Steve Kerr is Wrong About Raising the Age Limit

Last week, Steve Kerr wrote a piece on Grantland concerning the NBA's current age limit. It's hard to say that there's a definitive right or wrong answer to the question he posed: is there an ideal age for players to enter the NBA? However, there were several points that seemed carelessly constructed or simply wrong, and I feel compelled to show the other side of his viewpoint.

1. Player Maturity

Kerr makes the point that a trend among young NBA players is a lack of maturity. Many of them seem unprepared to deal with the rigors of the NBA. That's probably because outside of playing in a foreign professional league like Brandon Jennings or Tony Parker did (neither of whom played college basketball), there is no good preparation for living life as an NBA player. And, for every example of an immature young player, there's an example of petulant behavior from players that went to college for 2+ years.

• Allen Iverson (2 college years) won scoring titles with little postseason success for years.
• Shaquille O'Neal (2 college years) didn't become a champion until Phil Jackson got him to fully commit, for 48 minutes, on both ends of the court.
• Chauncey Billups (2 college years) played for 4 teams before "figuring it out."
• Metta World Peace (2 college years) has had 2 careers' worth of issues.
• Deron Williams (3 college years) constantly clashed with Jerry Sloan, eventually prompting the longest-tenured coach in the NBA to resign rather than deal with him.

Basketball players, like everyone else, mature at different speeds. College is not a magic elixir to speed that process up.

2. Financial Costs

According to Kerr, the one-and-done rule harms the NBA financially by 1) allowing players to make more money by having longer careers (which is supposedly bad for some reason); and 2) losing the NBA money because teams invest money in bad draft picks versus good ones.

First off, NBA team salary levels aren't really dependent on the age of their players, for two reasons:

• NBA teams have to spend 85% of the salary cap each year on players. If they don't, like the Kings didn't a few years ago, they have to distribute the shortfall to all the players on the roster.
• The collective bargaining agreement guarantees that NBA players have to receive at least 49% of the league's basketball-related income.

Second, being an college upperclassmen doesn't make the draft evaluations any more accurate. There have been plenty of poorly evaluated players that spent 2+ years in college.

• Adam Morrison (Jr) was drafted ahead of Brandon Roy (Sr) in 2006.
• Nick Young (Jr) was drafted ahead of Aaron Afflalo (Jr) in 2007.
• Jason Thompson (Sr) was drafted ahead of Roy Hibbert (Sr) in 2008.
• Tyler Hansbrough (Sr) was drafted ahead of Ty Lawson (Jr) in 2009.
• James Anderson (Jr) was drafted ahead of Landry Fields (Sr) in 2010. Also, Jeremy Lin (Sr) went undrafted.
• Chris Singleton (Jr) was drafted ahead of Kenneth Faried (Sr) in 2011. 

3. Player Development

Using the examples of Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, and Michael Jordan, Kerr makes the argument that players with 2+ years of college experience arrive ready to play. Aside from the obvious flaw in using 3 of the 10 best players of all time as normal examples, that doesn't mean young players don't ever contribute right away. Younger players have stepped in and improved a team immediately.

• Amare Stoudemire took the Suns to playoffs in 2003 as a rookie out of high school. In his first ever playoff series, matched up with Tim Duncan (league MVP) and the eventual champion Spurs, he averaged 14 and 8, shooting 52% from the field.
• Carmelo Anthony joined the Denver Nuggets in 2003, turning a 17 win team into a 43 win playoff team as a rookie.
• Derrick Rose led the Bulls to the playoffs in his rookie year, taking the defending NBA champion Celtics to 7 games in arguably the greatest 1st round playoff series ever.

4. Marketing

College basketball is a great way to get non-NBA players national exposure at little to no cost to the NBA, giving the league an immediate boost in business for the teams that draft them. Kerr believes that the power of this effect has waned since the rookie years of Ewing, Jordan, Bird, Magic, and Hakeem, even asking rhetorically, "how often does that happen today?"

Well, as it turns out, in today's NBA, it happens quite a bit. To the right you can see the largest increases in home attendance over the past 10 seasons. Overall, there are two main drivers: winning, and big-time rookies. Lebron James, Kevin Durant, Carmelo Anthony all generated significant buzz despite only 1 year of college. Yao Ming and Ricky Rubio were big draws despite never playing a single college game. How many college upperclassmen registered with fans as rookies? There's no alum on the list from the 2-time national champion Florida Gators. No players from UConn's title teams. No upperclassmen sensations like Jay Williams, Adam Morrison, Stephen Curry, and Kemba Walker. The only upperclassmen entry? Raymond Felton and Sean May, from UNC, who were drafted by the Charlotte Bobcats in Charlotte, NC. Fans don't need college basketball to show them young talent. They can find it just fine on their own.

5. A Sense of Team

Kerr mentions here that the structure of the college game will be able to teach players lessons that will help them at the next level. These lessons, while lacking at other levels of basketball, exist in college.

Both Stephen Curry and Jimmer Fredette honed their offensive skills in at least 3 years of college basketball. However, neither of them learned to play adequate defense, and are both considered among the worst defenders in the NBA today. In both cases, you could argue that Davidson and BYU needed their scoring to win, even if it meant they never played defense. College coaches, like NBA coaches, are paid to win games, not develop players.

During Game 7 of the Lakers-Nuggets series, Kerr himself joked about the rawness of Javale McGee's offensive game, a stark contrast with the complete arsenal of Andrew Bynum. Well, one of those guys (McGee) spent two years in college, and one of them (Bynum) jumped straight from high school. In what way did McGee's 2 extra years of college development help him as opposed to Bynum the high schooler?

6. Mentoring

Kerr states that the league's stars need more professionalism and maturity:

"...it's the maturity and professionalism of veteran stars like Tim Duncan, Ray Allen, Grant Hill, Chris Paul, Steve Nash, Dwyane Wade, and Paul Pierce — guys who spent multiple years in college — setting the tone for everyone else. We need more of them."

 There are almost too many examples of quality leaders that didn't get 2 years of college.

• Everyone who covered the 2008 Celtics swears that Kevin Garnett (0 years of college) created the identity of toughness and intensity that pervades the Celtics, even getting historically non-defense guys like Ray Allen (3 years of college) and Paul Pierce (3 years of college) to buy in.
• The Oklahoma City Thunder has arguably the best young core in the league. The qualities of humility, tireless preparation, and laser-like focus flow from the leader of that team, Kevin Durant (1 year of college). In addition, most observers believe that part of OKC's failure in last season's playoffs stemmed from an inability of Russell Westbrook (2 years of college) to meld his talents with the team concept.
• Derrick Rose (1 year of college) and Kevin Love (1 year of college) have clearly changed the culture of their respective franchises, showing teammates the value of tenacity both on the court and in the offseason.

The argument for raising the NBA age limit seems to be based on anecdotal evidence at best, and no evidence at worst. The NBA as a business is as well-positioned as it's ever been, and the young talent is resonating with the fanbase. The current path of the league doesn't need to be altered, let alone "fixed" by changing this rule. As for other reasons for potentially changing the rule, I think that Commissioner Stern said it perfectly years ago:

"it's for [prospective players] and their parents to make the decision rather than all of us sanctimoniously and piously making these judgments."