This Ben Simmons saga may have some major implications for the next CBA. This is just the latest case of a player deciding they don't want to play out their contract and bailing to one of a handful of teams limiting their current team's ability to find a decent deal. AD and Harden as notable cases.
Ben is by far the worst case as the other guys at least showed up to training camp (even if it was in a fat suit).
As much as I don't like a lot of the way LeBron does stuff, he has at least always honored the contract and given 100% when push came to shove in the playoffs.
I really expect the owners to crack down on this and include some honor the faith kind of clause. Its one thing if a player doesn't like their situation and requests a trade and works out a deal to stay home with the team (John Wall on a rebuilding Hou for example, Iggy with Mem). That seems reasonable since both sides are working together on it.
But when a player decides they want out after signing a 4 year extension bc they don't want to live in that city anymore or think the team is capped out? That is some bullshit. Now we are hearing rumblings Zion wants out and he may go the route of Ben (and what Kyrie nearly did with the surgery in Cle). It especially some bullshit when your team is a contender. I want nothing to do with Ben Simmons because he actively represents everything that I don't want in my teams culture without backing that shit up on the court. Beyond just the part that I don't think he is the kind of player you can build anything around. Again to the LeBron point, don't like how he does stuff but he always showed up in crunch time.