NBA free agency has become an utter embarrassment
“It’s an embarrassment to all of the professional sports to see the way NBA teams kowtow to star players.”
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The National Basketball Association is badly broken. If there were any doubt that this were the case, the free-agent wooing process should alleviate it.
It’s an embarrassment to all of the professional sports to see the way NBA teams kowtow to star players. It’s even worse to know that free agents conspire to shift the balance of power within the league by aligning with one another. it’s plain disgusting to realize that in many instances it’s the players, not the front offices, who decide who their head coaches will be.
No other league is as beholden to a small group of talented athletes as the NBA. This has a lot do with guaranteed contracts. It can also be blamed on small rosters and the elusiveness of NBA titles. Over the past 30 years only eight NBA teams have won it all and the league seems to be designed to sustain that lack of parity.
Players want to play in certain cities, with certain other players and for certain coaches and, unlike in the NFL, NHL and MLB, are powerful enough to pull those strings.
The LA Lakers, one of the most storied franchises in basketball, is interested in retaining the services of Dwight Howard, whom they acquired via trade in 2010. In begging the star center not to depart the Lakers organization has behaved like a starry-eyed school girl with a crush. They’ve hung “come back” banners on Staples Center, run ads in the newspaper and had players like Steve Nash on Twitter pleading.
There was a time when players for LA would be an enormous honor. Players would even settle for less money to be a part of the team. But the NBA landscape is such that now teams feel as though they must shame themselves to win.
Chris Paul re-signed with the LA Clippers. But first the Clippers ousted their head coach in Vinny Del Negro and orchestrated a move to bring in Doc Rivers. You can bet that the Rivers hire, like the firing of Del Negro, was precipitated by a desire to keep CP3 in the mix. While the player denies that he demanded Del Negro be ousted, it’s commonly believed that he did precisely that. There is no other pro sport where the demands of a single player can lead to the removal of a coach.
Right here in Denver we will witness a team falling all over its self to retain a free agent as the Nuggets’ new brain trust scrambles to keep Andre Iguodala from leaving. Iggy opted out of his contract extension and will be among the more visible free agents in 2013. The Nuggets will be forced to lower themselves is they want to keep Iguodala here.
The free agent frenzy will be even more disturbing in 2014. A list of players as long as Javale McGee’s right arm will emerge as FAs next season. It will include such names as Lebron James, Carmelo Anthony and Kyrie Irving. Once again the overtures made to these players will be gross. And, once again, certain players will conspire to end up on the same teams together.
The inmates are running the asylum in the NBA and it’s tough to watch. The league is badly broken and there’s no telling who can fix it.
