The nba figured out how to stop the super teams and it is working

I’d say yes and yes. If Brooklyn trades Durant, it is because they want to. They don’t HAVE to. Also, by the time harden left, it was time for him to go. But the circumstances for harden’s trade, isn’t really the same as what I was referring to: which is specifically surrounding the 7 to 8 year free agency.
Hardens deal was when he was just about past his prime and probably was. Same with Durant, same thing happened with Hakeem moving to Toronto. Aging stars have always been an asset to move on from.

My point is with a player that hasn’t just reached the 7 or 8 year free agency and when teams trade them for draft capital is relatively new, as in the past teams would hold on and try to convince that player to stay. The fact is that that rarely succeeded as bigger markets would swoop in and give that player more than the small market could offer. Nowadays with the supermax, that doesn’t and probably won’t happen nearly as much — as the money is much more.

As far as draft picks are concerned, you’d rarely see teams trading player in their prime who are superstars for draft capital, but it is happening now because picks are becoming more valuable. So teams are willing to trade players for picks.
In the past, joker, lillard, Beal, kat, lavine and many other would have jumped ship.
It is telling that the biggest free agency signing was a second round draft pick that got severely overpaid.

 

This may be true: but the point is that it is the small market teams choice that this is happening — on THEIR terms. They don’t have to pay them, and sometimes they don’t. But that just means the supermax is working as expected.

 

like I said, I won’t argue cap with you, but I did want to point out that, in ADs case, I believe BECAUSE of the supermax, the pelicans got a haul that they never would have without it.
In fact, I don’t think that AD would have left for LA, without a sign and trade.

players may demand trades (Hakeem demanded one) which is fine, I never claimed that the supermax solved players demanding trades.
What I said was that, before the supermax, there was very little a team could do to keep a superstar, as they could just wait for unrestricted free agency and then leave.
Now with the supermax, players HAVE to negotiate with their small market team as the supermax gives the small market team something that the player cannot get on the open market and this has been a game changer, as it gives a lot of power back to the small market team.

So, in fact: you might even say that New Orleans won that trade — New Orleans indeed seems to be happy about it as they trolled the lakers.

Because of the supermax, you could even say that New York got trolled in a sense. Don’t you think, if New York had a choice they would have preferred Devin Booker to Jalen Brunson. They ended up severely overpaying for a marginal player because that was the only realistic player that could be enticed to leave.

But anyway you keep confusing my point and that is that the unrestricted superstar as a thing to leave a team is a thing of the past.

And regardless of (if after the fact) the player requests a trade, means nothing because the players salary now MUST go through the drafting team, which means that regardless the drafting team WILL BE well compensated, which again feeds back into the notion of draft picks being more valuable. As the teams begin to understand that the only way forward to build a team is through the draft. New York is an outlier, and has a stupid front office, we all know this.

Also, people are wondering why the wizards paid Beal — one reason may be to control his rights for a future rebuilding trade. They knew giving beal the supermax would make him a more attractive trade piece.

 

this also makes my point — Kyrie demanding a trade or else, lol.
Brooklyn was like, go ahead, be my guest. And you know what, that big old payday got into his head and he had second thoughts.

I don’t mind demanding trades, so much because look what happened to Ben Simmons, if you want to lose half your salary for not showing up to play, be my guest and for kd, if he decides to do something stupid and not play hard, it hurts his legacy.
This is all due to the supermax. Players want it. And after that team gives it to them, that team owns you so you can moan all you want.
I think Brooklyn WANTS to trade kd, which is why this story is gaining traction.