surprised that Silver is making a push to end this.

I honestly don't understand how the NBA benefits from making players eligible for the draft earlier. Not only does requiring players to play a year allow teams an extra year to evaluate them, but it's like free marketing to have players build a "brand" with college fanbases for a year before coming to the NBA.

Zion is actually exhibit A for why this works better for the NBA. Coming into last year, most mock drafts had him somewhere between the 5th and 7th pick, with guys like Nassir Little at UNC and Romeo Langford at Indiana ranked above him. But then Williamson spent a year dominating college competition and is now the consensus #1 pick. Not only did that one year help clarify his dominance (not to mention expose the fact that guys like Langford were highly overrated), but Williamson will arrive in the NBA to massive fanfare.

If Silver is doing this because he honestly believes that this is an issue of fairness to the players, then good for him - it's refreshing to see a sports league make a decision that isn't solely based self-interest. I do think that allowing High Schoolers to go directly to the NBA will reward teams that are good at evaluating and drafting players - it will also make finishing in the top of the draft less important in terms of acquiring "elite" players - when players are allowed to come out earlier, it makes it easier to for the best players to slide down in the draft and get selected by teams who are willing to wait a few years for them to develop.

Will be interesting to see how it plays out.