<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Tucson, AZ (U-WIRE) -- The National Basketball Association players union and the league's owners agreed to a new labor contract yesterday, increasing the minimum age to be eligible to play in the league from 18 to 19. UA men's basketball head coach Lute Olson was critical of the move, however, which he says could handcuff college programs into deciding whether or not to offer a scholarship to a player who might only be with the team for one year. "I think it's a compromise that accomplishes very little in terms of limiting the numbers of early entrants," Olson said in a statement yesterday. "A lot of the guys coming out now are at least 18 years old, very close to 19, which leaves colleges in a difficult position.If you recruit such a player, it could turn into just a one-year commitment." Olson doesn't find the move logical across the board. "Very seldom does one year of college benefit either the player or the program," he added, citing Syracuse University's Carmelo Anthony, now with the NBA's Denver Nuggets as one of the lone exceptions. "But it does create a problem by having to continually recruit behind players and deal with speculation about who might be leaving and who might be staying.Much more so than we're getting now." "I'm disappointed.This is just a stop-gap measure.It gives the NBA the ability to say that they did something about the problem, but it doesn't realistically address the problem or the effect it has on college basketball." </div> http://www.collegesports.com/sports/m-bask.../062205aae.html
