2023-24 NBA Free Agency 06/30 at 6PM

[Final_quest]

38 minutes ago, JayBirdHawk said:

Ben wanted to go to LAL....he's still in Brooklyn.

Kawhi wanted LA and ended up in Toronto.

Each situation is unique, but if Portland had complete power over where Dame ends up he might be in San Antonio where they have multiple picks to offer.  Dame is trying to play extreme hardball by limiting it to one team. 

I know ya'll aren't saying the teams hold ALL of the power.  Each side is leveraging as much power in the decision as they can.  Why should it be only for the teams to use that power and not the players?

[macdaddy]

6 minutes ago, LucastheThird said:

No boss should be able to trade an employee and uproot their entire life/family to move across the country without the employee's input.

I'm not sure what you mean here exactly.  I don't think pro sports is really comparable to any other employment situation but what you are describing happens all the time in the 'real world'.  Employees get transferred to other cities without their input and the employee has to decide whether to go and keep their job or quit.  

[benhillboy]

17 hours ago, TheNorthCydeRises said:

 

Don't let @benhillboy find that out.  He'll say that there's something brewing between Kobe and Trae.

Or maybe he didn't follow Kobe because he's part of the Siakam deal.

 

 I make a couple ham-handed comments about social media now I’m the czar?  No!

Seriously though wake me up if either rookie has a .075 WS/48 at the end of their sophomore campaigns (AJ .075 and JJ .099 last season). Their college metrics just don’t hold much weight to me.

Edited July 5, 2023 by benhillboy

[AHF]

26 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

I don't where all this 'ethical' rules of what a player is allowed to do come from.   The owners certainly don't play by them.  If he doesn't want to play anywhere but Miami wouldn't it be worse if he didn't tell anyone that?    

Kawhi only wanted to play in LA but Spurs finally dealt him to Toronto and everyone thought the Raptors were crazy and that he wouldn't suit up for them.  Turns out he did and he also quickly left.   Raptors got a title so no one cared.  Everyone got what they wanted....well everyone except one guy.  The player who was loyal to a franchise.  Here's what Demar Derozan said after being traded 

Anyway, i'm beating a dead horse.   I don't like refusing to play but everything else a player does to protect themselves and their careers is fine by me.  

It is a basic rule of contracts that you have to live up to what  you sign up for.  The primary obligations for owners is to pay their players and they certainly do that.  If the owners take on an obligation not to trade a player without their consent they certainly live up to that as well (as we saw with Beal).  Otherwise, owners absolutely don't sign up to any commitment not to trade a player at some point during their time with the team.  They might tell you they want to keep you (and in fact that is almost surely true) but if an offer too sweet comes along every player knows they are subject to being traded unless they negotiated a restriction on that into their contract.  Some players do it with a no trade clause.  Some do it a clause that only allows their team to trade them to a limited number of teams, etc. but unless that is in the contract there is no contractual commitment so DD's quote really goes to a non-contractual relationship issue not a matter of contract.  (His quote is also disingenuous because he was "sold out" for a player that was good enough to win the team a title - not exactly nothing.)

A player agrees to play and give a good faith effort in doing so.  If they refuse to play they have breached their contract.  If they threaten not to play they are threatening to breach their contract.  This is the behavior that crosses a line.  You can't fulfill the legally required component of good faith and dealings that is part of every contract if you are threatening to breach the contract.

Telling teams that you want to be in Miami is different than saying you won't play if you are traded elsewhere.  Kawhi's leverage was that he was an upcoming Free Agent (ala Siakam) so him saying he only wanted to play in LA meant not that he would refuse to play somewhere else but that he wouldn't sign a new contract with the team trading for him.  It hurt his trade value but he still had trade value as you point out with the Toronto deal.  If Dame isn't communicating to teams that he won't play for them it is even less of a deal than with Kawhi because Dame isn't a pending free agent so Portland should absolutely have a line of teams eager to trade for him even if they aren't his preferred destination.  

The disconnect here is driven by the reports that teams are unwilling to trade for him for fear that he would be "disgruntled."  The only thing that would hurt is trade value is a threat not to play or a threat not to give a good faith effort.  No team is interested but unwilling to offer real value trade for him when he is under contract for 3-4 more seasons just because he says he prefers the beach to the sights and sounds of Boston.  

