Is Free-Agency Good or Bad for NBA fans?

By: Ray Payne

 

July 15, 2009 - - Well basketball fans, it is that time of year again. Kobe and the Lakers have been crowned NBA Champions and the 2009 NBA Draft has come and gone with almost no buzz in what most fans considered a fairly uninteresting draft class. So now the real off season battle begins as the race for re-structuring by NBA franchises starts. Teams begin to juggle their checkbooks to try and take advantage of the free-agency market. Some of these teams believe they are one step away from a playoff or championship push, as they add players to bolster their current roster. While other teams who have struggled to post a winning record, attempt to lure some of the league’s top-tier players to their organizations with lucrative contracts.

 

When I returned from my two week family vacation, I was totally out of the loop in regards to what had transpired in the world of sports. Typically I choose to vacation this time of year . Why? Because there is NOTHING going on in sports after the NBA Finals and before football kicks off. This is my perfect window of opportunity for a much needed vacation.

Choosing to abandon my blackberry and laptop for two weeks of quality time with my family, I was totally oblivious to some of the major moves that had taken place. Outside of hearing the media frenzy generated by the passing of music icon Michael Jackson, I might as well have lived on Mars for the past two. When I return to Atlanta Saturday morning, I plug in the phone charger and instantly it begins to do the "Stanky Leg" all over the kitchen counter. “What the hell is going on?” was my first reaction. I expected a lot of messages upon my return, but nothing to the extent of what I received from text messages, e-mails, and voice-mails.

As I casually deleted all of the messages one-by-one, I skimmed the context of them:

“Happy Father’s Day homie”

 

“Yo, I just heard MJ is dead!”

 

“Did u hear about Michael Jackson?”

 

“bring me back a t-shirt”

 

“how’s the weather in FLA?”

 

“holla at me when u get a sec.”

Then I read one that raised my eyebrows:

“Vince Carter going to Orlando”.

I paused for a minute, and although the news was mildly interesting, it wasn’t jaw-dropping news. So I shrugged and said I’d check nba.com later to read the details of the trade and proceeded to read the next message – which was the one that WAS jaw dropping.

 

It was from a close friend who’s unfortunately from Ohio:

“Shaq going to Cavs with King James! R U a WITNESS now!”

I paused again to make sure I was reading his text correctly. I quickly logged in to my home computer to verify it was true… and it was. DAMN. By far this was the most profound message I received and I quickly discarded anything else I had in my phone. When did this happen? This was HUGE news to NBA fans everywhere. It was at that moment that I knew what the subject of my next article would be.

So now I have to ask the question, do you think free agency is good or bad for the NBA? I ask this question because I come from the era where if a guy was drafted by an NBA team, there was a 90% chance that’s where he finished his career. Fans were more sentimental about their teams. There was an emotional attachment to franchise players like Isaiah Thomas, Patrick Ewing, Julius Erving, Reggie Miller, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Moses Malone, etc. You watched your team every year and could see the same faces on the floor. Right now if you ask a guy over the age of 30 to recite the starting lineups for his favorite squad as a kid, you know damn well he will. But it appears the good ol’ days are gone, and now the starting lineup for an NBA team changes about as frequently as the Billboard top ten music charts. Have we traded tradition and consistency for instant gratification and success?

 

PROS:

1) It creates intriguing stories

 

2) Merchandise retailers and television networks make millions on these types of deals. Small market teams that depend on revenues generated by popular franchises for profit-sharing pot also receive money.

 

3) We get a chance to see major match ups on TV every weekend as the networks scramble to adjust their schedules for the best prime-time match ups as ratings increase. In addition, popular teams like the Celtics, Lakers, and Cavaliers are rewarded with Christmas Day and weekend games.

CONS:

 

1) Small market teams who can’t compete for big-name players are left with mediocre rosters. If they draft a great player they have to worry about one of the bigger fish offering him more money than they can offer.

 

2) Teams are often forgotten due to almost no television exposure or media coverage.

 

3) As a result, these forgotten teams like the Milwaukee Bucks, Washington Wizards, Oklahoma City Thunder, Sacramento Kings, and others just become breeding grounds and developmental squads for the premier teams.

 

Since the NBA front office and the players union adopted the practice of free agency, it has drastically changed the landscape of the league and the way teams build their franchises. GM’s have learned to manipulate their salary cap every year in order to be able to either add experienced veterans or budding new stars to their roster. While this may seem like the “lazy man’s fix”, we’ve seen this trend become more and more popular recent years. However, not all of them resulted in a championship for the franchises involved.

