The summer of 2010 will be one of the most chaotic for the NBA with big-name players making big-name moves to earn even bigger money. Simply put: the “Summer of LeBron.”
LeBron James, the 23-year-old multimillionaire, will likely be leaving Cleveland to set up camp in illustrious New York City to don a New York Knicks jersey for the 2010-11 season. But why would James leave the team that he single-handedly won a NBA Eastern Conference title with a few season ago?
Money. And New York is willing to sell off its current team to get him at nearly any costs.
No matter what the Knicks have done on the court during the last few seasons, it will all be wiped clean the first time James sets foot in Madison Square Garden. Fans will be there to watch him put on an athletic display unlike any other in the NBA. They will come as if they haven’t missed a beat since the late ’90s, while James will truly become king of one of the biggest and most powerful cities in the world.
This, I feel, is the downfall of the professional sports of our time. Leagues have transformed from athletes and teams to employees and corporations. Players such as LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Chris Bosh, Amare Stoudemire, Paul Pierce, Ray Allen, Tyson Chandler, Manu Ginobili, Richard Jefferson, Joe Johnson, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, Steve Nash, Dirk Nowitzki and Michael Redd will be among the unrestricted free agents during the summer of 2010.
These players are the cream of the crop in the NBA, yet they have no problem signing with another team as long as the money is right.
Now, I obviously don’t claim to know everything there is to know about an NBA contract, but I do understand team loyalty. Or at least what it used to be. And it seems to me that the Reggie Millers and the John Stocktons of the NBA are simply a thing of the past. Players no longer feel that it’s important to play their entire career for one team in one city; instead, their goal is to collect as much money as possible from anywhere they can.
While it is not guaranteed that all of these players will sign with other teams, a majority of them will. That’s why there is already so much buzz around the summer of 2010, though 2009 could shake up the NBA with some equally big-named players becoming unrestricted free agents as well. Kobe Bryant, Carlos Boozer, Allen Iverson, Ron Artest, Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, Andre Miller, Lamar Odom and Rasheed Wallace will be out on the table next summer.
As an avid basketball fan, I find myself a bit torn over the situation. A large part of me dislikes the lack of team loyalty among today’s athletes, while the other part can’t help but to be excited to see where all the big-name players end up.
In the end, if I were to give my two cents to NBA players about team loyalty it would be this: In one game of basketball, you guys make more money than most Americans make in a year of working. In one season, you make more than most Americans make in a lifetime. So why not stick around and please the fans who have supported you night in and night out? No matter where you wind up, you’re already getting paid millions to play a game.
Stay classy.
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