SportsLine wire reports

NASSAU, Bahamas -- Is 18 or 19 too young to play in the NBA?

That hot-button issue was the most heavily debated topic Tuesday as the players' union opened its annual meeting.

Amid talk of salaries, salary caps, the lockout and other mundane business, it was the subject of the league's youngest players -- and how young is too young -- that really got the participants talking.

"Everyone's ears perked up, and you saw genuine concerns for these young men, many of whose careers are being ruined," said Mitchell Butler, player representative for the Cleveland Cavaliers. "Their friends, high school coaches and AAU coaches are telling them they'll be superstars, but in most cases the chances of that actually happening are slim and none."

Commissioner David Stern has proposed establishing a minimum age, perhaps 20, for playing in the NBA.

Such a restriction would have to be agreed upon by the players.

"At this point, we don't want anyone shut out by an age limitation," said union director Billy Hunter, who appointed a six-man committee - Alonzo Mourning of Miami, Brent Barry of Chicago, Juwan Howard of Washington, Jerome Williams of Detroit, Dikembe Mutombo of Atlanta and Butler - to discuss the issue and make recommendations during this three-day meeting.

THE LEAGUE AND THE UNION are expected to open negotiations on the issue sometime in the near future.

Both sides are awaiting a report from the NCAA on whether it would be feasible to provide the best college players with low-interest loans of up to $20,000 to entice them to stay in school.

"Our concern is that we don't want the NBA or the NCAA dictating what the resolution is. It's got to be something the players agree wholeheartedly on," Hunter said.

Players have been leaving college early or making themselves eligible for the draft out of high school at an increasing rate during the past several years, their hopes boosted by the commercial and financial success Kobe Bryant and Kevin Garnett had in going directly from the preps to the pros.

During last week's NBA draft in Washington, high schooler Jonathan Bender of Picayune, Miss., was drafted fifth overall, ahead of players like Wally Szczerbiak, Richard Hamilton and Trajan Langdon who established themselves at the college level before becoming lottery picks.

ANOTHER HIGH SCHOOLER, Leon Smith of Martin Luther King HS in Chicago, was selected 29th overall -- the final pick of the first round.

Under the rookie wage scale that provides guaranteed three-year contracts to all first-round picks, Smith will be paid approximately $1.8 million. But several players who had solid, four-year college careers, such as Lee Nailon, Evan Eschmeyer and Todd MacCulloch, dropped to the second round and will receive no guaranteed money.

"We had the same argument with the owners during the lockout over whether they should exert fiscal self-control," Hunter said. "If they don't want them in the league, they shouldn't draft them."

At least one player wondered aloud why such a fuss was being made over the age issue in basketball -- a sport whose athlete population is dominated by young, black men -- when it hasn't been similarly discussed in sports like baseball, which has a larger percentage of white and Hispanic players.

HUNTER SAID IT SEEMED curious to him that the issue moved into the spotlight this year as Duke, which had never lost an underclassman to the NBA draft, had three non-seniors leave the team to enter the draft.

"I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, but that really seemed to set off an alarm and strike a nerve," he said.

Hunter also said that high schoolers who jump straight to the pros should not be blamed for the dropoff in the quality of NBA basketball because most of them spend their first season getting very little playing time.

The six-man committee chosen Tuesday will discuss how to weigh the interests of those like Bryant and Garnett, who were mature enough at 18 to adapt to the NBA lifestyle, against those of players like Rashard Lewis of the Seattle SuperSonics, who was reduced to tears in the 1998 draft when he was passed over in the first round.

"That was just a sad image," Butler said, "and we'd like to prevent those situations from happening.

"We don't want to deprive a young man the opportunity to go out into the workforce if he feels ready," Butler said. "But they should know that they might be stuck on the bench all year without the opportunity to play. Sure, they make a great living, but dreams are being shattered and hopes crushed for a quick buck."

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