Execs See Signs Player Empowerment Era, Begun By Lakers' LeBron James, Has A Ceiling
Los Angeles Lakers All-NBA small forward LeBron James may have kicked off the league's so-called "player empowerment era" when he left his hometown Cleveland Cavaliers to join the Miami Heat as an unrestricted free agent in 2010, but several NBA executives think that the balance of power may have shifted once again, per Howard Beck of The Ringer.
Though James has always joined his various new (and old) teams in the subsequent seasons as a free agent, many other superstars are forcing their way out of town with increasingly narrower trade demands. This summer, veteran guards Damian Lillard and James Harden have seen their requests to be shipped out to one specific franchise backfire. Lillard was sent to the Milwaukee Bucks after initially asking to be moved only to the Miami Heat, while Harden has yet to be moved at all, and is currently sitting out today's Philadelphia 76ers Media Day festivities in protest.
“Teams are taking back control,” an Eastern Conference executive told Beck. “It is a significant event that [Damian Lillard] didn’t land where he wanted,” said another longtime GM.
Beck reports that star players have demanded to be traded 14 times over the last five years, with Harden alone accounting for three of those asks. It's prove to be so destabilizing to the league at large, however, that teams are now pushing back, and though they're trying to move star players to contenders, they are not necessarily amenable to just granting limited single-team trade requests.
“You can’t get the contract that you want and then restrict the team from being able to extract the value of the contract if you’re not going to play [for them],” a Western Conference executive told Beck. “You can’t have all of it. None of us can. Teams must be able to maximize the values of the contracts they sign. But the hope is you’re able to do this in a way that’s in coordination and communication with the player and the agent, and it doesn’t turn adversarial.”
It feels strange to pine for the days when James would just ditch his teams in the summer, but here we are.
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