His leverage comes if he threatens to breach his contract by not giving a good faith effort if traded somewhere other than Miami - it doesn't move the needle much if he simply shares his preferences ala Kawhi.

[Final_quest]

2 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

I'm not sure what you mean here exactly.  I don't think pro sports is really comparable to any other employment situation but what you are describing happens all the time in the 'real world'.  Employees get transferred to other cities without their input and the employee has to decide whether to go and keep their job or quit.  

Exactly.  The employer can say we are ending all remote work, we're moving our headquarters to another city, etc.  It DOES happen in the real world. 
These players are free to play for another league without trades but they just won't get the millions of dollars the NBA offers.  

[JeffS17]

15 minutes ago, LucastheThird said:

So this isn't a logical reaction. 

No boss should be able to trade an employee and uproot their entire life/family to move across the country without the employee's input. The amount of money the employee is being paid is irrelevant. The owner signed the contract just the same as the employee. It's not right that only the owner has a way to get out of paying the employee, but the employee is viewed negatively when they try to place themselves in a better situation. 

We can be envious/jealous (whatever you want to call it) of their financial situation. But that doesn't mean they must be subjected to something that would make everyone else want to riot. I would be flipping tables if my company traded me to another company in Montana. 

This is the end of my rant. Not trying to derail the thread. 

Yes, the owner and player both signed the contract which explicitly allows them to trade the player, but the player is still owed the full amount of the contract, guaranteed.  You do realize that free agency exists right?  That's literally what it's for -- for players to sign with teams they want to play for.  And the money is very relevant here because if it wasn't for the money, Dame wouldn't have locked in his earnings through 2027 with Portland.

His opportunity to play wherever he wanted was to wait for free agency, right?  Or he had the opportunity to not sign an extension (supermax) and tell Portland that he will not sign it so they need to trade him.  Instead, he wants his cake and wants to eat it too -- which is ultimately the issue that is being discussed.  Players have to make risk/benefit decisions just like the owners, and pretty much all of them fall on the side of getting paid.  If they want to go play for w/e franchise they want, take the risk of not extending early and enter free agency.  That is an option they have -- they're not chained to their franchises, except for the contracts they willingly sign.  So when players sign quarter billion dollar deals and then start whining to play for another specific team, it's tough to have sympathy for that level of entitlement.  If you want to compete that badly for a title, make that decision under the ruleset the players union has negotiated on your behalf -- go take a pay cut somewhere, enter free agency, sign SHORTER deals to give yourself flexibility to change your scenario.  Otherwise, yes, feel free to ask to be traded, but don't expect to be pandered to.

[macdaddy]

6 minutes ago, AHF said:

It is a basic rule of contracts that you have to live up to what  you sign up for.  The primary obligations for owners is to pay their players and they certainly do that.  If the owners take on an obligation not to trade a player without their consent they certainly live up to that as well (as we saw with Beal).  Otherwise, owners absolutely don't sign up to any commitment not to trade a player at some point during their time with the team.  They might tell you they want to keep you (and in fact that is almost surely true) but if a team too sweet comes along every player knows they are subject to being traded unless they negotiated a restriction on that into their contract.  Some players do it with a no trade clause.  Some do it with a limited number of teams, etc. but unless that is in the contract there is no contractual commitment so DD's quote really goes to a non-contractual relationship issue not a matter of contract.  (His quote is also disingenuous because he was "sold out" for a player that was good enough to win the team a title - not exactly nothing.)

A player agrees to play and give a good faith effort in doing so.  If they refuse to play they have breached their contract.  If they threaten not to play they are threatening to breach their contract.  This is the behavior that crosses a line.  You can't fulfill the legally required component of good faith and dealings that is part of every contract if you are threatening to breach the contract.

