West Called Out Silver Over His Comments About Durant

We’ve had over 2 months to digest the Kevin Durant acquisition by the Warriors, and the gripes from fans as well as league executives still don’t have much objective basis to them.

Essentially people are mad that a free agent as talented as Durant chose to sign with an already talented team that maneuvered enough cap space to afford him.

Even Commissioner Adam Silver went out of his way to comment that he thought it was bad for the league, and that the next collective bargaining agreement needed to address situations like this.

The only problem is that I don’t know exactly what would be done to curtail something like this from transpiring: make it against the rules for a team with a certain amount of wins the previous season to sign an All Star during free agency?

Economic incentives for a player to re-sign with the team that drafted them were already implemented. A player can get more contract money by re-signing with their team instead of going elsewhere.

That’s not a guarantee that the player will stay, though. The only way to ensure that is to eliminate free agency altogether.

Also, regulations like that in the collective bargaining agreement indicate that a value is placed on drafting and developing players, and hence teams are discouraged from building via free agency.

Well the Warriors drafted Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green. They built their team exactly the way the league wants teams to go about it. How is this franchise a part of the “problem” Silver is alluding to?

The answer is relatively simple: the league isn’t mad that Durant left the Thunder, but that an already historic Warriors team got even better because they signed Durant.

That type of outrage is unfounded, because the Warriors simply signed a free agent with cap space they made available. How is that wrong?

If there’s no concrete basis for anger about what the Warriors did beyond the fact that the player is Durant and the team is the Warriors, the league is just upset that a great team got significantly better through a legal process.

The league is pouting without rational reasons to defend their displeasure, beyond just responding to other teams being jealous that the Warriors got better. That’s basically what Jerry West is saying.

West told “The TK Show” that he called Silver after the commissioner voiced his criticisms, saying that it wasn’t right to demonize Durant or the organization for what they did.

“It’s sour grapes,” said West, referring to any franchises in the league upset with the Warriors. “We signed Shaquille O’Neal and it wasn’t as big an uproar as this.”

West was the general manager of the Lakers when they famously signed O’Neal as a free agent in 1996.

West pioneered the technique of clearing cap space by trading veteran players for 2nd round draft picks, and he tinkered with the Lakers roster in that way to be able to afford bringing O’Neal aboard.

It’s a slightly different situation, though. O’Neal wasn’t going to a team that had set an NBA record for regular season wins the previous season.

While that could partially explain the relatively more mild outrage, the principle is still the same. Players can choose to sign with any team as a free agent.

They eliminate choices based on factors like not getting offered money they think is suitable to a player of their ability.

Free agency allows players to have more of a say in their NBA careers, instead of being beholden to the franchise that drafts them.

With the influx of new money from the lucrative TV deal the league signed, more cash was agreed to go to the players, resulting in a higher league-wide salary cap.

West pointed out that the owners negotiate with the players to create rules for free agency, and that their criticisms based on one instant of something going differently than they expected isn’t deserving of harsh condemnation.

West went on to say that he let Commissioner Silver know that he didn’t think the denunciation of Durant or the Warriors was justified.

“I told him I didn’t think the comment was fair,” said West. “It’s not fair to Kevin. It’s not fair to the Warriors. It’s not fair to any team going forward who will sign a free agent of this stature.”

West also spoke about the more general state of free agency, and that it has allowed the players to have more individual autonomy during their playing careers.

“The players bargained for this,” said West. “They have a chance to go play where they want to. I only wish I had that opportunity in my career and I’m sure a lot of other people felt the same way.”

This is extremely refreshing for a legendary player like West to say, and it is probably due to the fact that he has remained active in league affairs since his playing days ended.

He sees the benefit of free agency up close, instead of just focusing on skyrocketing salaries that are an obvious if not shallow takeaway from the process.

There too often seems to be a prevailing sentiment of former players that when they played, things were better, and that changes to a league’s landscape usually bring unsatisfactory consequences.

Jerry West: "If I had an opportunity to leave the Lakers I would have left" at one point in playing career (6:30) https://t.co/Awo2srGl4v

— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) September 17, 2016

The specific example I’m thinking of is Bill Bradley’s recent comments about not understanding why Durant joined the Warriors.

Bradley emphasized player loyalty back during his playing days, and that he spent his entire career with the Knicks.

It’s a misguided statement, because Bradley is somehow implying that there’s a character flaw to leaving a franchise.

Also, how convenient that Bradley didn’t have the option of free agency when he played, so he was essentially indebted to the Knicks for as long as they wanted him on their roster.

It’s easy to stay “loyal” when you have no option to leave. It doesn’t make sense for Bradley to pat himself and other players of his era on the back for staying with one team for an entire career, because they had no alternatives.

West is right to stick up for both the Warriors organization and Durant, because they did nothing wrong.

The only qualms with what transpired can either be found in an ideological opposition to free agency or the fact that the Warriors and Durant are too independently talented to join forces.

I don’t think a large portion of basketball fans wish to abolish free agency altogether, so the frustration isn’t directed towards the system, but rather an unusual outcome.

The rules were followed, and a player is now being criticized for making a choice to join a great team.

To overhaul a functioning system simply due to that instant is not only dramatic, but so petty. West summed it up perfectly when he called it “sour grapes.”

Had Durant chosen to sign with Boston instead of Golden State, nobody would have been angry. So the only way to prevent something like this in the future would be to put free agency impediments on teams of a certain talent level.

What level would that be, though? 60 wins? 70 wins? What would the specific restrictions be? A 70 win team can’t sign an All-Star? Or an All-NBA Team member?

So if the Warriors had signed a guy like Joakim Noah this offseason, that would have been okay? But Durant is “too good”?

A winding road of subjective labels on team success and player ability results from acting on the anger evoked by the Warriors and Durant.

West is right to call out any critics, because their displeasure is baseless. They’re simply upset that a dominant team signed another dominant player with cap space they had. That’s not a good enough reason to justify the frustration.