Rampant hypocrisy in the NBA

In the sports world, the ideal player is one of extreme fidelity. Fandoms romanticize the athlete that stays with one team their whole career, and will loathe the athlete that decides to seek a new experience. This is most prominent in the National Basketball Association (NBA), where players are traded from team to team abruptly—tossed away like rag dolls with no regard for the “loyalty” teams want reciprocated. One player tossed away was All-Star Demar Derozan.When he was drafted by the Toronto Raptors in 2009, he instantly committed himself to the organization. For 10 years, Derozan  worked tirelessly on his basketball craft whilst simultaneously making Toronto his new home. He never wanted to leave.“I am Toronto. Outside of where I’m from, I represent this city harder than anybody. I got so many goals I want to accomplish still, I just can’t wait to put that jersey back on and keep going.” Derozan said after signing a five-year contract with the Raptors in 2016. Just two years after saying this, Derozan was unwillingly traded to the San Antonio Spurs. In his tenure, he garnered more accolades for the franchise than any other player since their inception in 1995. To NBA teams, trading loyal, star players like Derozan is just business.“Be told one thing & the outcome another. Can’t trust em. Ain’t no loyalty in this game. Sell you out quick for a little bit of nothing,” Derozan said on Instagram after the trade took place.More egregious is the trade of Isaiah Thomas from the Boston Celtics to the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2017. Thomas is a miniscule 5'9” point guard, drafted with the last pick of the 2011 NBA draft. After bouncing around a couple teams unable to find a good fit, he finds a perfect one in the Boston Celtics. The miniature guard has easily the best seasons of his career, averaged 29 points per game in 2017 and led the Celtics to the best record in the Eastern Conference that same season. During the playoffs, his sister tragically passed away in a car accident, yet Thomas still poured his heart into the Celtics playoff run as they fought to make an NBA finals.About three months later, Thomas was traded away to Cleveland Cavaliers.Yet in free agency—a time meant for players to solicit offers of increased salaries and new opportunities—players are called selfish for making their own decisions. The hypocrisy runs rampant in the association.Lebron James, from 2003-2010, was consistently let down by his Cavaliers organization. In his eight-year tenure there, he played alongside just two all star teammates—neither of which the casual fan would remember the name of. The team never drafted an all-star level player or got any big names in free agency except a washed-up Shaquille O’Neal, who was on his last legs in the NBA. It’s logical, then, that James would venture away from his hometown of Cleveland after his contract expired for a better opportunity. To the extent that teams can throw players and assets around on a whim in order to make money and win championships, it should be fair for players to pursue the same.But apparently the players don’t have this privilege; they are restricted to reluctant loyalty. James experienced constant booing in every arena he attended the next season and watched his fans burn his jersey all over the internet, just because he made a decision to leave his team. Even Gordon Hayward got booed loudly in his old Utah Jazz stadium after leaving for the Boston Celtics. Hayward led the Jazz to their first playoff berth in six years in 2017, and was their first all star in the same timespan.Some would argue that players should be loyal as it prevents ring-chasing. For those unaware, ring-chasing is when players purposely come together on one team via free agency in order to win a championship, subsequently making this lucky team “overpowered.” Yes, ring-chasing is considered bad as it dwindles parity in the league, but don’t NBA teams also ring chase? In 2008, the Boston Celtics acquired two Hall of Fame assets in the same offseason—Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen—to pair alongside Hall of Famer Paul Pierce and allstar Rajon Rondo. They won the championship the following season. When players ring-chase, their main goal is to win a championship—a fundamental goal of all NBA teams.I would also argue that the loss of parity in the league is less than one would believe despite ring-chasing. At the time of writing this article, four separate teams in the Eastern Conference have a genuinely strong chance to make the NBA finals, and the Golden State Warriors, despite being the poster child for ring-chasing, are only two games ahead of the second place Denver Nuggets in the Western Conference. Some might also say that since Golden State has won the championship every season, there is no point to watch the same, prolonged finals year after year. Viewership, however, has actually improved since “ring chasing” became an issue. Although not matching the absurdly-high TV rating of the ’90s, game seven of the 2016 NBA finals was the third most watched finals game in history at 31.02 million viewers. Compare this to the relatively-measly 19 millions views for game seven of the 2005 NBA finals, and it’s abundantly clear that regardless of what fans say, the league has not been hurt by ring chasing and players making their own decisions in free agency.As a message to all fans who even casually watch the NBA: players leaving teams on their own accord has not hurt the league at all. If you get mad at a player for leaving a team in search of money or a championship, please recognize that your favorite teams are throwing assets around like a game of catch. You either get mad at both the teams and the players, or you get mad at neither. There is no inbetween.