Restricted free agency is gross and should be abolished

Fake freedom, a recipe of ill will. What wants it?

Good morning. Let’s basketball.

Surrender of Lord Cornwallis, John Trumbull, 1820

Well that was quite a turn of events. Deandre Ayton signed a maximum value offer sheet with the Indiana Pacers on Thursday afternoon, foreclosing on the possibility of sign-and-trade deals setting up the Phoenix Suns’ pursuit of Kevin Durant. And as soon as the Suns received the signed offer sheet from Ayton and the Pacers — apparently within minutes — the Suns matched. Ayton will be with the Suns for at least the 2022-23 season, and he’s under contract for four years with total compensation at $133 million. No option years, no trade ticket: a straight max four-year deal. A boon, frankly, to the Suns.

Except there is clearly bad blood between Ayton and the franchise over the fact that they would not give him a max extension before the 2021-22 season despite his enormous role in helping the Suns to within two wins of a championship. They would not give him a max offer sheet even this summer, when it was clear that despite few teams having any cap space someone would absolutely create a max slot for the 23-year-old two-way big man. They wouldn’t do it despite being so apparently close to winning the franchise’s first NBA championship ever, with Chris Paul surely nearing the end of his illustrious career.

The contract situation bled into Phoenix’s season, which ended with a thud in Game 7 of their Western semifinals series against the Dallas Mavericks, who have the superstar the Suns passed up to take Ayton in 2018. By the end of that series, Ayton apparently had a confrontation with coach Monty Williams. Indications are that Ayton has been mad for almost a year over the contract situation, and this turn of events is only going to make him even more angry.

I’m not hear to weep for Ayton, necessarily. He’s getting his money one way or another, and I presume his attitude must have been particularly off-putting to upset Saint Monty. But even if you’re skeptical of Ayton here, can’t you at least admit that this whole process for aggrieved young players to try to switch teams after spending four professional years in one spot is pretty sick and wrong?

Full disclaimer: I’m for abolishing the NBA draft. I think adults should be able to decide where they work, so long as the employer they choose will have them. I think the draft rewards incompetence and creates cycles of losing and despair among some franchises. I think solving the issue of integrating amateur players into the league via free agency is a much better option. I think the draft is never dying.

Restricted free agency is just an extension of what makes the draft bad. So you’ve taken a young player, you’ve forced him to join a team in a place that is not of his choosing. After four years there, you give him an opportunity to seek employment elsewhere in the league. But if he finds a situation he prefers, the incumbent team has the right to simply match whatever contract offer he signs from the new team, keeping him there another 3-4 years.

This is basically a modern reserve clause simply limited to seven years: you can only sign with the team that drafts you on 4-year prescribed value contracts, and when you try to leave they can reel you back in for a minimum of three additional years. Seven years, longer than most NBA players’ careers.