Imagine you’re an 18-year-old whiz kid who just created the next Snapchat. A venture capitalist offers you $20 million to start a company. What would you do? Take the money and run your business, of course.
Now imagine you’re an 18-year-old kid with unreal basketball ability and an NBA team offers you a $20 million contract. What would you do? Enter the NBA dra—wait, you wouldn’t be able to enter the draft because of an NBA rule.
What makes these scenarios so different?
The NBA instituted a rule during the summer of 2005 that a player must meet certain criteria in order to become eligible for the draft.