By ADAM ZAGORIA
NEW YORK — Villanova coach Jay Wright is a big fan of the new NBA G League path that will pay select players $125,000 out of high school beginning in 2019.
He also believes that the NBA should adopt a plan similar to baseball in which players must spend three years in college if they don’t go pro out of high school.
“College basketball and basketball in our country needs the NBA to help us because the NBA’s the ultimate goal for these kids,” Wright, who has won two NCAA championships since 2016, said Thursday at Big East Media Day at Madison Square Garden. “Whether they’re playing youth basketball, high school basketball, college basketball, the NBA’s their goal, so we needed their help and one of the problems is the fact that there are guys that are forced to go to college that don’t want to go to college so the NBA can help with that problem and they have.
“So I really thank the Commissioner [Adam Silver], I thank the NBA. I think it gives guys that don’t want to go to college a very adequate path to get to the NBA.”
Under the new plan, players will be eligible to sign the select deal if they turn 18 by Sept. 15 prior to the season that they would spend in the G League. The move follows recommendations released earlier this year by the Commission on College Basketball, a group that was chaired by former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and was tasked with reforming the college game.
The commission report said “elite high school players with NBA prospects … should not be ‘forced’ to attend college.”
Wright thinks the higher salaries offered will be appealing to those players who want to play professionally and don’t want to attend college.
“Previously you make $25,00, you’re gong to lose money,” he said of G League salaries. “And now it gives them a legitiamte path. And if you go to college you have turned down a lot of money so you must want to be in college.”
Wright said he’s a “proponent” of letting players “come out of high school,” but the NBA likely won’t change the current one-and-done rule until 2023 after it has been collectively bargained.
Wright said the one-and-done players at Kentucky and Duke — along with guys like Omari Spellman, who spent one redshirt year at Villanova before playing last season and then getting drafted — haven’t been the problem with the current system.
“I think Duke has some of those guys, I think Kentucky has some of those guys that want to go to college,” he said. “And those guys aren’t the ones who have been a part of the problem. It’s been the guys that don’t want to go to college that want to get paid, but have to [go to college].”
Darius Bazley, for example, initially committed to Syracuse, but then opted for the G League. He then decided to skip the G League and train instead. He’s currently working as an intern at New Balance for $1,000,000 and hopes to get drafted in 2019.
If players do elect to sign with a college, Wright would like the NBA to adopt a rule similar to Major League Baseball where players have to commit to three years of school before they can turn pro.
“I would even take two, [but] I think if it was two years you’re still going to have the same problem,” he said. “I think a guy would go for two years and say, ‘I could suck it up for two years and make some money on the side.’ If you have to go three, you have to legitimately want to go to college.”
(The AP contributed)
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