Loyalty in the NBA | Bandera

Loyalty in the NBA

Henry Liao |November 30,2017
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Loyalty in the NBA

Henry Liao - November 30, 2017 - 12:07 AM

THERE is not much loyalty in the National Basketball Association. That is if we are to believe a pair of battle-scarred superstars in the world’s top professional league.

Kevin Durant of the reigning NBA titlist Golden State Warriors opted to leave his original employer for a championship team while German-born Dirk Nowitzki opted to take a third pay cut in his new two-year deal to keep his ties with the Dallas Mavericks for a record-tying 20th straight season.

According to the 7-foot, 39-year-old Nowitzki, concededly one of the greatest power forwards in NBA history, the modern NBA is more about winning and money and less about loyalty.

Nowitzki, of course, was not talking about himself. He is an exception to the rule.

There’s so much money flowing in the NBA with the skyrocketing rise in the salary cap as a result of the league’s current nine-year, $24-billion national television contracts (which took effect before the 2016-17 season) that most players – especially the second-tier ones – do not not stick around with one team for any sentimental value – such as loyalty – and opt to seek a bigger share of the financial pie at outrageous figures.

But not Nowitzki, who has been very loyal to the Mavericks – his current 20th campaign with them having tied Hall of Fame bound-Kobe Bryant (Los Angeles Lakers) for the NBA record for most consecutive seasons with a single franchise – so much so he has even gifted the only NBA club ever to employ him with a salary discount thrice over.

Last summer, Dallas exercised its option not to honor the final year of his two-year, $50-million contract – worth around $34 million. Mavs owner Mark Cuban could have given Nowitzki a “thanks-for-everything” reward by picking up the option – similar to the “farewell” two-year, $48-million guaranteed deal that the Lakers gave to the soon-to-retire Bryant. But Cuban didn’t.

Instead of pouting, Nowitzki embraced Cuban with all his love and loyalty by inking a new bargain-basement deal of $10 million over two years last July that included a player option after the 2017-18 wars. He left money on the table to give the Mavs salary cap flexibility to improve their roster.

Still the face of the Mavericks franchise until now, Nowitzki is one of only six players in NBA regular-season history – and the lone European – to reach the 30,000-point plateau in his career.

One of only three men to score 30,000 points or more with one team – the others being Karl (The Mailman) Malone with the Jazz and Bryant with the Lakers – the Mavs’ all-time leader in points and rebounds and one-time league Most Valuable Player during the regular season (2007) and NBA Finals (2011) is also one of only seven players to see action in at least 20 NBA seasons.

The word “loyalty” is alien to Durant, who defected to the Bay Area with the Golden State Warriors before the 2016-17 campaign following nine seasons with the Oklahoma City Thunder (including his rookie year with the Seattle SuperSonics, the harbinger of the Thunder).

“Ain’t no such thing (as loyalty),” said the 6-foot-11 forward, who helped guide the Dubs to the NBA crown last June and was the Finals Most Valuable Player. “You see disloyalty in different ways, but that’s one of the most underrated parts of the game. We scream loyalty, but we don’t expect it from the people writing the checks because they’re writing the checks.

“People say ‘You should be fine with it because you’re getting paid.’ I liked it better when I was naive about the NBA business, how f__ed up it is. That was better for me that way … You put money and business into something that pure, it’s going ___ it up.”

Money became secondary to Durant after earning his first title ring.

The NBA’s MVP awardee with the Thunder in 2014 signed a two-year, $54.3 million free-agent deal with the Warriors in July 2016 that included an opt-out clause after the first year.

Following the Dubs’ second championship in three years last June, Durant declined his $27.7 million option for 2017-18 and agreed to take a pay cut – a new two-year pact worth $53 million that includes a player option after this season – for Golden State to create enough salary cap space to re-sign their own free agents Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston and add free agents Nick Young and Omri Casspi.

In bankrolling $25 million in the current wars, the 29-year-old native of Washington, D.C. left $6.8 million on the table as he was eligible for a maximum contract starting at $31.8 million.

Durant’s pay cut helped Golden State avoid a hefty luxury tax bill amounting to around $25 million.

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Durant may have lost in the loyalty check with his departure from Oklahoma City but he certainly is worthy of praise for accepting less money in search for another title with the Warriors next June.

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