Philadelphia ? There’s nothing more predictable (and obnoxious) than reaching a certain age and turning into one of those guys who thinks everything used to be better.

Music. Movies. TV shows. Sports. It seldom occurs to us that things might have seemed better “because we were younger.

That said, there is one thing that was absolutely and without question better 20 years ago than it is today, and that is the NBA draft. Well, OK, the NBA itself was better, too, but let’s stay focused on tonight’s dispersal of fresh talent among the 30 NBA teams.

There is a pretty good chance that someone named Andrew Bogut will be the No. 1 pick. One of the top three or four could be a young gentleman with the catchy handle of Martell Webster. He’s a high school kid from Seattle. And then there are all the Europeans you’ve never seen play.

Nothing against the players who will be drafted. There is every chance that some of them will develop into household names and perennial all-stars in the next few years.

But for star power, the NBA draft has gotten down there with “Hollywood Squares.” As annual events go, this is like turning on the Oscars and seeing Billy Baldwin, Steven Seagal and Nora Dunn instead of Clint and Jack and Meryl.

When the great debate over the NBA age limit was going on, most of the talk was about the rights of players weighed against the needs of teams. And those were the issues at the heart of that discussion.

Nevertheless, to these ears, the whole debate really boiled down to this: Would a higher age limit help restore some kind of order to college basketball and, in turn, the NBA draft? Could David Stern’s proposed rules turn the clock back to the mid-1980s, when you not only heard of every player in the first round, you might actually have seen him play a college game?

The answer, alas, is probably no.

Stern was pushing for a 20-year-old minimum age, although that public posture was probably more of a negotiating ploy than an actual goal. If that had somehow become part of the new collective-bargaining agreement with the players’ union, then it might have had a huge impact – both on the college game and the draft.

The two sides settled on 19, which makes it impossible for players to jump straight from high school to the NBA. That will no doubt result in more star players going to college for a year, and that will in turn help make the draft a little more enjoyable for fans.

“There will be more of a chance the fans will know a guy’s name,” Sixers president Billy King said Monday. “You would have seen him in the (NCAA) tournament, maybe. You’d see a guy who went to Syracuse or a guy who went to Duke and you’d have seen him in the tournament.

“As it is, you see a guy from high school and you say, ‘Where is that high school?’ “

When Stern was touring NBA cities and pitching the age limit, he kept bringing up the National Basketball Developmental League. There’s a reason for that. The NBDL is Stern’s baby, and it recently expanded by five teams in anticipation of the higher age limit.

Future LeBron James and Kobe Bryant types will now have several choices. They can go to college for a year, or they can “turn pro” and pick up a year of experience (for about $25K) in the NBDL.

The commissioner would love to see players make that latter choice.

Imagine, after all the hype around LeBron during his senior year in high school, if he decided to take those massive endorsement deals and play a year in the NBDL. The league, which averages about 1,000 in attendance at its games now, would suddenly appear on the radar of every serious basketball fan.

And that’s precisely what Stern wants. The new collective-bargaining agreement already contains provisions that will encourage NBA teams to use the NBDL the way Major League Baseball teams use the minor leagues. In a year or two, you might see a player such as Willie Green or John Salmons sent down to the NBDL for some playing time.

Most important, though, that hypothetical future LeBron will enter the draft after a year lighting up the NBDL. General managers would have seen him play for a year above the high school level. It will be easier to project a player’s NBA potential, which means less risk for teams than paying first-round money to a high school kid.

For fans, it should mean a draft where the top players aren’t complete unknowns. It won’t bring the draft all the way back to what it was, but it has to be better than this.