The NBA trade deadline is bigger than basketball or players

Tamera Cook

Sports Writer

This year’s NBA trade deadline has come and gone, and Anthony Davis is still a New Orleans Pelican.

New Orleans was reluctant to let their only superstar go, while the Los Angeles Lakers tried to give them everything except the kitchen sink.

Davis wanted out and his agent, Rich Paul of Klutch Sports, made that very clear a few weeks ago.

Paul’s statement on Davis wanting to be traded from the Pelicans may have surprised some, but fans all over saw this coming.

For the past few years, NBA players have started to take control of their destiny. The control that team’s front office and owners have, has started to diminish.

Many players in the league are choosing where they want to go now, instead of being told where they will be traded. However, this has come at a cost.

In 2011 Lebron James, arguably the best player in the NBA, decided to depart from the Cleveland Cavaliers to join his best friend Dwyane Wade, along with Chris Bosh, to form the “Big 3” for the Miami Heat.

This caused many fans and players to create an uproar. Many called this move weak and was especially hard to accept being that he was turning his back on his hometown franchise.

In July 2016, Kevin Durant, another NBA superstar decided to leave the Oklahoma City Thunder to join forces with Stephen Curry and the Golden State Warriors.

Many say that Lebron’s move to Miami changed the way players approach free agency. It changed the landscape of the NBA all together.

What Lebron did for basketball and free agency was bigger than basketball. He gave the players a voice.

Players no longer had to be told where to go, but instead, they realized that they were free to join whatever team could afford them, no matter the cost.

True enough, players like Kobe Bryant and Magic Johnson played for one franchise their entire basketball career, but Lebron encouraged players no longer feel obligated to stay with a team through the good or bad.

Team owners and general managers trade players all the time, whether it be for more talent or just to create cap space.

If a player no longer wants to be part of an organization, it is no longer blasphemous for them to voice their discomfort.

Players such as Davis, James, and Wade have all made it known when they were not happy in a situation.

When Isaiah Thomas was traded from Boston to Cleveland, loyalty was nonexistent. A man who after burying his sister, leading his team to the conference finals while never missing a game and giving the Celtics all, he had, was traded for an injury prone superstar in Kyrie Irving.

This marks a new day for NBA basketball. Players are no longer sitting quietly as they are traded while in the middle of a game like the Dallas Mavericks did small forward Harrison Barnes.

This is bigger than basketball, this is business.