Players will always have leverage at the end of the day. You're basically describing the NFL system, where you end up with more holdouts/trade demands/etc. If a player wants to go somewhere else, just demand a trade and say you won't show up and make the team cut you, so you're free to go elsewhere. Whatever the system, there will always be ways for players to use leverage. And rightfully so - this isn't slavery where team owners make all the rules unilaterally.
What teams right now have more than 2 max contracts? Maybe Philly? GS next year with Draymond? And neither of those teams is considered a favorite right now. Is there any other team that has a 3-star model right now?
I love it. Dynasties are harder to form and easier to break. Teams are held accountable for being stupid. We have the most parity ever in history. Why should Paul George be happy in OKC? An owner who doesn't want to pay the luxury tax? A team with a mediocre coach? A co-star who is selfish and with failing health? That team had no future and no path to contention so why should he stay put? It's not like he asked to be traded from the GSW. OKC itself would trade him away to get off the luxury tax, in a few years.
What are you even talking about? Real world? Of course it is. Never said it isn’t. The question is about balance of power between players and owners in a sports league. It’s nothing to do with the corporate world but it’s still very real world. My opinion is owners should take back more power. It’s still just entertainment to me though. So whatever they do they do. Has no impact on my personal life.
Utah is good right now because they, like San Antonio, draft well and do a good job of developing their own talent. However, once Donovan Mitchell becomes a free agent, he will leave for greener pastures. Milwaukee is another undesirable market that is good right now because they drafted Giannis Antetokounmpo. Do you think he chooses to stay when he’s a free agent in 2021? The odds are against it.
The league needs to enforce its tampering policy and can start by not allowing Klutch Sports to represent NBA players until LeBron James retires.
OP, here is what I have found entertaining over the last couple of years. 1. Offseasons 2. Some limited playoff series, mostly in EC. ... 56. Vegas summer league. ... 116. Players' twitter accounts 117. NBA regular season I don't know if that's what the NBA intends, but that's reality for a lot of fans. I mean, I'm exaggerating of course, but I really did enjoy rivalries and all that old stuff. To be sure, I will probably really follow reg season very closely this year b/c new partnerships fascinating: pels, clips, j*zz, pacers, celts, even lakers kind of, super interesting. To decrease this rec-league who-got-next scenario, it naively strikes me that teams could start writing trade-request penalties into contracts, or bonuses for no trade requests. LOL
Disregarding my Rox fandom I have found the NBA extremely entertaining. It wasnt so entertaining the last two years because GSW was walking all over everybody else but in general watching superteams vs each other is more entertaining than 1 star vs another star. Now that GSW is done I find the NBA extremely fascinating esp the recent Clippers heist which took everybody by surprise. Of course one big reason is also Rox win a lot of games during the regular season the past few years, if they had stunk I probably wouldnt watch the NBA as much.
The Rockets got Chris Paul, Conference Finals, & 67 win season off a trade request .. Lets not act like we havent benefitted from this player-demand approach lol.
Chris Paul was going to be a free agent if he wasn’t given a trade to us. Not even remotely comparable to the embarrassing trade demand Paul George just made with 3 years left on his contract.
I wouldn’t say that there isn’t any loyalty anymore. There are a number of players who talk about staying with their teams. Guys like Donovan Mitchell and Damian Lillard are all about staying where they are. The Greek Freak could be that way as well. We won’t know until he hits free agency though. Russell Westbrook has been pretty loyal to the Thunder to this point (though he might be traded now) but that’s not his decision. Yes there is a lot of movement. Wade had stayed in Miami for most of his career. Yes he went to Cleveland and Chicago for a stretch but the majority of his career was with the Heat. Really the situation has to be right for these players. It takes two parties when it comes to loyalty.
I am not against free agency. But it always infuriates me when people suggest that it would be slavery if the players didn't have freedom to choose their teams. That's complete BS and shows zero respect to what slavery really is. (BTW, you know slavery is still rampant in the world today.) Here are two basic premises everybody knows about slavery 1. Slaves don't make millions of dollars more than the average person does. 2. Slaves can't quit their work no matter how much they hate it. Even if we completely abolish free agency and players have zero freedom to choose their teams: 1. NBA players still make millions of dollars more than the average person. 2. NBA players still can quit any time they want and go do something else if they don't' like their lifestyles. NBA players are NOT slaves even if free agency does not exists.
Thank you for this! The whole slavery argument is ridiculous. That being said, even with the millions people make, they should have the freedom to choose a team and city to their liking. I think the upcoming year and hopefully years will be the most interesting since 2007 when I started following the NBA consistently. There's definitely more talent spread out across the league. PG's trade may look bad, but he didn't force OKC to trade him. He requested it and OKC got a massive haul, so a win-win. Both the player and team did well and they probably privately had discussions about moving forward anyway. It was obvious that core was not doing much and they hadn't really made moves to make them contenders. Overall I think the league office and players union have made some strides towards the closest to a 'fair playing field' possible. We all know that big cities like LA, NY, Miami and such will draw more players for various reasons. That is just the way it is. I think there's two things that have to be done here: 1. Eliminate conferences for the playoffs, but keep them and divisions for schedule & historical reasons (conference champions and division leaders the first 6 seeds or guaranteed top 8). This would serve 2 purposes, one being we will get the best 16 teams in the play-offs and the other is it would force incompetent front offices to clean up their act. Lots of badly run franchises are mainly in the East, which to me is partly the result of it being a weaker conference. Look at MJ's Hornets, it's been poorly run since forever yet they still had a chance to be in the play-offs almost every year in the recent past. In the West, they would've been killed. Schedule wise I'm sure they can figure it out. Maybe change the divisions again so they make sense and maybe only have 4. 2. With the current hard cap being quite soft, I'd set a rule with only 1 max contract per team. Keep the supermax so players have incentive to stay with the team that tries to re-sign them, which would also count as the only one allowed per team. Then also create a new contract for veterans for like 5-10 million that each team can sign 2 players with and one between that and the max. Have more set contracts, so everyone will be able to offer the same contracts.
The pussification of the league? No, it's pretty sickening that everyone has to be in a prime location, have a best friend to play with, and gotta have the max too. Loyalty is almost dead in the NBA and LeBron killed it in 2010.
This 'new' NBA you speak of has been going in since the early 2000's I hate it. I realized that I can still love the purity of the game but come playoff time, I'm going to shut it down emotionally. If the Rockets win it all, I will be elated, sure, but I will know that the powers that be just decided it was 'our turn'.
Paul George doesn’t have to be happy in OKC. He was a free agent and could have went elsewhere. He didn’t.
Only a matter of time someone calls up Harden and tells him lets team up...but then again who wants to play with Harden besides a washed up CP so we might be good