Telling teams that you want to be in Miami is different than saying you won't play if you are traded elsewhere.  Kawhi's leverage was that he was an upcoming Free Agent (ala Siakam) so him saying he only wanted to play in LA meant not that he would refuse to play somewhere else but that he wouldn't sign a new contract with the team trading for him.  It hurt his trade value but he still had trade value as you point out with the Toronto deal.  If Dame isn't communicating to teams that he won't play for them it is even less of a deal than with Kawhi because Dame isn't a pending free agent so Portland should absolutely have a line of teams eager to trade for him even if they aren't his preferred destination.  

The disconnect here is driven by the reports that teams are unwilling to trade for him for fear that he would be "disgruntled."  The only thing that would hurt is trade value is a threat not to play or a threat not to give a good faith effort.  No team is interested but unwilling to offer real value trade for him when he is under contract for 3-4 more seasons just because he says he prefers the beach to the sights and sounds of Boston.  

His leverage comes if he threatens to breach his contract not by publicly sharing his preferences ala Kawhi.

But it's really not up to the player to maximize his own trade value for the team that is trading him.   That's putting the team's interest over his own and it's the team that is about to not even employ him.  So i still think the only thing we should ask of these guys is to be honest and that's what he's doing.  

[Final_quest]

4 minutes ago, AHF said:

It is a basic rule of contracts that you have to live up to what  you sign up for. 

NO YOU DON'T!  Or at least it's not that simple.  Contracts get broken all the time or renegotiated.  

Example: My biggest client wants me to cut my price by 10% or add a new feature/service.  If I don't comply they will give their business to my competition.  You can force them to comply with your contract, or you can amend it and keep their business.  

All of these superstars are doing something similar.  Remember when Vince Carter played at about 50% to convince Toronto to trade him?  

Do you know how many contracts get revised or they are just simply not enforced?  In many cases you do have to keep the contract, but in some cases you do not.  

[macdaddy]

3 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

Yes, the owner and player both signed the contract which explicitly allows them to trade the player, but the player is still owed the full amount of the contract, guaranteed.  You do realize that free agency exists right?  That's literally what it's for -- for players to sign with teams they want to play for.  And the money is very relevant here because if it wasn't for the money, Dame wouldn't have locked in his earnings through 2027 with Portland.

His opportunity to play wherever he wanted was to wait for free agency, right?  Or he had the opportunity to not sign an extension (supermax) and tell Portland that he will not sign it so they need to trade him.  Instead, he wants his cake and wants to eat it too -- which is ultimately the issue that is being discussed.  Players have to make risk/benefit decisions just like the owners, and pretty much all of them fall on the side of getting paid.  If they want to go play for w/e franchise they want, take the risk of not extending early and enter free agency.  That is an option they have -- they're not chained to their franchises, except for the contracts they willingly sign.  So when players sign quarter billion dollar deals and then start whining to play for another specific team, it's tough to have sympathy for that level of entitlement.  If you want to compete that badly for a title, make that decision under the ruleset the players union has negotiated on your behalf -- go take a pay cut somewhere, enter free agency, sign SHORTER deals to give yourself flexibility to change your scenario.  Otherwise, yes, feel free to ask to be traded, but don't expect to be pandered to.

You're acting like Dame had a change of heart.  He has been Portland all the way forever.  The only thing that changed is Portland decided to go into full rebuild.  They don't want Dame anymore.  They basically just pulled the 'be mean to your girlfriend so she breaks up with you' trick.   In this case Dame said 'let me hear what the plan for the future is and they met with him and said "Scoot" which had double meaning in this case. 

[AHF]

2 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

Yes, the owner and player both signed the contract which explicitly allows them to trade the player, but the player is still owed the full amount of the contract, guaranteed.  You do realize that free agency exists right?  That's literally what it's for -- for players to sign with teams they want to play for.  And the money is very relevant here because if it wasn't for the money, Dame wouldn't have locked in his earnings through 2027 with Portland.

