“Let me just take you through a timeline, okay? First, Golden State dumps Andre Iguodala, okay? At that moment, obviously, I’m like, that’d be great, right? A veteran, a winner, the young guys could learn a lot from him. Andre Iguodala makes it clear from the jump, he’s not playing there.”
Chris Vernon, The Ringer NBA Show
Andre Iguodala has long been a widely respected player in the league, with his amazing defensive aptitude, his seemingly unending athleticism, and his hard-nosed veteran leadership. This was all capitalized by his 2015 Finals MVP, which was a part of just one of his three championships. The addition of Andre Iguodala to the Memphis Grizzlies must have been a very satisfying move. As stated by Chris Vernon, that defensive leadership would be amazing to have especially to mentor the young guns such as Brandon Clarke who has a game very reminiscent of Iggy. Or to train Ja Morant on how to handle pressure in big games. He could have potentially been a big piece of the development of the solid young core that was being built by the Grizzlies’ front office. He would have been great to have, and Memphis DID want him, but he wanted no part of Memphis.
Andre Iguodala then had a TV interview and said: “I told my wife, they’ll probably trade me to Memphis or some shit.”
“Because oh the indignity of having to play for 17 million dollars for some place like Memphis, fine, get a trade on the table and until then just stay away, ‘cause you don’t want to be here anyway.”
Chris Vernon, The Ringer NBA Show
The people of Memphis love basketball, and they religiously follow the Grizzlies on par with Scientologists. It is the only major team that they have, and since the days of the grit and grind era they have shown up damn near every night to cheer on their team. To say that about the city of Memphis is disgraceful. No team in the NBA deserves to be mocked, every team has hardcore fans that love their team. People who have been in the city for generations and became a part of Memphis itself. To go out and mock it, just because it may not have the luster of the Bay, or Miami, or Los Angeles is absolutely embarrassing.
No person who has ever played at Memphis has had anything but love for that organization and that city, from the Gasol brothers to ZBo, Tony Allen, and Mike Conley. The fact that he had the audacity to think that he as the Vice President of the NBPA could say something about that city is beyond me. There have been a handful of players who have gone through the city of Memphis that were better than Iguodala could have ever wished to have been.
I think it is flat out disrespectful for Andre Iguodala to have done that, with his stature and his position his words are held to a higher standard than most players and he should be conscious of this.
And let us just go through the absolute travesty that was Iguodala’s media tour, mainly his appearance on First Take. He called his sabbatical a “blessing in disguise,” because he got to have “time off.”
Andre Iguodala treated this like he was using vacation time. But, he was making 17 million dollars while on vacation and he was vehemently refusing to come to work despite his employer’s wishes. I just can’t fathom winning 3 championships, being highly respected by the entire league, and still refusing to play because you want to win another championship. We live in an era where players get criticized on a yearly basis because they sign with teams that are already loaded, and “ring chase.” So why was it universally accepted that Iguodala could just force his way out of a team he was traded to, and players like Kevin Durant or LeBron James are heavily scrutinized for going to a team that they want to play on?
There is something inherently wrong with a player getting paid by one franchise and then going on live television and talking about what team he would most like to play on, how he’d fit in, and how he feels about being traded. That puts the team he is on in a very awkward position because rather than doing it on your own terms it turns into a gun race on getting him off the team before February 6th.
“And he leaks out, ‘I’ll sit out for the rest of the season if I’m not traded to this team, this team, or this team.’ So, therefore, attempting to sabotage a trade to anyone except for who he wants to play for.”
Chris Vernon, The Ringer NBA Show
What if a team such as Milwaukee, Oklahoma City, San Antonio, or Orlando traded for him? What would he do, kick his legs and cry? Say that those are just some irrelevant, shit cities? Yes, the Grizzlies got an amazing return for him, especially with the circumstances involved, but what if there was another offer on the table that was pulled because of his dramatics?
I don’t know, maybe I sound like an old head and maybe I sound like someone who hates Andre Iguodala. But, I know one thing for certain. That the vice president of the league’s player body should not do what Iggy did. A franchise should never be under the thumb of a single player. There is a chance that a dangerous precedent is being set, and that this drama-filled controversy may become more and more common. I will not go as far as to advocate for non-guaranteed contracts or anything along those lines because those are dangerous changes that could change the league in a completely different, and worse, way.
I am a major advocate for player rights and I think that they all deserve a voice and should be able to publicly state whatever they feel just as long as it is not detrimental to the standards of the league or the NBA as a whole. The NBA is hands down the most inclusive and fair league in the league in terms of how they treat their players, and Adam Silver has been absolutely instrumental in helping to advocate for the players on a consistent basis. The player body is the strongest in all of major sports, and that has been ingrained since the days of Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and even now with LeBron James.
However, I think that there is a line that can be crossed. Where what the players want outweighs the overall integrity of the league, and that while keeping players happy is at the forefront at all times, sometimes players just have to cut costs and deal with not getting what they want.
This has nothing to do with free agency, it is the player’s right to go to any team they want when they are a free agent. I have no problem with that. But, what we have been seeing recently is a swaying of the pendulum where players don’t even have to wait until free agency. Since the players make the league, that also comes with a sense of entitlement. In the past few years, we have seen something that we as NBA fans have never seen before. Multiple superstars have been demanding trades, forcing their way off of their teams no matter the circumstance, even though there have been multiple rules set in place to prevent this from happening. No matter how much conceding the league has made to help players be happy, the players have still found a way to get what they want outside of those boundaries.
At first, it was Kawhi Leonard, then it was Anthony Davis, and now it is Andre Iguodala. There is a dangerous precedent being set by some of the best and most respected players in the league. Where they don’t need to wait to sign with a team they want to play for, if they are unhappy they can simply force their way to a team by demanding a trade, and giving the franchises a hit list of franchises that they want to join. There is a line in the sand for how much a league will allow keeping its integrity. And that line is slowly being washed over.
