O.J. Mayo and Billy Walker to Challenge NBA Age Restriction?

ESPN's Chad Ford has an excellent and extensive piece on two amateur players who may put the new NBA age restriction to the test next year: O.J. Mayo (right) and Billy Walker (left), the top two high school seniors in the country. Both players are one year older than a traditional high school senior and, for different reasons, if they decide to drop out of high school and not graduate, they could argue that they "would have graduated" this year. If successful in that argument, they would then be eligible for next year's NBA Draft, since according to the new CBA between the NBA and NBPA, an American amateur player must be at least 19 years-old on December 31 of the year of the NBA Draft (both Mayo and Walker would be in 2007) and that at least one NBA season must have passed from when he graduated from high school, or when his graduating class graduated from high school, and the NBA Draft. If eligible, both would likely be lottery picks, with Mayo possibly going second overall, right after Greg Oden.

Walker has the stronger case for arguing that he "would have graduated in 2006" because the Ohio High School Athletic Association just announced that he should have been a senior this past year. Why? Because a transcript error that resulted from transfering between different schools caused his credits to be counted incorrectly. So according to the Ohio High School Athletic Association (which obviously has no stake in whether Walker can turn pro), Walker has completed four years of high school and four years of high school basketball.

Mayo's claim is based on the fact that he was held back a year early in his schooling, and would have graduated in 2006 but for that, and that he has played high school ball since he was in the 7th grade.

Ford interviews Tim Frank of the NBA and me for the story. Perhaps not surprisingly, we don't agree on whether the players (and especially Walker) should be eligible:

NBA spokesman Tim Frank said that he believes neither player is eligible for the 2007 draft.

"It's when you graduate (or when your class would have graduated), not when your eligibility is up," Frank said via e-mail. "So just because Walker is ineligible [to play high school basketball], he still hasn't graduated, so his class is the 2007 class."

"Mayo being held back eight years ago does not give you a claim to [the 2006 graduating class] as his 'original class.' " Frank said. "He is clearly scheduled to graduate in 2007."

However, sports law expert Michael McCann disagrees.

McCann, a law professor at the Mississippi College School of Law, is the author of the popular Sports Law Blog. He was part of the legal team that represented Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett in his (unsuccessful) legal challenge of the NFL's age restriction.

"Billy Walker should be eligible for the 2007 NBA Draft," McCann told me in an e-mail interview. "An honest interpretation of the CBA dictates that conclusion: His high school class would have graduated, and he would satisfy the requirement that he be at least 19 years old during the calendar year in which the 2007 NBA Draft is held. I believe that the NBA would ultimately recognize the expertise of the Ohio High School Athletic Association (which presumably knows its schools better than the NBA), because if it doesn't, it may unwittingly invite Walker to challenge the age restriction in court, something which the NBA likely wants to avoid."

"Walker's claim for eligibility appears stronger than that for Mayo, although Mayo's situation invites the question of how to measure one's graduating class," McCann said. "Mayo could argue that it should be measured from when he originally began schooling, although the NBA would likely argue that it should be measured from when he began high school. Both arguments are rational, and would likely require the opinion of education experts. The fact that he was playing high school ball as a seventh-grader seems to suggest what his school thought of his class."

We then discussed the implications of either Mayo or Walker bringing a lawsuit, and the applicability of Clarett v. NFL in that lawsuit:

"Unlike when Maurice Clarett challenged the NFL's age eligibility rule, Walker's lawsuit would enjoy empirical data showing that prep-to-pro players have, on average, performed better than any other age group to enter the NBA," said McCann.

"Moreover, while it is commonly assumed that Clarett v. NFL is the definitive case on age restrictions, it isn't. It is the holding of one United States Court of Appeals, and it is unclear how the other 12 United States Courts of Appeal would hold on the matter.

"Even though the NBA's age restriction has been collectively bargained, a good argument can be made that it only affects parties (prep players) outside of the two collective-bargaining units (the NBA and the NBPA), and thus should not enjoy immunity from antitrust laws."

As a separate matter, we also discussed the legal implications of why 19-year old international players are able to more easily enter the NBA Draft than are 19-year old American players. While both groups of players must be at least 19 by December 31 of the year of the draft, the international players do not have a one-year waiting period after high school.

"Should a litigation occur, a court would likely wonder why there exists a more restrictive rule for American amateur players than foreign players, and should it apply antitrust law, a court would likely compare the respective NBA performances of those two groups," McCann said.

This will be a very interesting to story to watch. Ford's article also states that while both Mayo and Walker presently intend to attend college, they would rather go to the NBA directly if possible. The article addresses other topics as well, and is well worth a read (and I strongly recommend ESPN Insider if you don't yet subscribe, especially since you also get ESPN The Magazine).

On three separate notes: 1) thanks to Michael Ryan of Bearcat News for his excellent insight earlier in the day; 2) thanks to Jeff Clark of the highly-addictive Celtics Blog, who wrote a nice posting about the ESPN article on the equally-highly-addictive True Hoop; and 3) since the ESPN article is bringing us a large number of new visitors today, welcome to our blog!

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