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The NBA is a business. How many times have you heard that over the past week?
Deep down fans know it is another billion-dollar corporation. Players make more money than fans can imagine. Ownership makes even more. It is a job and not always one in which players get to choose where they work. A player’s loyalty to a franchise comes from the relationships he builds within his community, and even then he is under constant reminder that it could all be ripped away from him at a moment’s notice.
So never get too close. That is the message.
For fans, it is the opposite. Teams ask that you invest much of what you can expend, both financially and emotionally, into the promise of a championship. Fans cannot ask the same of them, for teams have removed emotion from their pact. Never has a trade deadline reminded us more of how cold a business it is.
Under the cover of night the Dallas Mavericks traded Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers. Nobody knew, it seems, but the team’s respective executives, two old friends, Nico Harrison and Rob Pelinka. There has been no acceptable explanation for the deal, certainly not one that satisfies Mavericks fans.
It sent a message to everyone across the league, even superstars. And fans, too.
“You have to understand nobody’s safe,” said Giannis Antetokounmpo. “Nobody’s safe.”
For the entirety of the past seven seasons, the Mavericks had told their fans to invest everything into Dončić, and they were right. He rewarded them with appearances in the 2022 Western Conference finals and 2024 NBA Finals. This is how it is supposed to work; it is not how it always works, but it is the promise that every draft pick holds — that he will take you on this glorious journey up the mountain. Whether he reaches the top or not, that was for Dallas to discover. But they were robbed of that joy.
Meanwhile Jimmy Butler was holding the Miami Heat hostage. He wanted a contract extension; they did not want to give it to him, so he stopped working on his $48.8 million salary until they traded him to the Golden State Warriors, who granted him a two-year, $112 million extension. The other side of an…
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Author : Yahoo Sports
Publish date : 2025-02-06 20:42:00
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