Salt Lake City, Utah – Kevin Durant And Kyrie Irving defended making trade requests during their All-Star Weekend practice media availability on Saturday, with Durant even going as far as calling it “awesome.” for the tournament.”
Hours later, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, who has repeatedly staunchly denounced players for making commercial claims, was asked for his thoughts on Durant’s remarks.
Silver said: “Well, I fail when it comes to player movement, I usually think of that as a positive. “In fact, we designed this current collective bargaining agreement with shorter contracts, for example, with the way free agency works, to allow for that.
“… That’s very different from the so-called trading requirements. I think, in fact, the Players Association has agreed with us in our current collective bargaining agreement, which has the rules against making requests for public transactions. I’ve said it many times before. I think it’s a bad thing. I think it’s corrosive to the system.”
A few days before the transaction deadline, Irving – quickly followed by Durant – both requested to be traded by brooklyn network. Irving, who was making $38.9 million and in the final year of his contract, landed with Dallas Mavericks. Durant, who originally asked to be traded over the summer and under a four-year, $198 million contract, was dealt with phoenix sun.
When asked if commercial demand would have an adverse effect on the league, Durant offered the opposite view to Silver.
“I don’t think it’s bad for the league,” Durant said. “The tournament is getting more attention, more people are excited. The tweets that I get, and the news that we get from me being traded, Kyrie being traded, just makes the tournament a success. more attention, and that’s really what makes the tournament more noticeable. You make money when you get more attention. Honestly, I think that’s great for the league.”
Irving added that players will be able to do what’s best for them.
“What is the bad situation and why is no one able to request the transaction?” Irving asked. “That was my question when did it get so bad to make great business decisions for yourself and your happiness and peace of mind. Not every employer will. work with, so if you get the chance go somewhere else and you’re doing it legally, I don’t think there’s a problem with it.”
This is a pivotal moment for the NBA and NBPA, both of which have agreed to extend the deadline for opting out of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement to March 31. During All-Star Weekend, analyst Charles Barkley of TNT told reporters he believes the issue of players making commercial claims could cause problems in negotiations.
“You can’t take my money and say you want to divorce me in six months to a year because you can only get the most out of this team,” Barkley told reporters on Thursday. “You can’t take all my money and say, ‘Hey, I want a divorce.’ So I’m pretty sure that’s the next thing that’s going to happen with CBA. I have no doubt that these people will be locked out.”
However, Silver said he was not concerned with that particular issue.
“I’m not because, as I said earlier, we’ve agreed with the Players Association that public commercial claims are inappropriate,” Silver said. “It currently exists as detrimental behavior in our CBA and that is not an area of discussion between us and the Players Association.”
(Of course, when things get murky it’s because players rarely make trade requests publicly. What often happens is that their trade requests get leaked, which inevitably puts a similar amount of pressure on them. self-organized.)
Silver also talked about another hot issue in the NBA: Load management.
When asked if there had been any discussions with the NBPA about playing 82 games for a longer period, such as a 170-day format, or reducing the number of games played, he said he was “no.” never say never” with those ideas undisputed, but added that there is no data to prove it reduces injury.
“I don’t think we necessarily need to approach it in a way that is antithetical to the Players Association,” Silver said. “We are working collectively with our doctors, data scientists and trying to see if there is an optimal way for player performance. If that means at one point in time. At some point, we concluded that we’d be better off extending the schedule to reduce the return time – that’s worth considering, for example, if we think reducing the number of games is reasonable, then we will.”
As for Durant, he made his stance very clear on that topic. When asked if he would like to reduce the number of games in a season, he did not hesitate to answer.
“No,” he said.
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