The NBA world is currently waiting on the resolution of two star trade demands, as Damian Lillard has asked the Blazers to trade him to the Heat and James Harden has asked the Sixers to trade him to the Clippers.
While trade requests are nothing new, the trend of star players not just asking out but having one specific team in mind they want to get traded to — thus tanking their trade value in the process — is a fairly recent phenomenon. The Blazers and Sixers are currently holding out in hopes of maybe getting a better offer, but there doesn’t seem to be much optimism from the outside world that either will get the surprise offer they’re hoping in order to force the Heat and Clippers, respectively, into putting more on the table.
Plenty of media pundits have talked and written about trade demands with only one team on their list being a bad trend, but it’s also a sentiment shared by some players below that superstar level. Austin Rivers recently spoke about that on his Off Guard podcast with The Ringer, explaining why he thinks it’s “bad for the league” and expressed his frustration with how stars are separating themselves further and further from the rest of the league’s players — including a brief note about how the new CBA only worsens that divide.
“If you were a free agent, then you could choose where you were gonna go… This started with James [Harden] and Ben [Simmons] and all these guys doing this sh*t. It’s bad for the league.”
Austin Rivers on Damian Lillard’s trade demand
(via ringernba/TT)pic.twitter.com/IsBfRAlace
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) July 24, 2023
There’s a lot in this, and Rivers tries to make clear this isn’t a Dame issue he has but a larger problem with how stars seem to want to be above the business of the NBA by signing a long-term contract to maximize their earnings and then very quickly trying to dictate a trade somewhere else. It is interesting because for years we have heard about “player empowerment” in this era, but that may be a misnomer, as it’s more “star empowerment” as only a select few get to enjoy that kind of leverage. Whether they’re wrong for using that leverage you could easily argue they’ve earned by being the best is an entirely different conversation, but it does seem to irk some of the players below them in the NBA’s hierarchy who get traded on a whim and just have to deal with it