Repercussions of a tumultuous Free Agency season
The aftermath of this years’ free agency has left a lot of fractured long term relationships. The Miami Heat lost Dwyane Wade, something which would have sounded unfathomable a couple of years ago. The Thunder have practically been pillaged, staring at the unsavoury prospect of either trading Rusell Westbrook and starting another full-scale rebuild or sticking with him and fielding the possibility of his probable departure in 2017.
When Thunder devised their blueprints, the franchise cornerstone was Durant. Westbrook in Thunder’s eyes was the Scottie Pippen to their Michael Jordan. He was fundamental but he was expendable. The Thunder traded Serge Ibaka because of his growing resentment about not getting enough touches, they brought in back-court depth by adding Victor Oladipo, a move which Durant raved about to his close friends.
The roster restructuring was done to fit it around Kevin Durant because the prevalent notion was that Durant was in for the long haul. Durant’s departure left Oklahoma City holding a hand full of pennies with no pockets to put them in.
The new CBA brought on a fundamental shift in the way business is operated in the NBA. Teams are structuring shorter contracts instead of hedging bets by offering 5-year deals and the deals turning out to be bad or untradeable.
The increasing player awareness and the economic restructuring of the league is making the concept of single team careers old fashioned. But for a league sold on storylines and the concept of such a character driven sport, moves like Durant’s turn out to be wake up calls.
There will be calls to try and prevent such an arrangement from happening, but in reality. there is no amount of parity that cannot be circumvented if a player is willing to take less money to preserve individual opportunities. That is the reality of the new NBA and it might be time to change the current perspective to match the shift in the game philosophy.
Maybe it doesn’t work out the way everyone thinks it would. Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry both turn free agents next summer. The Golden State Warriors have already gutted a championship roster to accommodate this move.
Andre Iguodala hits Free Agency the same summer, but for now, this is the NBA we have to live with. The concept of an actual all-conquering super team isn’t so far fetched after all.
Guess the Lakers players!
