Poll: The State of The League

[Rudy Bargnani]

Conversely from the Players perspective: Don't ask for a trade, eventually just walk away for nothing, team gets nothing. Ask for a trade, team gets some assets in return and isn't left empty handed. That's a pretty solid favour from the player when framed like this, no?

This is a good point. Do you think OKC prefers Durant playing out his contract honourably or getting 5 picks and Shai for Paul George cause he asked for a trade?

[Shaolin Fantastic]

This is a good point. Do you think OKC prefers Durant playing out his contract honourably or getting 5 picks and Shai for Paul George cause he asked for a trade?

Neither. Player should bow his head and take whatever contract OKC offers when they hit free agency! It's a privilege they even get to play this game!

[MixxAOR]

That's right. Put ball chain on them too. And don't pay them when they get injured.

[MixxAOR]

This is a good point. Do you think OKC prefers Durant playing out his contract honourably or getting 5 picks and Shai for Paul George cause he asked for a trade?

yeah Shai must be ecstatic that Paul George decided to live in LA.

[inthepaint]

The ultimate goal of every team is to win a championship. Teams arguably need at least one top 10 player in the roster to win a championship. When a top 10 player asks to be traded out early in their contract, the team will usually get a good combination of picks/prospects, but the chances of said prospects turning into the very thing they lost (the top 10 player they need for a championship), is far from guaranteed.

When a team trades a player away early in their contract, the player will get the guaranteed money regardless of where they play and regardless if they underperform.

For a pre-established number of years in the contract, players get guaranteed money, but teams don't get the guaranteed talent. Fair or not, that's the system we have.

Personally, I think that's unbalanced. Not necessarily from a player vs. team standpoint, but from a franchise vs. franchise standpoint. We don't have players asking out of LA to go play in Indianapolis, It's always the other way around. That's the true root of the unbalance. So in my opinion the most practical solution is to help the franchise being shafted (to maintain their competitiveness in relation to the other franchises), rather than penalizing the player.

In the real world, restricting/penalizing players won't work (even if they deserved it, wouldn't get past the players association). Best suggestion I heard here is giving the franchise some large/long term cap exception/increase, which would give them more flexibility to attract & sign top end talent in the future.

[Rudy Bargnani]

yeah Shai must be ecstatic that Paul George decided to live in LA.

Oh I agree with you but I think that kind of reinforces Shaolin's point doesn't it? I mean Shai was probably frustrated and it reinforces to him that he should take control of his career as teams will always be willing to trade him if they can improve their roster. Won't that lead to more player empowerment?

I mean I think you're both right. Player empowerment and taking control of one's career is ok. And it's ok for fans to be mad when a move happens that makes their team worse. To paraphrase the wire the game is the game. Period. In a league with a salary cap and bird rights and exceptions that allow teams to exceed the cap by 10's of millions of dollars it's going to lead to players and teams coming to agreements that are mutually beneficial: the team controls the asset, and a player maximizes their contract. If trades happen after that it is what it is regardless of who initiates it.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

Oh I agree with you but I think that kind of reinforces Shaolin's point doesn't it? I mean Shai was probably frustrated and it reinforces to him that he should take control of his career as teams will always be willing to trade him if they can improve their roster. Won't that lead to more player empowerment?

I mean I think you're both right. Player empowerment and taking control of one's career is ok. And it's ok for fans to be mad when a move happens that makes their team worse. To paraphrase the wire the game is the game. Period. In a league with a salary cap and bird rights and exceptions that allow teams to exceed the cap by 10's of millions of dollars it's going to lead to players and teams coming to agreements that are mutually beneficial: the team controls the asset, and a player maximizes their contract. If trades happen after that it is what it is regardless of who initiates it.

I didn't say that fans aren't allowed to be mad about the decisions players (or teams) make.

I said that the league shouldn't be taking measures to ban it or penalize players like many here are suggesting. There's no reason why players shouldn't be able to try to control their careers when teams are able to manipulate their careers. Whether that's through trades or free agency. Again, even as things currently are, players cannot even dictate where they are traded. They can only voice that they want to be traded.

[MixxAOR]

Last 2 guys went exactly where they wanted to. And with Kawhi and PG stories unfolding, no team will try to trade for disgruntled star.

Superstars already hold a lot of power in the league. Nobody is willingly trades them. But whatever give them GM privileges now. For some teams their only chance to build a team is through draft. Give stars more incentive to stay with team that drafted them by offering them more money. But fuck em now. But let’s see how great all this will be.

