This is Suns. 54 years old. They own the NBA’s longest championship drought among teams that have never won the title. They could gain another infamy in the coming weeks.
They may be the NBA’s last super team.
Good troublesome payment. Unless it is the receiving side.
Super teams are commonly described as three elite players gathered in a city of choice for the championship. They are despised for choosing the path with the least resistance and for accomplishing all of them. Whether it was karma or poor culture, these teams were often epic failures.
One of them was 2021-22 Brooklyn Nets, a team built by Kevin Durant, and what he is currently trying to escape. The difference is that Durant is not a free agent. His contract lasts four years and is close to $ 200 million. If he forced Nets to trade him for a lower value (certainty), he would have done incredible damage to one of the league’s franchises.
That’s why Commissioner Adam Silver set foot on Tuesday. In a post-season media briefing, he revealed that he wasn’t happy with Durant and emphasized that NBA players need to respect the deal. Unlike his predecessor, Silver is a player-friendly commissioner. But his tone is inevitably beginning to change. Prior to Game 1 of the 2021 NBA Finals, Silver used a press conference to blame load management and emphasized that the rest increased by 100%, despite no evidence that the strategy would work. .. A year later he ran for Durant. He seems to have enough player empowerment in the NBA.
At the very least, Silver understands that the perceptual problems that accompany many of his marquee performers are increasing. It’s a league full of Prima Donnas, now recognized as a player who has to ask to play a basketball game, despite top-notch life and huge guaranteed contracts.
“Frankly, I don’t know if (Durant) requested or requested a deal,” Silver said. “This needs to be a two-way path. The team provides players with enormous security and assurance, and in return they are expected to reach the end of the negotiations.
“I see a constant conversation between the player, his representative, and the team in a closed room. But I don’t want to see the player demanding a trade, and that’s it. I don’t even want to see it play like. “
Durant is a hard case and is fiercely and involuntarily loyal to himself. Silver has no power to bring him back to Brooklyn with guilt. But he can make one-way departures nearly impossible in the next few years. Especially if he can prove the constant turmoil and instability to be an economic waste of all involved.
Silver has revealed that unjustified trade demands will be part of the NBA’s agenda for future labor negotiations with the NBAPA. This means that Sands may be the last gasping of the NBA Super Team.
First, they need to get Durant. Good or bad. Despite the incoming and imminent hatred. Before it’s too late.
Contact Bickley at dbickley@arizonasports.com. 98.7 FM Listen to Bickley and Marotta mornings at the Arizona Sports Station from 6am to 10am.
