I don't recall you rooting for them prior to Mitchell and you never reference anyone on their team besides Mitchell who's at best their 2nd best player.

Right now you are obviously on Atlanta's bandwagon because of Trae Young. Its not the team. If you are now saying "oh yeah i do that" then you are validating Kirkwood's point.

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To whom you?

Chicago fans aren't running around rooting for the Bulls because Zach Lavine or Lauri Lauri Markkanen are on the team. Thats patently false. The place is sold out whether the Bulls win or lose.

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You missed Kirkwood's point. He was saying NBA fans care more about indiividual players than their favorite teams. He wasn't saying NBA fans like their favorite team the most but also generally like a few other guys around the league. That applies to all sports fans. There's nothing really to debate here

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Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I don't even know how you got this turned around on this topic

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

If that is what he was stating then he is largely correct.

All you have to do is look at the Bulls thread for validation.

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So, to be clear, you think most NBA fans don't have a favorite team. That's your position?

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

These players are only signing supermax contracts with current teams and then getting traded a year later. There should be a monetary penalty. You should lose the extra year and guaranteed salary that only the current team can offer a FA if you demand a trade within the first 2 years of a deal, or something like that.

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Rick Hahn is the best GM in baseball.

I don't think they should be punished for trade demands. I do think they need to start putting language in the contract that fines a player for every game he sits out while healthy while "demanding" a trade, and suspend him without pay for the following year if he voluntarily sits out a year trying to force a trade.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

That isn't relative to Kirkwood's point either. They can have a favorite team but it doesn't mean that their love of certain players doesn't exceed their love of team.

You aren't a fan of the Jazz. You are a fan of Donovan Mitchell. I doubt you're a fan of Spurs either. You love Tim Duncan and later Kawhi.

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Look back at the playoffs thread. I was rooting for the Spurs. It's weird you would question that but I'm not gonna argue with you on it. Go ahead and think I don't like the Spurs

If someone's love for a player exceeds their team fandom I wouldn't say they have a favorite team. That's sorta where IMU is at right now. The overwhelming majority of fans aren't like that. There's no question which team I would root for if Mitchell played the Bulls in the Finals (lol).

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Should there be a monetary penalty for teams that trade a player who's signed the max and wants to stay with their current team but gets shipped off anyway within the first two years of their deal?

That's why I don't think you can fine a player for a demand. That's too far. I don't think it's unreasonable to fine and suspend them for voluntarily sitting out games while healthy. And there's precedent since the league already did it to SA before reluctantly allowing it.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

The issue with that as a solution is that I believe teams are already able to do this but they tend not to want to play those players themselves to avoid injury risk for someone they're likely to ship out. I think for both the Pelicans with Davis and the Timberwolves with Butler there was mutual interest in limiting those guys' minutes.

And in the case of the Spurs, I believe they were so accommodating in part because they thought they could convince him to stay. That situation was so weird and unique that I doubt anything like that happens again, but if it does, I imagine the team that's affected could make it a lot uglier than the Spurs did.

I don't think it would be hard to include some type of clause that allows a player and team to mutually agree to sit him for a few games while a trade is worked out. If it goes beyond a few games start fining the team heavily. If the team doesn't agree to the player sitting out, fine the player and suspend him further games for every one he sits out. That's the ticket right there.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

If Mitchell is traded away from the Jazz tomorrow then your love for the team ends immediately. That means that you really aren't a fan of the Jazz. You are essentially just a fan of Donovan Mitchell.

Same with the Nuggets by the way. You are essentially the guy that Kirkwood is talking about but you don't seem to recognize it.

As far as the Spurs go i can't remember you referencing any of the players at any point last season.

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The solution is to not give in to the guy's demands. Either that or do as the NFL does and institute non guaranteed contracts.

Make all of the contracts non guaranteed and then you might eliminate this sort of thing.

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Kirkwood said NBA fans like players, not teams. My favorite team is the Bulls, and there's no other team close. And yes, like all other sports fans, I have players not on my favorite team I root for. That's not at all what Kirkwood was saying in his initial post.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

True story.

My two favorite NBA teams are whatever teams employ Trae Young and Lonzo Ball.

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The NBA actually has a competent union and would never in a million years agree to non-guaranteed contracts. That plus the already existing ability of teams to trade players would still leave me wondering why it's perfectly okay for teams to screw over players in the name of business while players get ripped for lack of loyalty.

I also don't see why just removing the max wouldn't have the same effect. Stars would have to leave a lot more money on the table in order to team with each other if they could actually get paid their market value.

I don't need a reinterpretation. It was fairly clear and for the record i do think you love Kawhi more than you love the Bulls. Thats fairly evident. You kove Kawhi More than you love The Spurs. Hell you kove Kawhi more than you love the game itself.

Even if you don't feel that way then you are simply one person.

Others on here frequently expressed how they were rooting For Thibs and Butler to give it to Paxson and the Bulls.

How can you stand here and suggest that these guys were bigger fans of the Bulls than they were of Butler? There were a lot of them on here expressing this particular viewpoint by the way.

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Awesome

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

The NBA doesn't need both owners and agents.

Get rid of one or the other - or more accurately let the agents own the teams. For example, Rich Paul can put all of his clients on the Lakers, until he realizes that a few of them are busters and cuts them loose.

It'd be one step above rec league registrations in some ways, but if that's what the players want and there are ways to police against game fixing and tanking, then there's certainly enough money floating around to make this happen.

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"When people want their version of the truth, they go find it, no matter how baseless their beliefs." -- Ken Rosenthal

I think the big concern is that the trend seems to be that even well run organizations have no real way of keeping superstars. Kawhi literally had a championship winning team around him and left to go to the LA Clippers who are better run but still mostly a punchline even in their hometown. The second winner of free agency was a very poorly run franchise that just so happens to be in a cool place to live. Last year, the Lakers who have been run pretty horribly for years got LeBron because it was easier to film Space Jam 2. Then, when you are a team and realize this reality you get the league office getting on you for tanking games going after Zion Williamson, who will likely just end up playing the prime of his career in a more fun area with fellow NBA superstars Ja Morant and Carsen Edwards.

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Clippers and Nets are two of the most well run teams in the league.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

Is that sarcasm?

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You do not talk to me like that! I work too hard to deal with this stuff! I work too hard! I'm an important member of the CSFMB! I drive a Dodge Stratus!

Bulls better get to work on Space Jam 3.

This is not ten years ago. They are well run now.

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No, it's true. Over the last couple years almost every single move both teams have made went perfectly and set both franchises up for their moment this offseason. What's the argument against my post?

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul

I actually don't have a problem with it. The teams still control the players while they are under contract. OKC didn't have to give in to Paul George. They could have said no. No one forced their hands and to be honest they would have been stupid not to take the deal that the Clippers were offering. Actually the team whose hands were tied was the Clippers. It wasn't OKC's. Same with the Lakers.

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OKC needs to get rid of Westbrook ASAP and hand the keys to your boy SGA.

_________________
Fare you well, fare you well
I love you more than words can tell
Listen to the river sing sweet songs
To rock my soul