When the Boston Celtics traded picks and players for Kyrie Irving, they did not believe it would be a short-term rental. They saw Kyrie as a foundational piece for the next great Boston team. Yet as his contract ends in a couple of weeks, Irving is widely expected to leave in free agency. This specter has already affected the Celtics’ other potential moves, namely by keeping them on the sidelines of the Anthony Davis bidding war won by the Lakers.
The rise of the mercenary NBA superstar
Stars switching teams has become completely normal, and now NBA teams aren’t expecting any guarantees.
When the Toronto Raptors traded an all-star and a prospect for Kawhi Leonard, they knew full well that it was likely to be a short-term rental — just one season — unless the franchise could somehow rally and, who knows, maybe win a championship? The Raptors did win a championship with Kawhi, and it seems like he still might leave in free agency.
These aren’t totally unique situations. Jimmy Butler and/or Tobias Harris could walk away from the Sixers after Philadelphia traded for both of them this season. Kevin Durant could walk away from the Warriors even as everything went sideways when he ruptured his Achilles trying to help salvage Golden State’s three-peat attempt. Superstars have walked away from good, even great situations in the past.
What Kawhi and Kyrie and the others are reinforcing is that in this era, contracts are just contracts. There’s little interest among the NBA’s best players to remain in one spot for a long period of time. Personal interest and desire reign over any prospect of continuity, permanence, and what forlorn skeptics might call loyalty. When you trade for a star on a contract these days, you are trading for that contract only. There’s no telling what the star will do when it ends, no matter what you do to stay in that star’s good graces.
Loyalty from players has always been a weird concept in a league where trades are rampant. Call Kawhi a mercenary all you want, but just also acknowledge the mercenary fashion in which the Raptors dealt with and then dealt DeMar DeRozan. Every party in this high-stakes league puts themselves first.
That’s probably how it ought to be, lest someone naive get taken advantage of. Criticize Kyrie for claiming he’d commit to Boston in the preseason, only to walk in July. But don’t let the Celtics escape similar critique for calling Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown their future while dangling them in trade talks.
Everyone’s a mercenary now, and if everyone’s a mercenary, no one is. It’s just the facts of business in the new NBA. Frankly, it’s a more honest way of doing business than the fake loyalty of the past, Kyrie’s flip-flop excepted.
No one can ever say that Kawhi misled them about his intentions. His camp has been brutally honest about the likelihood he’s sign a long-term contract with any team that traded for him in 2018. Even when asked in the moments following his second championship win last week, Kawhi maintained pokerface composure about his plans for the future and refused to get anyone’s hopes up. You have to respect it: he’s going to disappoint someone — probably either the Raptors or Clippers — but it will have been the fault of the disappointed. Kawhi has been transparent all along.
When players sign multi-year contracts, they are getting the benefit of guaranteed salary — regardless of injury or performance — over a set period of time. The downside is that they lose their agency for that period of time, unless they take a Davisian heel turn and request a trade early. We’ve seen LeBron innovate on the NBA superstar contract multiple times: with the mini-max 13 years ago, and later the 1+1 contract. These are adjustments to the basic math here: the player risks some certainty in salary in exchange for recapturing his agency sooner.
For LeBron, there’s never been a real financial risk: every team in the NBA would love to sign him for a max. There are few players at that level. Kevin Durant followed LeBron’s lead, and is now a test case for what happens when that backstop is required due to injury. We’re about to find out if it is really necessary — which would likely mean Durant opting into the +1 of his 1+1 deal for $31 million — or if it isn’t, with Durant signing a multi-year deal despite the Achilles rupture that will likely erase his 2019-20 season.
Given all this, and that the Lakers know better than most teams what a mercenary league the NBA has become, it’s worth wondering just how committed Davis is to L.A. through thick or thin. He’s on a 1-year contract. He has stated his preference for the Lakers and to play with LeBron, and everyone — most especially the Lakers — seems convinced he will sign a new contract in 2020.
But in today’s NBA, you just never know. Stranger things have happened. Just look around as the biggest free agents of this summer and you’ll see the evidence.
