NBA Commissioner Adam Silver recently announced that the league is seriously considering changing the draft eligibility rules to allow for players to once again forgo college and immediately enter the draft out of high school.

This has been one of the bigger debates surrounding the game of basketball for the last few seasons because of how many one-and-done players are taken at the top of the draft. This year, eight of the first 10 picks in the NBA draft were freshmen.

Paul Pierce spent three years at Kansas playing for the Jayhawks, but he joined The Jump to discuss why he thinks Silver would be making the right move to allow players to join the NBA straight from high school.

Although Pierce took the college route to a successful NBA career, he believes kids these days are more pro-ready by the time they graduate high school than Pierce’s generation was when they were growing up.

“Kids are more prepared for the NBA and much more mature than when I was coming out,” Pierce said. “Most of these high schoolers are 18 and 19. I was a young high schooler. I was 17 when I graduated. They have these AAU programs. They travel around the world. They play different cities, airports, airplanes, so they get a little taste of what NBA life is all about.”

And if the athletes are ready for the big stage and the bright lights, The Truth sees no reason why they can’t turn pro like athletes can in many other sports across the world.

“You look at soccer, you look at tennis,” Pierce said. “If you’re ready to go, then you’re ready no matter how old you are.”

To Pierce, there isn’t anything that will totally prepare a player for the rigors of an NBA schedule until that player is forced to go through it and develop and adapt.

“It’s hard to really prepare yourself to be in the NBA unless you’ve actually gone through it,” Pierce said.

After discussing the draft age limit with Rachel Nichols and Royce Young, the three spoke about the perceived parity problem in the NBA and potential fixes to what may not even be an issue to much of the league. As always, Pierce brings his insight on these topics from his experience with the Boston Celtics and around the NBA.