Hollywood is a trendy place, when A-lister gets canned, everybody seems to want to get canned.The NBA is taking this culture and making it it’s own and I ain't taking about DUI charges. The new trend in the NBA it’s throwing a temper to get out of a team. This can be done in two ways, demanding a trade or worming your way into a buyout.
Last years we witness an avalanche of buyouts of unproductive and expensive players. Buyouts are not a bad thing, when a relationship between a team and a player crosses the line of "we should see other people" buyots give the option of breaking that relationship, helping the team financially without hurting the player in the process. But as it happens with everything good in this world, people starts to get advantage of this. Players with huge untradable contracts that want to get out of certain team starts to play poorly deliberately and behave like a cancer in the locker room, once they get that golden buyout they’ll pocket, at once, around 80% or 70% of their guarantee salary for the remaining of the contract. So, guys like Chris Webber got around 36 million dollars of his contract which it was worth $43 million guaranteed over the next two years. Webber is not the Paris Hilton of the buyout, the Knicks have been giving buyouts to players since Isaiah Thomas became their GM: Maurice Taylor, Eddie Robinson, Jalen Rose and Penny Hardaway are examples of this “trend”.
Now, the trade demand. There’s not a lot to explain about this, when a player doesn’t like the direction a team is taking or just doesn’t want to play for his team anymore, there’s nothing more easy that going to the press and said “I demand a trade”. Maybe not with those exact words, some players have a resemblance of tact when talking about their team and their bosses. Demanding a trade is nothing new (Scottie did it to the Rockets, Vince did it to the Raptors, Wade will do it to the Heat, etc, etc… ) but since Artest did it last year, appears that it has become an reliable and comfortable option for every “superstar” when things doesn’t unveil as he may wanted it.
This all sucks, and suck big time. It affects the quality of the game, we have guys playing who obviously don’t want to be playing, therefore they are not bringing their A game. Webber switched to cruised control for a half season in Philly, once he got to Detroit, he started to play some real basketball (it lasted for a couple of months, but that’s something). Fans are not paying to see Webber on the verge of sobbing and suicide, not when we know how much he’s getting paid
The next “impression” i read it somewhere else some time ago, don’t remember where, but I’m borrowing because I don’t have a better idea of my own, but I share this person's line of thought. Let’s say for a moment you are Jermaine O’neal and we are in 2003, you are free agent and you feel you deserve max money. You think you are the leader of the Indiana Pacers, you are the player that's going to get them to the promised land, you are the guy whose will is going to carry the team and the entire organization to the upper echelon of the NBA. You somehow convince Donnie Walsh to give you those $123 million for the next 7 years. Congratulations!
Four years later, you have 0 championships and have gone from a 61 win team to a 35 win team. Now, is that your fault? Of course is not. Do you have to suck it? Of course you do. Remember that you are the leader of team, you are the ONE, you are the guy of the “winning-against-everything” will. You are the $123 million player. Act like that.
Every player wants max money, but nobody wants the responsibility. As much as I love KG, his contract was his doom. What kind of contender your team GM suppose to build when you are eating more than 33% of the salary cap (Especially when your GM is Kevin Mchale and give the likes of Troy Hudson and Wally Sczerbiack huge scary contracts)? Rashard Lewis was thinking max money, Eddy Curry almost got max money, it’s like the phrase “max money” doesn’t even make sense anymore. You are supposed to be a leader and a superstar to earn that kind of money. Iverson asked for max money and got max money, Kobe asked for max money and got max money. They earn that money, they had proved that they are leaders and they are superstars too, but their responsibility doesn’t end when the team stop winning, is their team, they just can’t (shouldn’t) decided to throw a temper and yell to whoever is paying attention: “Trade Me”.
If I were an NBA owner and some player in my team goes to the press with that stupid demand I will keep that guy until he can tear no more. I mean, if the numbers match, if I’m still getting money out of him (tickets sales, jersey sales, memorabilia, etc), I’m keeping the little princess. Perhaps a bad business decision, but it the guy convinced me of paying him max money in the first place and that he’ll be my ring leader for ages, and then, the team crumbles, well maybe he should knew better about his own capabilities when asking for the "max money".
