As a Chicago Bulls fan whose formative years coincided with the Jordan years, I love Steve Kerr. Playing basketball growing up, I was a short white kid who could shoot, so I naturally looked up to Kerr. He is up there with Reggie Miller and Ray Allen as one of the best pure shooters in recent memory, and he describes himself in a recent piece for Highbrow Sports wannabe Grantland as “a slow [short] white guy” who “can’t begin to identify with any college freshmen whose lives would be affected with a higher age limit,” because he wasn’t nearly good enough to leave for the NBA after his freshman season.
In that Grantland piece, Kerr writes like a white guy who can’t identify with talented black kids, and, worse, like an NBA shill.
I believe the NBA would best be served by raising its age requirement to 20 years old. Fans and critics have assorted opinions about morals, ethics, education, fairness, and law, but to me, this really comes down to a single issue: Would the NBA’s business be stronger by raising the age requirement? I say yes for the following six reasons.
It makes sense for NBA Commissioner David Stern to boil the issue down to that one question. For Steve Kerr, a respected analyst and former player, to do so is breathtaking and disappointing.
I’ve written on the age limit before, and I’m in one of the camps that Kerr dismisses: I think that a situation where players either enter the draft out of high school or spend three years in college makes the most sense for the players, college basketball, and the NBA.
Kerr’s argument is so open to moral criticisms that I won’t bother detailing them, but suffice it to say that ignoring issues that I brought up in my article like athlete choice and exploitation is idiotic.
I will put forth a critique on Kerr’s own terms though: the NBA’s bottom line. It’s very possible that raising the age limit would be a myopic move by the NBA. Ultimately, businesses that treat their employees (and especially their talent) fairly and respectfully are businesses that succeed. The NBA can, and probably will, continue to make decisions that disrespect and exploit young players. That won’t always be the case. And when the bargaining environment changes and the players have more power, neither Kerr nor the league will be able to ignore these issues in favor of the bottom line, because these issues will be the bottom line.