• 98-99: The Houston Rockets added Charles Barkley and Clyde Drexler to join Hakeem Olajuwan and failed to win a championship.

• 99-00: The Houston Rockets tried again by adding Scottie Pippen to replace Drexler and fell short for the second consecutive year.

• 99-00: The Portland Trailblazers also tried their hand with a loaded roster featuring Scottie Pippen, Rasheed Wallace, Jermaine O’Neal, Steve Smith, and a host of others, and lost to the Lakers in the Western Conference Finals.

• 01-02: The New Jersey Nets spent two years building a team with the additions of Jason Kidd and Keith Van Horn, however they were swept by the Lakers in the finals.

• 03-04 The Los Angeles Lakers added aging Hall of Famers Karl Malone and Gary Payton to the dynamic duo of Shaq & Kobe but still fell short of a championship ring.

 

We have also seen teams succeed in using free-agency to build their team:

• 95-96: The legendary Jordan-led Chicago Bulls teams of the 90’s added key pieces like Ron Harper and Dennis Rodman to help extend their dynasty run.

• 99-00: The Los Angeles Lakers added free agent veterans Ron Harper, Robert Horry and Glen Rice to begin their “Shaq & Kobe” dynasty.

• 03-04: The Detroit Pistons made GM Joe Dumars look like a genius defeating the mighty Lakers after adding key free-agent/trade additions Rip Hamilton, Chauncey Billups, and Big Ben Wallace.

• 05-06: Miami Heat added blockbuster free-agent Shaq, Gary Payton, and Antione Walker to join superstar guard Dwayne Wade to win their first NBA championship.

• 07-08 Boston Celtics pulled off one of the most memorable free-agent double-dips by grabbing All-Star veterans Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett helping to win their first championship in over 20 years.

 

Is it Stacking teams? How about we just call it the recent trend: Shaq-ing. We’ve seen the big diesel move from Orlando, to L.A., to Miami, to Phoenix, and now to Cleveland. The NBA’s most dominant big man over the past 16 seasons has taken his traveling road show to Cleveland joining forces with the phenomenal Lebron James in what appears to be the Cavs last big push to please their young star and win a championship and/or keep him in Cleveland beyond the dreaded 2010 free-agency period. Although Shaq is the ripe age of 37 years old, he brings an impressive resume of helping other All-Star wingmen (Kobe, D.Wade, A.Hardaway) either make it to the Finals or win a championship ring.

 

Now joining what most fans would argue is one of the brightest young stars in the league, some would say a title in Cleveland is almost a sure thing. Is this power move by the Cavs front office good for the fans? Of course the fans of the Cavs and people of Ohio are ecstatic, but others may feel that it’s a mockery of the salary cap. The Cavs front office seemingly is thumbing their noses at the supposed luxury tax imposed on teams with high priced rosters. Has the diesel just become a gun for hire? Are NBA franchises and GM’s now becoming less and less patient in building a championship roster through the draft and now have just resorted to throwing cash at the problem by essentially attempting to “buy” a championship instead? Don’t frown Cavs fans, it’s not just your front office who’s partaking in the sweepstakes.

 

At the top of the NBA you have the powerhouse teams jockeying for position. There’s been what I call a free-agent chess match going on between the perennial powers. You have the 2008 Championship Celtics acquiring veteran big man Rasheed Wallace from Detroit, enigmatic forward Ron Artest leaving the Rockets to join Kobe and the defending champ Lakers, the San Antonio Spurs (2007 champs) are adding Richard Jefferson to their already loaded lineup, the Pistons (2004 champs) added two former division rivals Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva to their squad, Vince Carter is taking his aerial act to Orlando joining a Magic team that was one-step away from winning a ring in 2009, and many others.

 

So as we look forward to an exciting upcoming 2009-2010 season we’ll have to answer the question for ourselves. Is it more entertaining for fans of the NBA to watch their teams gobble up free agent superstars, or for them to grow with the team and have a bond to the guys we consider to be “our team”? If I’m a Sacramento Kings, Indiana Pacers, or Memphis Grizzlies fan do I have any realistic chance of my team ever acquiring a superstar player and reaching the NBA Finals? Or will the same fans who benefited from the addition of Shaq and winning a championship, be the same ones to cry when it causes them to lose players like Dwayne Wade or Lebron James to free agency? Will teams and GM's make more of an effort to keep superstar players as the face of their franchise the way the Lakers have done with Kobe Bryant, or will players move from team to team creating a status quo (i.e. Shaquille O'Neal)? Wait a minute… there it goes, I’ve found another Shaq vs. Kobe debate. Let’s let the fans decide.

 

Click Here for Big Play Ray's Bio & Archive Page