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Saturday, April 22, 2006

Veritas

...[L]ast summer the N.B.A. altered its age limit, and this year's high school seniors cannot jump to a 20,000-seat professional arena from a 20-desk classroom.

Players must now turn at least 19 during the year in which they are drafted and be one year removed from their graduating class.


...[One player] will make a pit stop at the University of Texas this fall and will be eligible for next year's draft.

...]T]he league changed its rules because too many high school players, many of whom were drafted mainly on potential, fizzled after signing million-dollar contracts. And most of the players who succeeded, like Kobe Bryant and Jermaine O'Neal, sat on the bench before blossoming.

"We consider draft picks to be really big assets," the N.B.A. spokesman Tim Frank said. "We just felt like our teams would be better prepared and have more information on players if they were able to see them on a little higher-level competition."

...Bob Cimmino, who will coach one of the teams in tonight's game, said that players with N.B.A. futures should seek financial security before an education.

"My advice always is, if you're mentally mature and the money is there, take it," said Cimmino, the coach at Mount Vernon High School in Westchester County. "You can always go back to college. The only reason why I ever went to college was to put myself in a position to make more money. Learning comes into it and learning is fun. But you got to set yourself up in life."