NBA DOUBLE STANDARD

 

On Monday night in a post-game press conference Draymond Green spoke about how he felt that there was a double standard on how players are treated when they request trades compared to when a team announces that they are looking to trade a player.  The Detroit Pistons and the Cleveland Cavilers have announced that they are looking to trade Piston’s Forward Blake Griffin, and Caviler’s Andre Drummond. The organizations have determined that they would have the players not play in games in order to keep them healthy so they can hopefully find a trade prior to the trade deadline on March 25^th or until they can agree to a buyout.

Draymond expressed that he wanted the players to be treated with the same respect as teams specifically when it comes to how media covers the stories and how fans react to players demanding trades. Some recent examples of players being vilified for demanding trades are James Harden, and Anthony Davis. Both players were made the bad guy by fans and the media for wanting out of their respected situations. In Harden’s case it can be argued it was self-inflicted due his behavior and him being unprofessional when dealing with his teammates and his amount of effort given during his games this season as a Houston Rocket. The Anthony Davis situation he was mad the bad guy unfairly especially when he went to management and said he wanted out and that he didn’t plan to re-sign when he became a free agent. He was willing to play but the New Orleans Pelicans put him in a sticky situation by putting a minute restriction on him which hurt the team’s chances to win games. They eventually traded him the Summer of 2019 to the Los Angeles Lakers, but they could have made the same deal they made in the summer during that previous season.

This brings about an interesting dynamic of employee compared to employer. Yes, everyone wants to be respected no matter your status or power in the workplace; but most people will show more respect and leniency towards the owner rather than the players. With that being said, the real issue is people are loyal to teams and not players. When a player wants out from your team, fans will turn against that player as though they are personally betrayed. If it goes the other way around fans will justify it as the team looking to the future or doing what is in the best interest of the organization.