BRISBANE, Australia—After soaking it in, after a frenzy of celebrations, after the equivalent of a heart-tugging ticker-tape parade, a hero’s homecoming in the heart of Oakland, the Golden State Warriors, the new National Basketball Association (NBA) champions, settled down to the business of deciding whether they could live another day with the same lineup to defend the title next season.
The first whiff of a major decision floated when Warriors’ superstar Stephen Curry went on Twitter to wish David Lee well and offered a remembrance to fans, his first meeting on the court. That was when everyone got wind of the news that Lee, the ex-All-Star veteran power forward who had started in most games for the Warriors the past several seasons, is bound east, on the Atlantic coach, to suit up with the Boston Celtics.
The Warriors’ front office handled Lee’s painful exit with grace and poise. Even if Lee had contributed only in spurts in the finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers, he had, at times, shown his class. His gifts as a scorer were diminished by a recent hamstring injury, and in the face of Draymond Green’s transformation into a defensive ace and an occasional outside sniper, Lee receded deeper into the bench, to the point he became almost unrecognizable to Coach Steve Kerr.
Loyalty, it appears, is not a strong suit in the NBA especially when one star—whether a bench luminary like Tom Thibodeau, whom the Chicago Bulls shipped out, or a player like Lee, who was the franchise’s first All-Star in 2013—is already perceived to have a diminishing value in the chase of a championship.
But beyond that perception is the bottom line. Kelly Dwyer reported on Yahoo! that the sticking point was Lee’s contract, signed in 2010, that pays him $75.5 million for six years. Golden State will take a massive luxury tax hit in 2015-2016, Dwyer wrote, “and paying for the luxury of keeping an ex-All-Star in the deep rotation was too much to handle.” Trading Lee, on the final year of his contract, to the Celtics was the best deal for him and Golden State, which will be paying six players in eight figures this year. He is leaving with a championship, according to a wire report, “and the respect of his teammates and loyal fans.”
More touching to see was a message posted on Instagram by All-Star guard Klay Thomspon, his young teammate. ‘’It’s tough to see my big bro D Lee go, Boston gotta great player and true pro. A true vet who looked out for me and all the young guys. I’m not alone in saying this but DubNation is gonna miss u my man!’’
As graceful as this was carried out, the departure from the Indiana Pacers by another David, surnamed West, was amazing for a completely different reason. West is leaving Larry Legend to take his act out west, to the Alamo, in the heart of the multititled San Antonio Spurs. After making it to the Eastern Conference finals two years in a row, and two years in a row lost the series in a heartbreaking way, the Pacers went into a tailspin last season.
In his chase after a championship ring, which West thinks would not happen with the Pacers, he is about to sign with the Spurs for the league minimum of $1.4 million. That means he is sacrificing $11.2 million of his guaranteed salary, all because of his belief that with Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Danny Green, who are all about to take less money to make this work, he would be playing under a coach who has wielded the baton to the tune of four NBA titles with the Spurs in more than a decade.
LaMarcus Aldridge earlier left the Rose Garden apparently also in search of the Holy Grail, and committed to the Spurs. It will not come cheap. The price tag is a hefty four-year maximum contract of $80 million. DeAndre Jordan earlier decided on Dallas. Two of the biggest names in this year’s free agency market are in the heart of Texas.
After the “market opened” on Wednesday, the pace was so dizzying that, “it feels there can’t be many good options left, even though contracts can’t even be signed until Thursday,” wrote Brian Mahoney of the Associated Press.
No one is surprised anymore at the dizzying pace that accompany the departure by players from one franchise to another, whether in search of a bigger contract, a championship team, or to reestablished credibility and respectability (as in the case of Rajon Rondo, who is signing with the Sacramento Kings).
No one talks about good, old-fashioned loyalty anymore. Well, of course, LeBron James so loved his long-suffering city of Cleveland that he found the heart to return to his roots last year in the hope of hanging a championship banner on its rafters. This, after a multiple-year, multimillion contract with the Miami Heat that secured his future.
I don’t call this team loyalty. LeBron, after all, left his city in agony when he abandoned the Cavs’ title chase he could not make happen and joined a team that realistically had a great chance to win it all, with him, Wade and Bosh forming its peerless core.
I saw his return to the Cavaliers as a move not about his city but more about himself, more about LeBron and his self-proclaimed greatness, even if Andrei Igoudala had emasculated him in moments of the NBA Finals when LeBron seemed to soar to the heavens, but, like a mortal with feet of clay, slumped back to earth.