NBA ‘trade’ game

LET’S play a game. Assuming you are in the front office of a National Basketball Association team, say, its president of basketball operations, or the general manager. And you have to come up with a decision one way or another.

Here’s a second-tier player who is still under contract but posts in his Facebook account these words: “Play me or trade me.” What would you do? Put him in the freezer? Place him on waivers or grant his wishes and trade him?

For some hoops followers, trading him would seem like belittling the value of a contractual obligation. It’s as if allowing the prisoners to run the jail is an honorable thing to do. Then again, what happens to an unhappy camper?

Most likely he won’t be giving his very best on the floor anyway and may even be the source of dissension on the team. Which way do you go?

The case above is hypothetical, of course.

But the two cases hereunder are not. Visualize you have been assigned to resolve these issues.

The first case involves a league top-10 superstar who has been the No. 1 offensive option on his team for the past six-plus seasons. He has two years and over $54 million remaining on his contract that has a no-trade clause, granted ironically by the team president himself.

But in the past season, this team president, who has since been dismissed, openly made it known that it was best for the player and the organization to part ways and even maligned the superstar by describing him as a ball hog and claiming he was better off with another team with championship aspirations. He wanted the high-scoring star to waive his no-trade clause that automatically carries a 15-percent kicker in his salary if traded.

The team was determined not to accommodate any request for a buyout. A standoff developed as the superstar was adamant in not waiving his no-trade option and even wanted to stay with the team no matter what. Then the incumbent team president and the franchise owner mutually agreed to severe their relationship. Now here comes the new president, who is the erstwhile GM, and the newly-minted GM of the sad-sack franchise. The duo’s first agenda is to resolve the superstar’s case one way or another.

The dysfunctional team, in a 180-degree turn, now wants the superstar back on the fold but the superstar has since changed his mind, too, and wants to move out of the East and join a close buddy, an All-Star playmaker whose trade wish was granted by his former team, in a Big Three combination headed by a perennial Most Valuable Player prospect out West.

The buyout remains out of the question but this high-scoring superstar is now willing to waive his no-trade bargaining chip if he is jettisoned to any of his two preferred landing destinations, including the aforementioned top West outfit. This superstar has now even offered to waive his 15-percent trade kicker worth $8.125 million.

You are the team president or the general manager of this team, what do you do?

Case No. 2: A top-level star player under contract requests – if not demands – a trade from the team ownership because he wants to be the focal point of the team but could only be a secondary figure for some time because there is another superstar – the alpha dog – ahead of him in the player hierarchy, if not in the salary department, or both.

Note that the aforementioned player has no no-trade clause in his contract, which has two years left worth $20 million annually plus a third year on a player option.

Do you grant his trade request? If not, what do you do, Mr. PBO or GM?

By the way, these are “real” issues you have to deal with. Be honest for Carmelo Anthony and the New York Knicks and Kyrie Irving and the Cleveland Cavaliers are listening.