Unrestricted free agency means that players can use the threat of leaving via the open market to get teams to cave into their demands, whether it be Carmelo and LaLa deciding that they would rather be second round Sallies/failed reality stars in New York than Denver or Kobe threatening to take his talents to the other locker room in Staples Center unless the Lakers traded an aging Shaq. Too often teams are forced to trade star players in the NBA for less than fair value. The Nuggets-Knicks trade was reasonably fair given the man crush James Dolan has for Melo. Denver acquired three legitimate NBA starters and draft picks for an All Star and an aging yet very productive veteran in Chauncey Billups. They were able to make the best of a bad situation. Still, Dwight Howard and Chris Paul, both of whom can hit free agency after the 2012 season, can hold their teams by the balls and be able to dictate where they go next, and whether it is by trade or free agency. Teams, ultimately, have two options when star players try to play the free agency card. They can call his bluff and let him to play out his contract and thus risk losing the player to free agency or they can trade him at a discount and get a 3/4ths return. Carmelo tanked his trade value by letting out the open secret that he wanted to go only to the Knicks. This meant that the only real contenders became the Nets and the Knicks, and ultimately the Nets did nothing but drive up the price for the Knicks in a shrewd manner while I think secretly working on the Deron Williams deal. Utah pulled the trigger on the Williams trade in an effort to beat him to the punch. I don't think that they felt that he would be returning to Utah once he hit free agency, and I think the incident(s) with Jerry Sloan made it a toxic atmosphere in an organization that is very buttoned up. But by trading Williams before he really held leverage, Utah was able to get back a very strong package of players and picks. Devin Harris is a very good and still fairly young point guard to replace Williams, and the addition of Derek Favors gives the Jazz a very strong and young front line.
With the Collective Bargaining Agreement( man, has that word been in the news a lot recently) set to expire at the end of this season, it is interesting to see how the owners will attempt to reduce the amount of leverage unrestricted free agency carries. It is probably impossible to retract unrestricted free agency but the league may be able to get the players to acquiesce to a franchise player-type tag. The franchise player tag could be touted as a way to keep small market teams from losing their star caliber players, but in reality it would just be a way to get another year from players in a contract. The owners are trying to get the salary cap lowered a few million dollars a year and they will. The owners will hold players accountable for the bad contracts they gave out instead of holding the bad GM's they hired accountable. Ultimately, teams are losing millions upon millions in the NBA because they were poorly managed and no one will play to see them play in a shitty economy. The top ten teams in the NBA in terms of attendance percentage per game( how much of your arena is filled every night) are the Mavericks, Bulls, Trail Blazers, Magic, Heat, Celtics, Lakers, Knicks, and Thunder. The common denominator amongst all of these teams is that they are all pretty good, given the Knicks acquisition of Carmelo Anthony and Chauncey Billups. People in Minneapolis aren't exactly clamoring to go watch Kevin Love put up ho-hum double-double while the Timberwolves lose by 25. The onus is on owners and management to put together a competitive product if they want to stop losing money. The elite teams in the league have to play by the same salary rules, so the owners losing money really cannot cry wolf, but they will, and we won't have basketball for at least a portion of next year.
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