The supermax provision, which was instated in hopes to keeping star players with their respective teams, has been a hit-and-miss proposition among NBA stars after being established at the wake of Kevin Durant's move to the Golden State Warriors. While stars like James Harden, John Wall and Russell Westbrook have welcomed it, others like Paul George, Kawhi Leonard and Kyrie Irving have swiftly walked away from it — something veteran Shaun Livingston has noted has more to do with players preferring happiness over truckloads of money.
Durant, who made the move to join the Warriors three seasons ago after spending his first nine between the Seattle SuperSonics and the Oklahoma City Thunder, could make another move yet again this summer.
As Livingston paints it, this is more than money, status, or even a sense of legacy.
“It's a sense of evolving, too,” Shaun Livingston told Howard Beck of Bleacher Report, alluding to the shift in player priorities. “You gotta look at it from an evolution standpoint of, like, we're not just going with the status quo anymore. Players, it's important as an expression — as an expression of themselves to be themselves, be true to yourself. What makes you happy, you do that.”
The era of player control has annoyed owners across the league, making it more challenging than ever to retain talent — yet it has catapulted the NBA into an everyday business, rather than a league that only functions for eight months out of the year.
Free-agents-to-be like Durant, Leonard, Irving and many more are what has kept fans engaged even well into the offseason, as well as painted a fresh dynamic for the league, even if franchises have to take a loss every now and again.
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