Abolish the draft and let rookies choose their own team

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There are any number of environmental or chemical factors present in "unhappiness" -- social media is certainly one, mental health conditions that go undiagnosed and untreated are likely another. One less obvious feature present in the lives of young NBA players is that the vast majority of them are playing in cities, for bosses, with co-workers and on behalf of brands they had zero influence in choosing.

In the NBA, a first-round pick who shows promise is effectively under the control of the team that drafted him for the first seven seasons of his career. This means that in the most formative years of their professional development, the most talented young men in basketball are given no agency to decide what most of us take for granted: where we will live, work and put down roots in our adult lives.

As Anthony Davis was preparing to become the No. 1 pick in the 2012 NBA draft, I wrote a piece proposing the NBA ditch the draft. Though the idea was presented as a fix for tanking, I also wanted to emphasize the principle of fair labor. I suggested that among the effects stemming from the abolition of the draft "would be a likely uptick in retention. A young player who chooses his destination based on his personal criteria is far more likely to stick around long term."

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Proponents of the draft generally maintain that it's the only way to ensure fairness in a 30-team league in which some of those teams are far more appealing homes than others. When a prodigy like Zion Williamson declares himself eligible to play in the NBA, the fairness of allowing him a say in where he'd like to play must defer to the fairness of giving the league's failing teams an infusion of talent.

Williamson, though, might entertain ideas about what kind of coach he'd like to play for, or the kind of city he'd like to live in, or the types of teammates he'd like to share the court with. Given that Williamson is a player with uncommon force whose output will need to be managed carefully, he might not want to entrust his body to just any medical and performance staff.

In a league where the product is the talent, why do employers get to interview the potential employees, but not the other way around? As Williamson embarks on building a global brand for himself over a career whose prime will come and go in about a dozen years, he might even have certain standards about what kind of person or businessman an NBA owner should be. Why is disqualification a one-way street, whereby no team has to employ a player whose character it finds questionable, but no player has the right to dismiss an owner he and his family might think is sketchy?

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