His opportunity to play wherever he wanted was to wait for free agency, right?  Or he had the opportunity to not sign an extension (supermax) and tell Portland that he will not sign it so they need to trade him.  Instead, he wants his cake and wants to eat it too -- which is ultimately the issue that is being discussed.  Players have to make risk/benefit decisions just like the owners, and pretty much all of them fall on the side of getting paid.  If they want to go play for w/e franchise they want, take the risk of not extending early and enter free agency.  That is an option they have -- they're not chained to their franchises, except for the contracts they willingly sign.  So when players sign quarter billion dollar deals and then start whining to play for another specific team, it's tough to have sympathy for that level of entitlement.  If you want to compete that badly for a title, make that decision under the ruleset the players union has negotiated on your behalf -- go take a pay cut somewhere, enter free agency, sign SHORTER deals to give yourself flexibility to change your scenario.  Otherwise, yes, feel free to ask to be traded, but don't expect to be pandered to.

Exactly.  Sign up for single year deals like LeBron did if you want to go that route.  Sign up for deals with no trade clauses only.  Sign up for deals with trade clauses that only allow you to be traded to Miami.  Walk away from the NBA and go play in Europe if you want.  There are lots of options just like if your employer tells you that you are being relocated.  The key difference is that when you sign up to a guaranteed contract, you have to play out that contract to its end or walk away from the NBA entirely which you could do by going to a different market that doesn't have reciprocity with the NBA (like playing in China if China's league doesn't do that).  

Part of what teams are paying for when they agree to pay you $250M over the next 5 years is the right to trade you agree to something different.  At that point, you shouldn't complain about it.

[Final_quest]

1 minute ago, AHF said:

Exactly.  Sign up for single year deals like LeBron did if you want to go that route.  Sign up for deals with no trade clauses only.  Sign up for deals with trade clauses that only allow you to be traded to Miami.  Walk away from the NBA and go play in Europe if you want.  There are lots of options just like if your employer tells you that you are being relocated.  The key difference is that when you sign up to a guaranteed contract, you have to play out that contract to its end or walk away from the NBA entirely which you could do by going to a different market that doesn't have reciprocity with the NBA (like playing in China if China's league doesn't do that).  

Part of what teams are paying for when they agree to pay you $250M over the next 5 years is the right to trade you agree to something different.  At that point, you shouldn't complain about it.

Sorry.  That's just not how it works.  That is how it's intended to work.  This isn't really a debate either.  The stars use their leverage to get things they want, they can't get anything they want, but they have realized they have more power than what is written in the contract.  

It happens like 3-4 times a year where they force a trade.  No contract gives them that right.  

[AHF]

26 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

But it's really not up to the player to maximize his own trade value for the team that is trading him.   That's putting the team's interest over his own and it's the team that is about to not even employ him.  So i still think the only thing we should ask of these guys is to be honest and that's what he's doing.  

The player doesn't have to maximize his own trade value.  The only thing he has to do is not threaten to breach his contract.  He doesn't have to do anything more or less.

Being honest is not enough if you are threatening to breach your contract.  That is a violation of your contract.

Let's use a real world example.  If Axle Co. signs a contract to be the sole supplier on the Ford F150 at Ford's Detroit plant from 2023 to 2027 for $50M per year, all they have to do is to fill the orders placed by Ford.  If the contract allows Ford to move the production to Toledo, then Axle Co. has to fill the orders in Toledo.  Either way, Ford is required to pay them the $50M per year.  If Ford wants to sell the plant, they don't have to do anything to maximize Ford's sale value.  But if Axle Co. threatens to stop shipping unless they get something to which they aren't contractually entitled, they are violating their contract and have crossed a line.  Ford can sue them and should have both contractual and ethical expectations that Axle Co. won't threaten to stop shipping to illegally stop Ford from selling the Detroit plant to someone they don't like or whatever they want.  (The same applies if they are threatening to send bad product or short Ford on the shipments, etc.)  Axle Co. has a contractual obligation to fulfill their contract with Ford until the contract is expired.

Axle Co. is Dame in this analogy.  Dame is fine to signal to a new team that he doesn't want to be there.  But communicating that he won't give a good faith effort if he is traded somewhere other than Miami crosses a line because he is now threatening to breach his contract.  That isn't about "maximizing his own trade value" it is about not using a threatened breach of contract to damage his trade value.  

(Again, I'm not saying that Lillard has definitively crossed that line.  As I said before, Miami might be spreading rumors that Lillard won't play anywhere other than Miami because they know they can't match the offers other teams would make.  Dame wouldn't be obligated to correct the record in that case, imo, but he couldn't be the one who is the source of that rumor because then he would be communicating a threat to breach his contract.)

