To what extent should an NBA player be loyal to his organization, as far as what he says about it in the media, the type of contract he signs with it, choosing to stay or play elsewhere, etc. If a star player demands a maximum contract or he'll bolt, is that loyalty? If a once-star player in the twilight of his career decides to sign with a championship-contender instead of sign with his old team, is he being disloyal? Let's take a real world example. A lot of people say they lost respect for Karl Malone for choosing to leave Utah and sign with a championship contender. Clearly, the Utah Jazz and Karl Malone had a mutually beneficial relationship for many years. When Malone becomes a free agent, should he be willing to stick with the Jazz, even if the team isn't as good? Another example. In this past offseason, Kobe Bryant made it fairly clear to the Lakers organization that he wouldn't sign with the team if Shaq and Phil Jackson returned. Is that a case of Kobe Bryant not being loyal to the Lakers organization? Is he morally obligated to be a good soldier and resign with the team regardless of the personnel? And finally, what about all the instances this year of players asking for trades while under contract. Is that a legitimate demand (and if so, under what circumstances), or is it disloyalty? Personally, I don't think its right to criticize players or label them "disloyal" if they are free agents. It's their decision where they want to sign and if they want to sign based on money and individual glory (Kobe Bryant) or based on championship potential (Karl Malone or Brent Barry). But when a player is under contract, they have no authority to be demanding trades. Sure, if the organization is making terrible personnel decisions, the coaching sucks, management is incompentent, etc. then a player under contract can voice his concerns to the organization and let them know he's not happy with what's going on. He can let them know that given the circumstances and if things aren't going to improve for the better, he'd prefer to be playing elsewhere and would be willing to be part of a trade. But he shouldn't let any of it be a distraction to the team. What Vince Carter, Jason Kidd, Baron Davis, etc. have done is wrong and disrespectful to the rest of their team. That's disloyalty.
I pretty much agree with your assessment. However, there are a lot of circumstances u have to look into. How about team loyalty towards players? Do the same rules apply? If a player commits to a long-term contract, is it disloyal for the team to trade him? (the answer is usually no) There is gonna be fine line situations, and I think it's better to evaluate those at a situation-to-situaton basis. For example, when Hakeem was at the down point in his career, I remember the Raptors offerring the Rockets a great deal, but they declined it out of loyalty (or they did intially) and I applauded them for that. Then you take a team like the Lakers, who quicky traded Shaq while he still had a lot of value (with other factors involved obviously) and i applauded that as well. I just think that there is no set way to look at things. Different circumstances mitigate different situations and different "rules".
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting notMuchgame:</div><div class="quote_post">I pretty much agree with your assessment. However, there are a lot of circumstances u have to look into. How about team loyalty towards players? Do the same rules apply? If a player commits to a long-term contract, is it disloyal for the team to trade him? (the answer is usually no) There is gonna be fine line situations, and I think it's better to evaluate those at a situation-to-situaton basis. For example, when Hakeem was at the down point in his career, I remember the Raptors offerring the Rockets a great deal, but they declined it out of loyalty (or they did intially) and I applauded them for that. Then you take a team like the Lakers, who quicky traded Shaq while he still had a lot of value (with other factors involved obviously) and i applauded that as well. I just think that there is no set way to look at things. Different circumstances mitigate different situations and different "rules".</div> Good points. And then, there's loyalty between the players and the fans. Is a star player in some respects obligated to resign with his old team out of loyalty to the fans?
Most of the points you raised were borderline issues that could go either way. However, I can offer a concrete opinion on the scenario where a player under contract demands a trade. This is disloyalty. Signing a contract for x number of years means they are obligated to perform for that organisation for that x number of years. The organisation is justified to trade them because they have an option to do so, and players know this, that's why there are also clauses that discourage trading. But players do not have an option to demand a trade whilst under contract, because that pretty much defeats the purpose of agreeing to be contractually bound to the organisation. When players sign contracts, they tend to just look at the dollar tag, and not the years. It is their fault if they did not think long and hard about where the organisation will be in x amount of years. They must consider things like: - will my teammates be here in x years? - will the owners or GM be here in x years? - what will the direction of the team be in x years? Basically players who demand a trade whilst under contract are reneging on their promises, and that is disloyalty on the most fundamental level.
