Originally Posted by flyhi524
How are professional European players eligible to play in the NCAA, but professional NBA players are not?
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The younger players are not actually paid to play so they maintain their amateur status. The structure of European basketball is similar to soccer in that each team is actually part of a larger club with a development structure made up of several teams of younger players. The youth players are developed by the clubs and the good ones are promoted to the first team sometimes. At that point I believe they can choose to maintain their amateur status if they are considering coming to the US to play college basketball. The structure of basketball and most sports is much different in Europe. High School sports are basically non existent and it is left up to the clubs to develop players.
