If it was up to David Stern, Colin Kaepernick would still have a job if he was in the NBA.
The former Commissioner spoke on the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast. Stern said that public criticism, particularly from President Donald Trump, may be weighing on National Football League owners. It’s different for the National Basketball Association, which has made a priority of letting players promote and express themselves, he said.
“As we were digging out of a terrible hole for us — in the late ’70s and ’80s, when there was a fair amount of racism exhibited about players — we felt as a matter of policy we had to promote our players and show that they were real people,” Stern said during the podcast, which will air on February 18. “And it worked.”
Kaepernick hasn’t played since 2016. While he remains controversial among some fans, there’s little debate that he has the talent to play in a league that is starved for healthy quarterbacks. Stern said that Kaepernick should have been suspended by the NFL when he first began kneeling, and if he had been, his career would have been able to continue.
That’s how Stern handled the major anthem scandal of his 30-year tenure as commissioner. The NBA had an anthem policy that required players to stand. It was challenged in the mid-1990s when Denver Nuggets guard Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf refused to come out of the locker room before a game for the anthem, saying he felt it was a symbol of oppression. Stern suspended Abdul-Rauf for a game and included a fine of almost $32,000. They eventually reached an agreement that allowed him to stand for the anthem with his head bowed in prayer, per Bloomberg.
Stern’s successor, Adam Silver, revisited the anthem issue at the end of last season. Amid all the public discussion of the NFL and Kaepernick, he reiterated that the NBA’s policy wouldn’t change. Stern believes that the fans who were most outraged about Kaepernick’s protest are passionate enough about the NFL that they wouldn’t leave if he signed with a new team.
“Look at the bounceback the NFL had this season,” Stern said. “They are the No. 1 sports property and the No. 1 television property likely in the world, other than the Olympics and the World Cup.”
I don’t completely agree with Stern, but I do think that had Colin been in the NBA, this would’ve been handled differently.