The Brooklyn Nets decided to hold Kyrie Irving out of his final game with the team as soon as he requested to be traded.
That’s just a common practice around the NBA and other professional tournaments, so it shouldn’t come as a surprise.
However, the NBA has threatened to fine teams for sitting healthy players, so the Nets had to lie about Irving’s sore calf to include him in the injury report.
So, when a reporter jokingly asked Nets coach Jacque Vaughn about Kyrie’s injury after the trade, the coach simply smiled and added that he was ‘still sore.’
Jacque Vaughn when asked about Kyrie Irving's calf:
"Still sore"😅pic.twitter.com/NgWgTOy2Gs
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) February 6, 2023
Teams do this to protect their assets.
They don’t want to risk a player getting hurt and hurting his trade value, so they rather have them sitting out games until they work something out.
Of course, that’s a bummer to the thousands of fans who saved up to go watch the best players in the league take the court, but it’s just how the business goes nowadays.
At least they managed to trade Kyrie while he wasn’t playing, unlike what happened a couple of years ago when the Dallas Mavericks traded Harrison Barnes to the Sacramento Kings in the middle of a game.
Teams often handle their players like assets and pieces on a big chessboard, and most of them are traded without even getting a heads up.
That’s ruthless, and a business model that may not be replicable in any other industry.
But hey, at least they make a lot of money.
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