Talking on empty

Now we know what Mark Emmert's ballyhooed commission, chaired by no less an eminence than Condeleeza Rice, thinks the NCAA must do to clean up college basketball. And it amounts to a windy day in March.

Which is to say: Lots of bluster and howl, but ultimately just fine weather for flying kites.

The commission came to the conclusion that the one-and-done is public enemy No. 1 in college buckets, and so it got all blowhard-y about it. Rice and Co. issued an ultimatum: Either the NBA must immediately lift the ban on 18-year-olds entering the draft -- the edict which led to the one-and-done phenomenon -- or the NCAA would "revisit" freshman eligibility.

Well, gee. That's great. But what does that really do other than hurt college basketball?

All it does is keep talented freshmen off the floor, which further diminishes the college product while not bringing any pressure to bear on the NBA. The NBA already has declared 18-year-olds off limits, so it's not like you're denying them anything. The so-called one-and-dones will simply turn pro and go overseas for the year they would have spent in college. The top European pro leagues already employ teenagers; most notably, the prospective No. 1 pick in the 2018 NBA draft, Luka Duncic of Slovenia, has been playing in the top Euro league since he was 16.

And lest we forget, crazy dad/evil genius LaVar Ball already blazed this path for American kids by taking his two youngest boys to Lithuania to play last winter. College coaches already lie awake at night dreading what happens of one or both of the Balls wind up in the NBA taking this route. Now you're going to give kids more incentive to follow them?

This is classic cutting-off-your-nose-to-spite-your-face stuff, and it proceeds from the wrongheaded notion that one-and-dones indeed are the root and branch of all the corruption that drew the attention of the FBI last fall. Get rid of the one-and-dones, the commission seems to think, and you get rid of the street agents and shoe company pimps who latch onto kids in the AAU cesspool and use them to close apparel deals with college programs.

Here's the problem with that: Most of the kids being pimped in this way are not one-and-dones. In point of fact, there are only a handful of one-and-dones in college basketball every year. So if you force them out by declaring freshmen ineligible, the street agents and pimps will simply latch onto other players. To paraphrase Jeff Goldblum in "Jurassic Park", commerce (like life) will always find a way.

So what's the solution to all this?

Well, the NBA could certainly help by lifting the ban and using the G-League the way it was intended, as a true developmental league. Tell a kid, sure, you can declare for the draft right out of high school, but if you're drafted you have to spend your first season in the G-League learning how to be a pro. This seems like such an obvious solution it's probably too obvious, but there you go.

Unfortunately, the NBA has never really cared how its 19-year-old age limit has affected college basketball. So how is a lot of tough talk and toothless edicts from the NCAA going to change that now?

It won't. What might change some things is an issue that, not surprisingly, the commission didn't touch: Compensation.

This does not necessarily mean paying the players, mind you. The Blob still believes that might be taking things too far, not to say hurting those student-athletes at schools that don't generate the GNP of your smaller nations. The big schools could afford to pay their student-athletes; the mid-majors on down would be hard-pressed to do so, and likely would be forced to eliminate sports to keep their heads above water. That's already happening now in a lot of places.

On the other hand, it's hardly unreasonable to expect student-athletes to be compensated for serving as human billboards for their schools' chunky apparel deals.

In other words, if you want to slap a Nike or Under Armour or Adidas logo on me, and force me to wear their stuff because Nike or Under Armour or Adidas is paying you major coinage to do so, I should get my cut. Furthermore, I should be able to endorse products, just as any other professional athlete is allowed to. And make no mistake about it, a kid who plays basketball at Duke or football at Alabama is a professional in everything but name.

He generates revenue for his company (i.e., school). He's expected to figuratively punch a clock and perform at a high level like any employee anywhere. Even the NCAA itself tacitly admits he's a professional every time it points out that student-athletes are getting their education paid for.

In return, they're expected to deliver points, rebounds, touchdowns, Ws. They're expected to keep the money train chugging along. No one's paying them to sit in a classroom.

It's time the NCAA finally acknowledged that. Because if you're going to treat kids like professionals without allowing them to be compensated like professionals, they'll find someone (i.e., the street agents and shoe pimps) who will compensate them.

And the corruption the FBI uncovered last fall will continue.