Loyalty: A quality so sought after in the real world, yet in the small circles of the NBA, seemingly nonexistent. Money and fame stand as the suppressor to this loyalty, causing distrust between players and owners and leading fans to wonder if their loyalty to certain players and teams means anything anymore.
Over a week ago, headlines rang that Kevin Durant was going to the Golden State Warriors. Many responded with anger, seeing a super team as a threat to their own team’s chances and as a pathetic way for Durant to try to get his first championship. Others responded with elation, seeing the possibility for a team that could go down in history as one of the best ever, a team so good that they could be talked about for generations to come. But what seemed lost in it all was what he was leaving.
Rewind a month or so, and the headlines portrayed something so extraordinary that many thought the above-mentioned headline would never occur. It spoke to the thousands of Oklahoma City fans turning out with signs and posters to greet their Thunder team as they got off the plane after blowing a 3-1 series lead over the Golden State Warriors and losing a heartbreaking Game 7. This is what Durant chose to leave. He chose to leave a city that he was the face of. A state that had already inducted him into its hall of fame. A fan base that had loved him for the last nine years. In pursuit of what? The fame he believes a championship offers.
Sadly, this lack of loyalty extends to the owners and executives in the NBA, too, and even the league's supposedly most loyal team.
Just last week it was announced that Dwayne Wade was leaving the Miami Heat after spending his entire 13-year career with them. Blame was cast, some at Wade, but mostly at the Heat for how a relationship that had seemed so strong for so many years had deteriorated and come to this. Slowly the puzzle was pieced together to see just where each party had gone wrong. The image that was revealed was sad: one of Wade continually taking pay cuts for the good of the Heat organization, so much so that never once was the best player in the history of their organization the highest paid player on his own team. And then in an off-season where he was supposed to sign a contract that would bring his career to an end in Miami, he was thrown to the back burner, made to wait and see just how much money would be left for him after the Heat signed virtually everyone else.
And when Wade finally left, all NBA fans grieved — everyone tied to the Miami organization grieved. Dwayne Wade was the success story of the league. A man so loyal that he was willing to sacrifice money and fame for the good of his team. A man who continually chose to stay with the city that loved him. A man who saw the value in ending his career where it began. And as he announced his departure, the Heat realized their devastating mistake. Throwing away not only a superstar, but something more rare in the NBA: a loyal man.
Loyalty. Does it have any value in the NBA anymore?