Column: Stern, enough is enough with this age limit thing

Seriously, David Stern?

C'mon! You made your point nearly four years ago about the age limit.

You made players like Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley (who is still a bust right now) and Greg Oden stay a year in college just so they could gain "valuable experience" I guess.

We got it (sort of). Make players wait a year to go pro and waste their time in college for a nice pit stop. Great way to make your point about learning the game.

But you really want to change the age limit, again, to 20?

Didn't you lose this fight last time under the Collective Bargaining Agreement in 2005 (along with the ridiculous dress-up to work thing)?

NBA players are NBA players, Stern. I argue that Rose was ready for the NBA straight out of Simeon.

Beasley, or at least his offense, was NBA-ready. Greg Oden, prior to being a walking band-aid at 21 years old, was ready too.

Now you want those players to play yet another year in college? Do you have some kind of NCAA basketball agenda or what?

How do you, Stern, think this will help the overall product of the NBA?

Sure, the best ratings in years for the NBA happened during the Finals with Boston and L.A. But think about that matchup, and tell me what you think the ratings would have been not even looking at the rosters.

Nevermind the fact that both Kevin Garnett and Kobe Bryant were featured on the biggest stage for the championship.

Two straight-out-of-high-school-to-the-pros guys. Yeah. ABC did whatever it could to promote those two stars.

Kobe won his first MVP this year (probably should have had more than that, too).

KG was already an MVP and won defensive player of the year. He's played more defense these last two weeks, even injured, than I've seen throughout the entire NCAA tournament!

Oh, and that LeBron James guy ... he's pretty good too.

Dwayne Wade? Oh, he played two years ... or was it that he played one and attended Marquette for two years.? Wade had academic problems and didn't even play his freshman year.

So much for that development argument.

Players like Tyler Hansbrough, who will play all four years, aren't always NBA material either. Are we highlighting players like them, Stern, as players who can't make it and are hurting the product?

Jameer Nelson, and players like him, are sometimes the exception to the rule too.

Bottom line, Stern, this isn't right. NBA players are NBA players. They are either ready, or they were never meant to be.

Staying in college for 12 years won't make you, or the overall product, better.

That's on the player.