Just hours before the NBA's annual trade deadline arrived on Feb. 10, a pair of Eastern Conference rivals hammered out a blockbuster deal that involved two disgruntled guards. The Brooklyn Nets elected to cut ties with James Harden, in exchange for a Philadelphia 76ers package headlined by Ben Simmons.
Following the trade, NBA commissioner Adam Silver admitted that he wished negotiations between the teams were more private and less obvious to fans. Of course, messy exits aren't a rarity. In an era of player empowerment, many stars leverage their talent to leave a certain situation, regardless of how dirty or clean the process may be. There's no simple solution to prevent the level of public trade requests. Ultimately, front offices get handcuffed.
"If you're in a front office, you don't want to lose someone for nothing... It becomes a difficult situation when that player has made his mind up that he wants to go," former NBA executive Pat Garrity told The DA Show on Friday. "And either stops giving you the kind of effort you need, there's trouble in the locker room, kind of passive-aggressive comments with the media. That is a big problem.
"But the problem for front offices is, you often don't have another means, if it gets past the deadline or you don't like what's on the table to get value back, to get that player to a situation where they're maybe more happy, and to do right by your fans and owners and replace him and go in another direction. I don't think there's any way the NBA can do anything about it. The trend that we've seen over the past decade is to allow for greater player movement..."
The entire NBA conversation between Garrity and DA can be accessed in the audio player above.
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