[AHF]

19 minutes ago, Final_quest said:

Sorry.  That's just not how it works.  That is how it's intended to work.  This isn't really a debate either.  The stars use their leverage to get things they want, they can't get anything they want, but they have realized they have more power than what is written in the contract.  

It happens like 3-4 times a year where they force a trade.  No contract gives them that right.  

I agree with that.  In almost all cases, these players have no contractual right to force a trade and there are usually several cases a year where a team doesn't want to trade the player but ends up doing it anyway.  (I'm not sure this is the case with Portland.  I think there may be overlapping interest in trading Dame between the team and Lillard.)  Sometimes owners refuse these demands, but it absolutely happens that they often give in.  Sometimes the player doesn't get paid when they refuse to play because the team isn't obligated to pay someone that refuses to play.  In that case, there is less of a contractual issue because the player isn't getting paid.  No owner has had the balls to refuse to pay a player who is just dogging it because that is more of a gray area but one where the owner could have a very good case for breach of contract by the player but it would end up making them a pariah with other players.  The mere fact that players force teams to trade them, though, is a bit of a different issue from what I think we've been talking about.

A team giving in and trading a player they don't want to trade is kind of like not calling the police when someone who knows where you and your family lives puts a gun in your face and demands the money from your wallet.  You may decide that enforcing your rights just isn't worth the potential repercussions of playing that out and simply hand over your money and hope to avoid them in the future.  People put up with blatantly illegal stuff all the time in the wrong circumstances.  (Think of how many people stood up to the mob.)

But that doesn't mean the person waving the gun in your face isn't crossing a line and violating your rights.  It just means that you chose to live with what you saw as the lesser evil.

[macdaddy]

10 minutes ago, AHF said:

The player doesn't have to maximize his own trade value.  The only thing he has to do is not threaten to breach his contract.  He doesn't have to do anything more or less.

Being honest is not enough if you are threatening to breach your contract.  That is a violation of your contract.

Let's use a real world example.  If Axle Co. signs a contract to be the sole supplier on the Ford F150 at Ford's Detroit plant from 2023 to 2027 for $50M per year, all they have to do is to fill the orders placed by Ford.  If the contract allows Ford to move the production to Toledo, then Axle Co. has to fill the orders in Toledo.  Either way, Ford is required to pay them the $50M per year.  If Ford wants to sell the plant, they don't have to do anything to maximize Ford's sale value.  But if Axle Co. threatens to stop shipping unless they get something to which they aren't contractually entitled, they are violating their contract and have crossed a line.  Ford can sue them and should have both contractual and ethical expectations that Axle Co. won't threaten to stop shipping to illegally stop Ford from selling the Detroit plant to someone they don't like or whatever they want.  (The same applies if they are threatening to send bad product or short Ford on the shipments, etc.)  Axle Co. has a contractual obligation to fulfill their contract with Ford until the contract is expired.

Axle Co. is Dame in this analogy.  Dame is fine to signal to a new team that he doesn't want to be there.  But communicating that he won't give a good faith effort if he is traded somewhere other than Miami crosses a line because he is now threatening to breach his contract.  That isn't about "maximizing his own trade value" it is about not using a threatened breach of contract to damage his trade value.  

He hasn't done this that i'm aware of.  

And as @Final_quest said your real world example isn't very realistic.  Companies use leverage to get out of or renegotiate contracts all the time.  The threat to breach contracts is often the easiest tool to use.   

Again I just don't understand the position here.  Is Dame just supposed to sit on his hands and not try to control his own future? 

[JeffS17]

6 minutes ago, macdaddy said:

Is Dame just supposed to sit on his hands and not try to control his own future? 

No one is really arguing Dame shouldn't try to get what he wants -- I think the argument is that he's not entitled to get to go play where he wants.  Portland can just say no and that's perfectly fine.  I personally hope they do.  The ultimate loser in these situations is not the ownership or the player, it's always the fans.  Put yourself in any of these teams' shoes and ask yourself how much sympathy you'd have for Trae if he asked out with 4 years left on his deal and said he specifically wanted to go to the Lakers.

