The NBA Is Broken— But Don’t Blame One Team For Taking Advantage Of It
ROUGHLY 48 HOURS into the free agency period—24 hours after LeBron James announced his decision to move west—DeMarcus Cousins, the four time All-Star center most recently of the Pelicans, sent another shock wave through the NBA when he signed a one-year, $5.3 million deal with the defending champion Warriors.
Golden State could now start five All-Stars next season, and this news sent fans and media into hysteria. The Warriors were compared to the Galactic Empire’s Death Star and to Thanos from Infinity Wars; Knicks center Enes Kanter tweeted a photoshopped image of NBA commissioner Adam Silver in a Dubs jersey. And of course it revived the argument that drowned out this year’s Finals: Is this team ruining the league? Should Silver intervene? Is the NBA broken? The dispute, however, wasn’t really about DeMarcus Cousins. It was about a problem, not confined to one team, that has been three years in the making.
This story is from the July 16 - 23, 2018 edition of Sports Illustrated.
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This story is from the July 16 - 23, 2018 edition of Sports Illustrated.
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