Adam Silver Proclaims That Stars Forcing Trades While Under Contract Is Bad For The NBA

Tim Nwachukwu. Getty Images.

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Some interesting points here from Adam Silver. It's not the superstar movement that's an issue, especially when those players are free agents or are on short term deals. Granted, people will be upset if that free agent then decides to join a super team, but that's their right as a free agent. This whole issue is the tricky balancing act of player empowerment era. On one hand, a team will trade a player regardless of how many years are left on their deal if they feel it improves their roster. Just ask Blake Griffin. He signed a max extension to stay a Clipper and then before he could blink he was a Piston. There wasn't exactly an uproar when that happened. Then on the flip side, if you have players who are locked into long term deals doing the same and demanding a trade, they get crushed for it. That feels a little double standard-y to me, but that's the truth. 

I can see both sides to some degree. If a team is going to commit big money and max years to a player, I imagine there comes a certain level of expectation that said player will fulfill his contract. I think it's also pretty well understood that part of the deal of signing those contracts is that you could be traded at any point. We hear all the time players say that the NBA is a business. Yet I don't exactly remember Silver going on ESPN and talking about how when Blake got traded it was bad for the NBA. So is it bad because now the players are doing exactly what the teams have done in the past?

With all this stuff as well as tampering, my stance on it is pretty simple. Everyone hates it and thinks it's bad unless it's happening to YOUR favorite team. Nets fans are upset that Harden demanded a trade out of Brooklyn but had no problem when he demanded to be traded to the Nets in the first place. They hate the tampering between the two sides but had no problem when it got them KD and Kyrie. Don't get mad at it, just pray your favorite team gets better at it. Everyone does it. Including your favorite team.

All this makes me wonder what will happen the next time these two sides sit down to talk about the CBA. I can imagine there are some owners that don't love the idea that a star player can just refuse to play/demand a trade if they have multiple years left on their deal. But the players side can just come back and say well no amount of years on a deal prevents the team from trading that player. It makes me wonder if both sides will try to negotiate some sort of protection. I'm not sure how that would even work though. If there's a team out there that will MASSIVELY overpay for a star player, but that star player has 4 years left on his deal, why couldn't a team make that move? But then, if a player doesn't like the fit or the direction of the team, they just have to eat it. They can't improve their situation apparently. You can see where this gets dicey.

The fact is, there is a new model with the elite players in the league. Before, the idea was that a supermax or teams being able to offer more years/money than other teams would entice these players to stay. But now, you sign on the dotted line, get your max extension which is guaranteed money, and then you demand out. It's a proven path. If you're good enough, the team will oblige. If James Harden wasn't James Harden, nobody gives a shit what he wants. But he's a HOF player, so he has different rules. Looking ahead, this could be a path for the next wave of stars. What does Bradley Beal do? Is he going to leave tens of millions on the table if the Wizards end up giving up that extension just to leave? Or is it likely that he signs the extension and one day gets to the point where he asks out despite having multiple years left. As we've seen with guys like Westbrook/Wall/Simmons etc, there is no such thing as an unmovable contract. Teams will always find a way to make it happen regardless of the player's talent or salary.

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So sorry Adam, if anything we're about to see more of this not less. Unless the league tries to make rules around this, which in my opinion could absolutely lead to a lockout. That's the last thing anyone should want, so maybe the best course of action is to just accept this new reality and put pressure on teams to actually continue to improve so that the star players don't want to leave.