[inthepaint]

Last 2 guys went exactly where they wanted to. And with Kawhi and PG stories unfolding, no team will try to trade for disgruntled star.

Superstars already hold a lot of power in the league. Nobody is willingly trades them. But whatever give them GM privileges now. For some teams their only chance to build a team is through draft. Give stars more incentive to stay with team that drafted them by offering them more money. But fuck em now. But let’s see how great all this will be.

Yeah when you think about it, theoretically there's nothing really holding Zion Williamson next year from saying "hey thanks for drafting me at number one, but I'd like to play in LA in 2020 with Lebron and AD please". It would sound crazy, but there wouldn't be a damn thing the Pelicans could do. System looks flimsy at the moment.

[Rudy Bargnani]

Last 2 guys went exactly where they wanted to. And with Kawhi and PG stories unfolding, no team will try to trade for disgruntled star.

e.

Dude the raptors traded for a disgruntled star and immediately won an NBA championship. That’s good no?

[MixxAOR]

Dude the raptors traded for a disgruntled star and immediately won an NBA championship. That’s good no?

Yeah it worked out for Raps. A lot of teams will not make that move. Thats why we got him just for Derozan and Poeltl

[MixxAOR]

Yeah when you think about it, theoretically there's nothing really holding Zion Williamson next year from saying "hey thanks for drafting me at number one, but I'd like to play in LA in 2020 with Lebron and AD please". It would sound crazy, but there wouldn't be a damn thing the Pelicans could do. System looks flimsy at the moment.

Why not? Kobe didn’t want to play with Hornets so they traded him to Lakers. Lonzo and his dad were adamant about playing in LA. He lost his first round privileges because bigger fish in Lebron came. Whatever though. We’ll see this amazing league.

[Shaolin Fantastic]

Yeah it worked out for Raps. A lot of teams will not make that move. Thats why we got him just for Derozan and Poeltl

You do realize if not for superstars demanding trades, we likely never would've gotten one (at least not with a championship roster around them) right?

To trade for one who doesn't want out we would've probably had to trade our entire team. The fact that Kawhi did want out created the perfect storm for us to take a gamble and get him. Ditto for OKC when they acquired Paul George.

You can keep acting like this shit ruins the NBA, but even in your own damn interest the Raptors would never have been able to win the title without player power. If Kawhi wasn't allowed to ask for a trade he'd still be on the Spurs and we'd have been watching DeRozan go 3-20 against the Sixers after it took us 7 games to beat Orlando.

[MixxAOR]

You do realize if not for superstars demanding trades, we likely never would've gotten one (at least not with a championship roster around them) right?

To trade for one who doesn't want out we would've probably had to trade our entire team. The fact that Kawhi did want out created the perfect storm for us to take a gamble and get him. Ditto for OKC when they acquired Paul George.

You can keep acting like this shit ruins the NBA, but even in your own damn interest the Raptors would never have been able to win the title without player power. If Kawhi wasn't allowed to ask for a trade he'd still be on the Spurs and we'd have been watching DeRozan go 3-20 against the Sixers after it took us 7 games to beat Orlando.

if we're been unbiased that did just fuck up Spurs for years to come though no?

Getting Kawhi was not even the same. He did feel like his health was in danger the way Spurs forced him to play. I can understand that. I'm not going to feel like a guy needs to play where there's obviously no trust anymore and teamamates are saying reckless shit. Even though you think that what we are saying is to make them into slaves.

Kawhi got my respect because it was obvious from get go that he didn't want to end up in Toronto. Chris Haynes reporting he wasn't even going to report. He decided to honor his last year of his contract and be open minded. Him being like that allowed Toronto to win. But he could've said "this is not where I want to be. Let me get my value up and trade me midseason. You'll get something and I won't leave for nothing."

Paul George leaving Indiana/OKC, Davis leaving for Lakers, VC leaving Toronto was just because winning basketball games got a little hard

[G__Deane]

You do realize if not for superstars demanding trades, we likely never would've gotten one (at least not with a championship roster around them) right?

To trade for one who doesn't want out we would've probably had to trade our entire team. The fact that Kawhi did want out created the perfect storm for us to take a gamble and get him. Ditto for OKC when they acquired Paul George.

You can keep acting like this shit ruins the NBA, but even in your own damn interest the Raptors would never have been able to win the title without player power. If Kawhi wasn't allowed to ask for a trade he'd still be on the Spurs and we'd have been watching DeRozan go 3-20 against the Sixers after it took us 7 games to beat Orlando.

Whether it's bad for the league doesn't change just because your own team benefitted from it....once