Kareem Abdul-Jabbar: Which is why any suggestion to speed up the process of inoculating N.B.A. players is a tricky social, economic and political proposal. I don’t agree with Charles Barkley that professional athletes “deserve some preferential treatment” because of how “much taxes these players pay.” That argument suggests that the lives of those who make more money (and presumably pay more taxes) are somehow more valuable than the nurses, police officers, emergency medical workers, grocery clerks, and others risking their lives daily. This is, of course, untrue. N.B.A. players don’t deserve to move to the front of the line because they are rich or because the country needs basketball during these isolating times. It’s not a matter of deserving as much as a way to get to herd immunity faster.
