Ever since Curt Flood, an outfielder for the St. Louis Cardinals in the 1960s, refused a trade to Philadelphia and challenged baseball’s reserve clause in court, free agency has been a major part of professional sports. Free agency has turned out to be mostly a good thing for fans and players, as long as the sport involved has something of a fair system for all teams involved. The National Basketball Association has a salary cap, so teams are pretty much on a level playing field. In all sports, free agency when it involves a high profile player has included that player doing a tour of each city that shows interest in him and being showered with good will by each of those organizations and the communities involved. Tomorrow night on ESPN, however, free agency will reach a new height of ridiculous, as LeBron James makes his announcement on where he will play next season on a one hour special broadcast on the sports network. I’m sure whatever team he is signing with has already purchased some commercial time on the special to sell season tickets. Proceeds from the special will be donated to the Boys and Girls Club, so at least the agents involved in it are doing some good, and I’m absolutely certain the show will get huge ratings numbers. The player drafts in most of the major sports are huge television events now, so I guess this was a logical next step. In my mind, though, this is just more evidence that NBA basketball is becoming less and less about playing unselfish basketball, hitting the open man, moving without the ball, doing the dirty work like rebounding and taking a charge, and more and more about individual skills and showing off individual players. It’s almost to the point where they put a superstar on each team then fill the court with a bunch of Washington General types to take up space. (For basketball laymen, the Generals are the patsy team that the Harlem Globetrotters beat up on every night on their tour). Here’s hoping that the NBA title is won next season by a team that still plays somewhat unselfishly – the San Antonio Spurs come to mind – and as far as where LeBron plays next year, I’ll just make one prediction. Whatever happens Cleveland will likely get the short end of the stick.
NBA Free Agency Roulette
07
Jul