLB does? They could then still maintain an age eligibility to get into the NBA while not preventing 18 year olds from working.
I’d agree with it as a voluntary practice, but I don’t support restrictions on an 18 year old who is good enough playing in either league. Nothing about MLB requires a player to go through the minors, even if they are coming out of high school.
I’d oppose it in either league if it is mandated.
Fair enough. I see the logic in what you guys are saying, I just don’t happen to agree. I have no problem with age restrictions on jobs, and apparently neither does the law. Otherwise those security and long haul trucker jobs requiring 21+ could be sued for age discrimination. (Quick googling shows that age discrimination only applies to 40 and older.)
So while you all sensibly say that the burden should be on those asking for an exception, I would counter that age discrimination against teens isn’t an exception. It may not be the norm, exactly, but it is not particularly unusual.
Not that I’m defending Lebron for the LeBracle (or being a self-entitled, self-absorbed D-bag), but I think his main motivation was not to win a championship – he has been close enough with Cleveland – but to play with his friends D-Wade & Bosh…
…just like when Magic Johnson pushed management to trade off Worthy & Rambis for his friend Mark Aguirre (& Roy Tarpley), which Jerry Buss agreed to and then backed out of – only because Mavs owner Donald Carter allowed it, despite the handshake agreement. (There’s probably more to this that will never come out.)
So don’t say Magic wouldn’t do this, becasue he did. In fact, he did it so in the face of management, Jerry’s West threatened to resign if the trade went through. (Whether he was serious or this was just one more of West’s high drama moments we’ll never know.)