The National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) is trying to pass a rule moving up the deadlines for college players to declare for the draft and then make a decision whether to withdraw. Players with college eligibility would have to declare for the draft within a week after the national championship game, and then would have only 72 hours to make a decision on whether to remain. Clearly, the NABC is on the right track - there is no reason why it should take six weeks for a player to decide whether to put his name in the draft and then another five or six weeks to decide if he's going to stay. The way things are currently, college teams are really left hung out to dry as they try to prepare for the upcoming season. Specifically, if a player decides to stay in the draft, his college head coach has to figure out (1) how to make up for the lost production, and (2) decide what to do with the extra scholarship. Learning a player's intentions as early as possible makes it a little easier for the college coach to react.

Of course, NBA GMs will hate this rule change, and while i suspect some type of modification ultimately will take place, it probably won't be as drastic as proposed by the NABC. However, supporting the NABC's perspective is the college football system which only gives players until mid-January to make a decision about the draft. So hopefully something will get done that will make life easier for college programs and improve the college game overall. And as far as UCLA is concerned, a rule change like this definitely will help Ben Howland and the program, as in the coming years I suspect we will have a number of players "testing the waters", with Jordan Farmar and Arron Afflalo possibilities for as early as next year (especially with no competition from high school players in the draft).