Porzingis and Davis show the NBA trade deadline belongs to the players now

Players have taken control of their careers over the last decade, and now they’re using the NBA trade deadline to their advantage.

If the NBA trade deadline was a ship, then the NBA’s players are pirates, and they’ve jumped on board and taken it for themselves. The trade deadline belongs to the players. They are the captains now.

It started when Captain Brow aka Anthony Davis aka the end of this analogy and his agent Rich Paul publicly demanded a trade from the New Orleans Pelicans. A trade request used to be a thing that was leaked through the media, but Paul wasn’t afraid to put his name on it. And why should he be? What secret is there worth hiding? Over the last decade, starting with The Decision, we’ve seen players take control of their careers. They are unafraid to own that and take whatever arrows come their way behind the shield of Freedom of Player Movement.

Only, player movement used to happen over the offseason. Summer time was for cool kid pickup games and workouts that doubled as networking events. Players would leave as free agents or ask to be traded by subtly hinting that they wouldn’t re-sign as free agents in subsequent summers. Over the last few days, the players have taken winter too. The February trade deadline could see Davis moved, and has already seen Kristaps Porzingis dealt. It all happened so fast.

Porzingis, it was reported by ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski, had a meeting with Knicks management on Thursday afternoon. Within minutes, he had been traded to the Dallas Mavericks. Here’s the timeline:

1:44 PM: Woj reports Porzingis meeting with management
2:54 PM: Woj reports Porzingis “prefers to be traded.”
3:37 PM: Multiple reports confirm the Mavericks will acquire Porzingis

Like, what? Sitting over your bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios Thursday morning, you had no inkling that today would be the day Porzingis was traded. Then, within a couple of hours, in 107 minutes, Porzingis went from New York to Dallas.

The Knicks got Dennis Smith Jr., Wesley Matthews, DeAndre Jordan, future first-round compensation and the cap space to sign two max players in 2019. The Mavericks got Porzingis, Tim Hardaway Jr. and Courtney Lee. Porzingis crawled to freedom through five-hundred yards of Knicks-smelling foulness I can’t even imagine.

To think, only days prior, Porzingis was rumored to be New York’s major trade chip, along with their 2019 first round pick, to possibly land Davis. Porzingis may have seen these reports and thought to himself I really don’t want to go from a losing situation in New York to a losing situation in New Orleans. So what did he do? He took control of his own career — much sooner than LeBron James or Anthony Davis did — and got the hell out of there. He teamed up with Luka Doncic in Dallas to form the seeds of a super team.

The trade deadline used to be a time when teams could become buyers or sellers. When in the wake of a disappointing start of the season they could pivot and ship off players for future assets. Other organizations would tinker, swapping players and picks for upgrades ahead of a playoff push. Teams could tear down or stock up. Across the league, that will all still happen, but stars, too, are acting on their own agendas.

Within a few days — or even within minutes — of you reading this, Davis could be traded too. Let’s not forget that Jimmy Butler screamed his way out of Minnesota at the start of the season already. That could be three top 15ish players changing employers within four months.

We got accustomed to saying the NBA, because of the season and offseason, is a 12-month sport. Now, the NBA offseason is a 12-month sport, and the players are mastering how to play it.