Since I have been covering the Detroit Pistons, which is going on six years now, there has been one narrative that has permeated and has never been questioned:
No one wants to play in Detroit.
And for more than half a decade, that has been true, largely because the Pistons stunk and were trying to bank draft picks instead of wins, hardly a team a player in the prime of his career would want to join.
But the larger narrative was always about the city itself (and we all know the real reason I am not going to get into here, but we know), its cold weather, its lack of luxury apartments and the fact that the arena used to be outside of the city.
Put those all together and what good player would want to come to Detroit?
This is a narrative that exists league-wide, as every star player on a smaller market team is a trade target, with the media pushing the idea that every single star player in the league wants to play in New York, Los Angeles or Miami, as if NBA players aren’t a diverse group of humans who have different priorities and criteria for what makes a good place to live.
Of course there are guys who want to play in LA or Miami, and it makes sense. Where would you want to live if you were a young person with generational wealth?
The glamor cities will always have appeal, but can we stop with this narrative that players don’t want to or won’t play for the teams that don’t fit into that category?
Just look at the standings, that narrative is dead.
Free-agency is dying in the NBA and plenty of stars don’t want to be in LA or New York
Let’s start with the fact that fewer and fewer star players are even reaching free agency, thus have limited say over where they end up playing.
Ask Luka Doncic, a top five player who was traded without even being told by his team.
The salary cap rules have made it easier for teams to keep guys they draft, and even ones that want to be on a different team generally get there by trade and stay by extension.
So who cares if LA is a better city than OKC? There are only two teams there, and not everyone can play for them.
And there are plenty of guys who wouldn’t want that life anyway. 3-time MVP Nikola Jokic plays in a non-glamor market and loves it, wouldn’t want to be under the lights of New York or LA.
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, another frontrunner for MVP this season, plays on the league-leading OKC Thunder and says he wants to stay. ESPN can try to push all the narratives they want, but some of the best players in the league are in small markets and are happy. And guess what? They are filthy rich anyway, as all teams can offer the same max deals and you don't need to be in LA to move sneakers.
Giannis re-upped to stay in Milwaukee, Donovan Mitchell in Cleveland and Anthony Edwards seems to love Minnesota. All are cold places without the luxury high-rises and glamor of some of the larger markets.
This idea that gets pushed is silly and largely to fuel the NBA’s media machine, which is powered by speculation and trade rumors. They pander to the big markets, so every year we have to hear about which superstar the Knicks are getting or which one is going to defect to LA.
The smaller NBA markets are killing it right now
I can’t remember which loud talking head said that Cade Cunningham needs to be in a “bigger market” to be a superstar (probably Gilbert Arenas), but whoever it was obviously hasn’t taken a look at the standings lately.
Five of the top seven teams in the Eastern Conference (Cleveland, Indiana, Milwaukee, Detroit and Orlando) would qualify as “smaller-market” or non-glamor teams with the Cavaliers tied for the best record in the NBA.
The Celtics and Knicks are obviously good, but otherwise, most of the large market teams (Atlanta, Chicago, Philly, Brooklyn, Toronto) all stink. You’re telling me a player would rather play in Chicago or Philly right now than Cleveland or Detroit? Why exactly?
The top-3 teams in the Western Conference are OKC, Memphis and Denver, all ahead of the large-market Rockets and Lakers. Dallas is the 8th seed, Golden State is the 10th, Phoenix the 11th and none of them are in as good a situation as those three teams at the top.
We haven’t even gotten to the small-market Spurs yet, a team poised to take over the Western Conference with Wembanyama and a ton of draft assets.
My point is that this idea that players won’t come to Detroit is nonsense. Win and they will come, ask Cleveland, ask Minnesota, ask Oklahoma City, a place I wouldn’t even want to fly over, that currently has one of the top-5 players in the league who wants to stay there.
It’s a narrative that has never been true outside of isolated cases, and in the Apron era, market size matters far less.