[djjob23]

Not sure if this was already posted, but interesting if true. You think Pascal would be happier in ATL? 

Sources have described a team where the veterans — VanVleet and Siakam especially — were deeply frustrated with the younger players on the roster and VanVleet let them know about it, something the younger set didn’t appreciate at all. Nurse wasn’t able to bridge the divide as key players kept getting hurt and open three after open three drew only iron.
Source: Michael Grange @ SportsNet

Average Age (by Minutes):
ATL: 25 (9th)
TOR: 26.2 (16th)

Wide Open 3P% (6’+):
ATL: 38.4% (11th) | 16.1% frequency (27th)
TOR: 36.2% (27th) | 16.7% frequency (25th)

Open 3P% (4-6’):
ATL: 32.5% (27th) | 13.3% frequency (26th)
TOR: 32.6% (25th) | 15.1% frequency (15th)

[AHF]

1 minute ago, macdaddy said:

He hasn't done this that i'm aware of.  

And as @Final_quest said your real world example isn't very realistic.  Companies use leverage to get out of or renegotiate contracts all the time.  The threat to breach contracts is often the easiest tool to use.   

Again I just don't understand the position here.  Is Dame just supposed to sit on his hands and not try to control his own future? 

First, the real world example I provided isn't what he responded to. 

Second, if you think Ford wouldn't sue Axle Co. in that context then you have not worked with a company like Ford.  Their contract would have all kinds of language in there about how much Axle Co. would be liable for in the event that they breached the contract and shut Ford's production down. That real world example is extremely realistic.  Ford would bury Axle Co.

Now, I'm not saying a threat never happens in the real world.  The threat to breach a contract is sometimes used to extort some kind of concession that a party to a contract may not be entitled to receive but that is like waving a gun in someone's face and using that to get something from them.  It is still illegal and in my opinion we would should want and expect people to live up to their word rather than saying that the person putting the gun literally or figuratively (as in your example of threatening to breach a contract) is immune from criticism when they use wrongdoing to gain leverage.

Now what is Dame supposed to do?  Dame can do whatever he wants as long as he isn't threatening (directly or indirectly) to breach his contract.  That is all.  If he hasn't done that then him going out and saying he wants to play in Miami is not a problem at all.  Him saying he wants to play in Miami will hurt Portland's efforts to maximize his trade value with other teams (a team that thinks it is getting a player who is excited to be there may be willing to pay more) but it won't torpedo his fair market value.  If he isn't threatening not to give a good faith effort, then there is no problem from my perspective and Portland should have a healthy and robust trade market.

[terrell]

Ok Ive heard enough about Dame for the day... lol

 

[LucastheThird]

Sorry for derailing the thread. I just wanted to humanize the player side of the debate. Plenty of people say they should shut up and deal with it when every single one of us would have a fit if we knew our company was actively trying to trade us to another company and ship us across the country without our input. 

Everyone was saying Dame was stupid for not asking for a trade years ago, but now that he finally is, he's a villain and a primadonna. 

[macdaddy]

14 minutes ago, JeffS17 said:

No one is really arguing Dame shouldn't try to get what he wants -- I think the argument is that he's not entitled to get to go play where he wants.  Portland can just say no and that's perfectly fine.  I personally hope they do.  The ultimate loser in these situations is not the ownership or the player, it's always the fans.  Put yourself in any of these teams' shoes and ask yourself how much sympathy you'd have for Trae if he asked out with 4 years left on his deal and said he specifically wanted to go to the Lakers.

I don't think the issue is sympathy.  I'm just talking about business.  And it seems like a lot of people here are arguing that Dame shouldn't try to get what he wants.   They've argued that saying he only wants to go to Miami is "over the line".  And that he's not "honoring" his commitment.   So I don't see any way to read that other than they think what he is doing is wrong.  

If he breaches the contract and they continue to pay him then that's on them not him and I guarantee you they don't do that out of the goodness of their heart. 

I get that some folks don't like players using their leverage but I'm just not sure why.  I think we'd all do the same thing.