Carmelo Anthony NOT Traded To Bulls; Deal Shows Everything Wrong With NBA

First, how would you like it if an NFL blogger right after Adrian Gonzalez got traded to the Red Sox and said “this is why the NBA sucks.” I think you would probably take issue with it.

As to specific complaints:

First of all, deals like this are made almost strictly for salary-cap reasons. The Nuggets are in seventh place in the West and could move up three or four spots — why would they want to trade their best player? Granted, they got several pretty good players in return, but right now — when teams begin jockeying for playoff position — is probably the worst time to mess up your team chemistry.

This trade wasn’t made for “salary-cap” reasons. It was made because the Nuggets aren’t true championship contenders (just making the playoffs in the NBA doesn’t mean a whole lot) and Carmelo Anthony doesn’t want to re-sign there. The Nuggets wanted to make sure they salvaged something out of losing their franchise player. It’s no different than when stars like Cliff Lee or CC Sabathia get traded at the deadline in baseball. The main difference is that in MLB stars leave small markets for financial reasons, while in the NBA stars leave small markets for personal reasons (winning, desire to be in a bigger market etc.)

Second, this isn’t quite a LeBron James deal, but it was basically dictated by Anthony, who sent out the message loud and clear that he wanted a contract extension, something the Nuggets apparently weren’t willing to give. It was just a matter of finding a team that was willing, and the curious dance back and forth with the Nets and Knicks had to be distracting to Denver. How can you focus on winning when your best player doesn’t really want to be there?

First, what’s wrong with a “LeBron James deal.” Why are free agents permitted to leave their teams in other sports, but not in the NBA? Second, the Nuggets were perfectly willing to give Melo an extension, he just didn’t want to stay there. As far as Melo dictating where he wanted to go, that’s really not all that unusual both in sports in general and throughout NBA history. Examples such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Roy Halladay come to mind.

This sort of thing has been taken to absurd heights by ESPN, which now has an NBA Trade Machine on its website, where you as a fan can construct deals. For example, I just got Kobe Bryant traded to the Bulls, in exchange for Luol Deng, C.J. Watson, Ronnie Brewer, Brian Scalabrine, Omer Asik, James Johnson, Taj Gibson, Kurt Thomas and Keith Bogans.

On what planet does that make any sense? The site told me “This trade is successful!” So what? So it matched salaries. This is how fantasy sports has begun to ruin following teams. Fans are constantly making up trades that might make sense in a fantasy league where you’ve got the player for a couple of months, but would be ridiculous in real life.

I don’t think you really understand the purpose of the trade machine. Because of the salary cap, salaries must be matched in order to make a trade. The purpose of the trade machine is to give fans an idea of what trades are actually possible. Sure, fans can make up totally unrealistic trades, but that is true in any sport. I don’t see how that possibly detracts from anything. You have written full-length columns suggesting multiple trades in the past. How does that ruin sports?

This deal isn’t going to help the Timberwolves, for example; they’re just included in this deal (and so is Curry, who may never play in the NBA again) for cap reasons.

That’s also false. The Wolves were included in this deal because they were able to get rid of a player they didn’t need (Corey Brewer) in order to obtain a good prospect with lots of potential (Anthony Randolph). What’s so bad about that?

The NBA has 30 teams and under the current structure, probably a third of them go into each season with zero chance of making the playoffs. It’s great if you’re a fan of the Lakers, Heat, Celtics, Spurs or, now, the Bulls — but NBA fans in Washington, Minnesota, New Jersey, Sacramento and other outposts who never sniff the playoffs must be thinking, “Why bother?”

Yes, the NBA is a very cyclical league. Right now those teams you mention are pretty bad. However, all of those teams have been in the playoffs recently and all except Washington have been in a conference finals within the last decade. It’s not as if those teams won’t ever be able to compete. How does this compare to baseball where small market teams like Pittsburgh and KC seem to be perpetually in last place?

I don’t know the answers to these issues, but they have to be fixed. Players shouldn’t be able to dictate these deals. The NBA is real close to being permanently broken.

I don’t know if you noticed but NBA tv ratings are up 20-30% across the board this season. Attendance is up slightly. The NBA is having it’s most succesful season since Michael Jordan retired. Seems like the NBA isn’t exactly suffering from LeBron James’ decision to exercise his FA rights and go to Miami.