If he had played twice as much as he actually has, say 2/3rds of the time, instead of 1/3rd, I'm willing to bet at least 90% of people on here would not trade Oden for Carmelo. Bynum has had injury issues for sure. But he has played a lot more than Oden has, and has looked good doing it. How is that pennies on the dollar. Not the Oden we currently have, but say end of last November, right before he got hurt, would you trade Oden for Carmelo?
Who? Pau Gasol? That was a trade for cap reasons and it wasn't as one-sided as some would like to believe. His brother is a pretty good player. Pau wasn't near as good as he was in Memphis as he is in LA. What other examples?
If the Lakers land Carmelo, I kind of think it could backfire on them. Remember how the Lakers were supposed to be basically unbeatable after they landed Glen Rice and Dennis Rodman to pair with Shaq and Kobe? Glen Rice did eventually get a ring, but the Lakers winning had very little to do with Glen Rice. It ended up being a horrible fit even though it seemed to make perfect sense on paper. Carmelo could go to the Lakers and essentially just duplicate Kobe. It could be a bad match with increased pressures. Still if you are the Lakers GM, it's still a no-brainer in my opinion. You give up Bynum. I wouldn't want to give up Odom though if I were the Lakers.
I don't believe all of you who say you would stop watching. There have been other lopsided deals and Shaq went to LA and Malone/Payton to LA and Bosh/LeBron went to Miami. Portland has been fucked by injuries. And yet you still care about the sport enough to read and post on a Blazers forum. Why stop now? We still have a fun team with some great talent and anything can happen in this league. Pistons won without a superstar.
Anythng CAN happen, but rarely ever does. Name me, other than the 2004 Pistons, and maybe the strike-tainted 1999 San Antonio Spurs, when a team came out of nowhere to get hot in the playoffs and win it all (in the modern NBA era, post 1980). It happens in the NFL all the time, and to a smaller extent, in MLB. Why not the NBA?
All your examples are free agency defections. It's presumably-league-orchestrated one-sided trades to marquee teams (Pau to LA, KG/Allen to BOS) that people seem to have problems with.
This is going to be a massive oversimplification, but in my opinion there are only two reasons. 1) when only 5 players can be on the floor at any given time for a team their impact is greatly exaggerated -- if you add more players to the field, roles and teamwork become more important than just pure talent. 2) 7 game series. When you have to beat any given team 4 times out of 7 variance tends to get smoothed out and the better team usually emerges. In one-and-done formats it's much easier to get hot or lucky. And there's a new wrinkle. Players and agents appear to be 'colluding' with one another in an effort to join forces with their AAU buddies in either large media markets, tax friendly states or warm weather cities. That makes a few select places the preferred destination for players, places like, Miami, Orlando, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, LA, New York, Boston and Phoenix. If the trend continues, then Portland's small market, poor winter weather and high taxes are probably going to serve as something of a boat anchor when it comes to attracting the league's elite here ... as always, we're going to have to either get it through the draft or possibly trade, but no elite player is going to force their way here.
It's not really league orchestrated IMO. These players and their agents appear to be exercising more power than ever saying they have preferred destinations or threating to not sign extensions if they don't get sent where they want to go.
I agree that they aren't league orchestrated, but many of those to whom Kingspeed was referring--those who say they'd no longer watch the NBA if Melo went to LA--disagree with me (and you) on that point.
The league doesn't actually have to get directly involved. They just have to pick the teams with the big markets and show them on TV all the time which in turn makes these players agent lust for those markets due to endorsement dollars and the like. The how doesn't really matter a whole lot though. If the NBA becomes like MLB where 5 of the teams dominate the rest for no other reason then they have nearly every single good player why would I watch? I can't imagine anything more boring then the endless debates on whether LA, Boston, Chicago or Miami will win the title year after year.
If it becomes like MLB? Hmmm. S.F. Giants. NY Yankees Philadelphia Phillies Boston Red Sox St. Louis Cardinals Chicago White Sox Last 6 years, 6 different World Series Winners. Before that, Boston, Florida, Anaheim and Arizona. So 1 repeat winner in the last 10 years is just a few teams dominating? Nope.
Further, as compared to the NBA, in which the past 30 years has seen just 8 franchises (LA, Boston, Philly, Detroit, Chicago, Houston, San Antonio, Miami) win titles. Seems like we'd be better off if the NBA could become MORE like MLB, not less.
I used to be a huge baseball fan, but unfettered free agency has ruined the sport for me. And I'm a lifelong Red Sox fan, one of the teams that have been a beneficiary of the system. If a small-market team does get lucky enough to develop talent for a WS run, they will lose those players to the big market teams. Those small market teams essentially become farm systems for the large market teams. It's my hope that the NBA takes a page from the NFL and actually gives the ownership more control over player movement. As long as a franchise is willing to pay what another franchise is, that franchise should be able to keep the player they developed. One more thing: Fuck LeBron.
It isn't about "small" or "big" market teams in the NBA, there is at least a soft cap. I suppose you could add a hard cap and make it completely fair, that said why should an incompetent franchise have any power over a player? That seems just as selfish.
Again, I was talking about unfettered free agency. In other words, the current team should always have the ability to match the best offer. It seems to me each franchise has an investment in each player they draft or trade for. The player should be indifferent to playing for the team that is willing to pay them the most. It also keeps players from colluding like the train wreck in Miami. The NFL is the most successful league out there because of their competitive balance.
