In the recent years of the NBA, there has been a glaring issue. And that is superstars asking for trades. Now this is a normal occurrence in all sports, but it is getting to a ridiculously absurd extent now. Stars are demanding trades left and right and even worse hold out if not traded. The first example of this in recent years is Kawhi Leonard with the San Antonio Spurs. Even though he was cleared to play off injury he did not play because of grievances with the organization. He would later be traded to the Toronto Raptors where he won a championship in 2019. This has sparked a new movement of stars demanding out to better situations. While there is nothing wrong with that, the players hold out and not play if they are not traded. This puts the organization in a terrible position as they still need to get a good trade package back but they have no leverage. The player can hold out until the organization just has to settle for an offer. After Leonard did it, Anthony Davis did it in New Orleans and was traded to the Los Angeles Lakers where he won a championship. Both Davis and Leonard winning championships highlights another problem, nowadays all the fans and media care about is championships. This leads to the fans and media devaluing amazing players because they have “no rings”. So obviously players don’t want that to be their legacy so they want to be in the best situation to win. After players retire, people won’t care how they won their ring, but just that they won a ring. This has led to great players with no championships desperate to win one. The best example is James Harden. James Harden is one of the most exceptional players of our generation but he gets devalued so much for having no championships and lack of playoff success. When he saw the ship sinking in Houston he requested out and pulled some ridiculous antics to get out of Houston. Like gaining extra weight and being a locker room cancer. When he was shipped off to Brooklyn things seemed fine for a bit until that ship struck an iceberg. He then requested out of

Brooklyn and was shipped off to Philadelphia. And surprise surprise as soon as things fizzed out in Philly he requested out. Granted, the Philly situation is a bit more complicated but the same idea still stands. Harden really wants a ring. And it looks like he’s going to do whatever antics it takes to get on the team he wants. There was one star who was a pillar of loyalty and anti-trades, and that was Damian Lillard. Lillard has been the face of the Portland Trailblazers for a decade and has said on multiple occasions that he wants to stay no matter how bad things get. And things have gotten really bad in Portland. But it looked like he would stay. But the pillar of loyalty eventually crumbled. Lillard requested a trade this summer. Now people actually wanted this because Portland was going nowhere and Lillard deserved an opportunity to win, but Lillard requested a trade in the worst way possible. He said he wants to go to the Miami Heat and will not happily play for any other team. People obviously did not like this for good reason. Neither did the league which told him to stop those comments. So now the question is how do we stop this? I do think that players should be allowed to request trades out of bad situations. Organizations should not be able to hold a player hostage as they’ve done in the past. But players should also not be able to hold organizations hostage as they’re doing now. I think a good compromise would be to go about trade requests like NFL players do. In most cases if a NFL player requests a trade the player will still play until they are traded. Granted these are usually lower class players but still. These players are still under contract with their organization thus they should fulfill it. And the fans and media should really stop only valuing championships. Too many legends have been discredited due to lack of championships. Carmelo Anthony, Patrick Ewing, and Allen Iverson just to name a few. The change of how we view players after they retire will lead to healthier landscape for both the fans and the players.