NBA: How Free Agency has evolved to give power to the player

In the past 10 years, we have seen more and more athletes use NBA Free Agency as a means to team up; Is this the trend the league will continue to follow?

As the major signings and blockbuster trades settle nearing the end of the offseason, we’ve seen many players change jerseys, resulting in a refresh and reloaded NBA. Though this has become commonplace in our basketball world today, in the 1990s even to the late 2000s, players didn’t have the polarizing ability to hold their organizations hostage with their contracts or trade demands.

Entering Free Agency was an opportunity to increase your salary, or experience a new city, rather than topple the balance of the league itself.

With a continually inflating salary cap, teams are always given new reasons to sign new contracts with players, and in tandem with the National Basketball Players Association, these contracts have even more rules and regulations to them, including minimum salaries depending on their prior accolades.

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What does this mean for the League in the future? It means that the freedom to sign, granted to players, becomes a race to decide what super team to form. Seeing the complex journey of Paul George, being traded out of Indiana, signing a four-year max contract with Oklahoma City, and then forcing his way out, resulting in the Los Angeles Clippers collecting both George and ex-Raptors Kawhi Leonard.

Anthony Davis’ debacle of displeasure with New Orleans leading to his inevitable move to Los Angeles, teaming up with LeBron James on the Los Angeles Lakers is another example.

The Brooklyn Nets acquiring NBA Champions Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving, as well as veteran center DeAndre Jordan, was another occurrence of player power. And we also can’t forget Al Horford coming out of the blue and signing with Philadelphia.

Even in the case of Chris Paul and Russell Westbrook, both victims of inflated salaries and minimums, ended up leaving teams they had become accustomed to, to remain competitive in a loaded Western Conference.

What started as unheard of, calling back to South Beach warmly welcoming two All-Star forwards, has now become a regular occurrence. The sought-after contract extensions that would allow the Kobe Bryant, Tim Duncan, and Dirk Nowitzki‘s of this generation to remain loyal to an organization, are much less common, and even those that are signed, are even less likely to be seen through the entirety of their duration.

In what has become an arms-race of talent throughout the NBA, though some of the commotions from Kevin Durant’s infamous My Next Chapter has dissipated, and the balance of skill in the league seems to have finally been restored, or at least regulated, the coming seasons will likely see even more movement, with even higher price tags.

Not only do players hold significant control of the organizations they play for prior to their departure via Free Agency, but the teams they look to join are subject to approval by the player more than ever. Marquee free agents, unlike in the past, have considerable say in their contract negotiations, specifically for the conditions that they set out for the hopeful organization. These can range from requests to acquire other stars or role players, and should they fail to meet them, then they run the risk of losing the players they so deeply sought after.

Inevitable as the sun rising and setting, we will see the salary cap jump to $116 million for the 2020-21 season, further rising to $125 million in the 2021-22 season. As a result, players have significant reason to explore Free Agency, as they can not only seek a more sizable paycheck but look to create a brand-new basketball superpower, one that only perpetuates the competition for dominance.