Trade deals. NBA the way of our AFL future.

[collie dog]

Get used to it.

This week finalised the biggest trade week of the year in the NBA. What struck me was that every player coming up for free agency was traded by their club for other players. The philosophy is clear. Why wait for free agency and get nothing when a player walks for more money (which is their absolute right)? The clever clubs simply manufacture a deal a year before free agency and get something valuable in return for their assets.

A perfect example of how Collingwood is on the ball with this is the way we traded Heath Shaw to the Giants and got Taylor Adams and an upgrade to pick 6. Compare this to Hawthorn getting a brass razzoo for Buddy Franklin. Credit Nathan Buckley.

From now on our world has changed and players will be traded much more readily. Get used to our exciting future. Players come and go, but powerful clubs just get better!

[AN_Inkling]

The NBA situation is more complicated than that. Players on "expiring" contracts are often sought after by teams looking to free cap space for the next year, so it's not always a case of them being traded out, often other teams actually want them.

It will happen more in the AFL that players close to free agency could be traded, but we have quite a different system to the NBA. NFL is a closer comparison and there's no doubt that the AFL is wanting to go further down that path, making the competition more even (with caps on off-field spending), not less.