It matters because it changes your future options and choices. Lets use my personal education track.
In reality, i grew up in a middle class family on the cape. I was a good High school student, but only a decent HS athlete at best. I loved baseketball, but the option to play it as a career was not avaiable to me as a 6'1 guy who couldn't really shoot or jump out of the gym.
At the end of my HS days, my options were work at a manual labor job or to continue on in my education and get a higher paying job.
I choose to follow that path, fell in love with the law, and will now be going to law school starting in august. As you surmised, for me, the ability to play a sport for free education would have been huge. I would not have had to take a year and a half away from school once i graduated to rebuild my finances from putting myself through with loans and part time jobs.
My choices were a direct result of my earning potential and realistic salary. I have no regrets about the path i took, and I am looking forward to LS to maximize my earnings potential and follow something else i enjoy. for me, college was a blessing.
But, had I been say, good enough at basketball to earn a top ten pick, even discovering i loved the law, would i have been required under your assertion that going to college is a "huge benifit"? because for someone it that position, it isn't. It opens me up to all kinds of injury risks, salary loss because of a bad year, and the chance that my stock drops simply by not preforming up to the hype.
For the above person, college is not, IMO, a smart option. Every person has the right to maximize there earnings potential, and for kids in the above position, that means they should play pro ball asap. I fail to see any benefit for them vs the risk of a drop in salary.
You can't project our needs and desires onto these athletes. Yes, in the above position, it would have been amazing for me to get a free education and continue on to law school. but in the second scenario, it isn't a benefit, since the law is not my ultimate goal.
Now, on to point two, the restriction of employment by the company doing the hiring.
Of course, any employer is free to restrict hiring practices based on qualifications. My issue is not a legality one based on weather the NBA can do that or not. They can, they are a business. My issue is more with the motives.
In your (and hopefully mine in the future
) profession, there is a clear interest in the system in place. I will not even pretend to have 1% of the knowledge base you have acquired in law school and subsequent years. because our profession is vital and effects others, it is of course in the best interests of all involved to see that we are as highly trained as we can be and conform to at the very least a minimum stranded of competence and knowledge. I feel the same about any profession that requires the vast sums of experience ours does, such as medicine, research, business, ect, ect.
Those are all high intelligence jobs that effect others lives directly and on a very personal level.
But lets be clear. the job of an NBA player is to dribble a spherical object around a court for the entertainment of others. He has no impact, except emotionally (and in the case of us diehards, future health in these nail biting games :d), on anyone.
To claim that the NBA is just doing its due diligence and imposing a necessary restriction on employment to me is silly. it is a road block that helps a business partner, in fact if not in name, gain a benifit.
There is clear value to our professions in the knowledge we acquire over the course of our education. We should be required to demonstrate that. But of what benefit to the typical NBA player are entry level freshman classes?
None of this changes that A) this guy is a moron and a year at a party school is in no way, shape or form like slavery, and he is compelty in the wrong for saying so. or that B) The nba can do this, because it is the only high paying game around.
But my point is, no, i don't see what intrinsic benefit going to school for a year and opening themselves up to financial risk has for the athletes. It is a completely one sided relationship, and i hope EVERY player that can goes to Europe, rather than play in the NCAA for the NBA's and NCAA's financial benefit.