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I'm not a fan of the "no trade clause (NTC)" and don't think any player of any sport should have this type of power.
None what so ever; Not Jordan the Goat, Wilt the Beast Chamberlian, Lebron the King James?, no one.

According to google, sports that have NTC = NBA, NFL, NHL, MLB some European leagues/soccer,B-ball - I only follow NBA.

10 NBA players from the past who've had the NTC??

Carmelo Anthony, Dwyane Wade, Kobe Byrant, Dirk Nowitzki, Tim Duncan, David Robinson, Kevin Garnett, John Stockton (surprised here) and most recently - Lebron James, Bradley Beal.

What if all these players didn't have the NTC, would these players have been traded?

Kobe: requested a trade to Bulls (wanted to play with Luol Deng), but had NTC and said no. What if he didn't have a NTC, would he have requested, would he have been traded??

John Stockton: while he never requested a trade, what if he did?

Tim Duncan: what if he never had a NTC, would Spurs have traded him? "Yes, Tim Duncan seriously considered leaving the San Antonio Spurs in 2000 to join the Orlando Magic as a free agent" (googled it lol).

Now let's talk about the most recent shall we

Lebron James: Hasn't as far as I know requested a trade from Lakers while having the NTC. But many talks have him suggesting he might leave the Lakers, because "he wants to win?" -oof no trust in Luka I see? lol.

Bradley Beal: Suns are trying desperatly to trade him, but Beal has stated he wants to stay for his family (respect). But not sure exactly he would remove his NTC for teams unless they're close to the Suns.

All in all, I feel the NBA should remove the NTC for any and all players.

As for the poll =
Yes remove
No don't remove
what ever, I don't care lol

I'm far from an expert on this, just not a fan lol.

To me as European, it is crazy that a team could trade you to whatever, without your permission, to me the team power here is crazy, not NTC, American sports are insane. But anyhow, NTC are very rare and only very incompetent GMs can negotiate that these days, so to me it is not existent problem, if your team dumb enough to give NTC to Beal, you should live with it.

No, don't remove it, it should be an option for franchise legends who deserve it, Bradley Beal shouldn't have gotten that contract, let alone NTC on top of it, you can't design rules to protect against sheer incompetence.

No.
A team is fully aware of what this clause means when they sign a contract.
It's not Beal's fault if the Wizards at the time didn't know what their plan(what plan?) was.

Teams have the right to trade players like they're changing t-shirts. It's the business.
30 years ago the organisations could held a Pippen hostage because they had all the power.

I don't like the player empowerment either but i want some balance.

Players/Potential Expiring Free Agents/Stars (without a NTC in their contract) have a lot of power to which destination they get traded to (most recently KD to The Rockets)

Player empowerment is more stronger than ever and I fear it's too late to put that genie back in the bottle.

No. If a team is dumb enough to give a NTC to someone like Beal, that's their fault. This is nothing that needs to be "fixed" with a ban.

It’s quite simple, don’t offer it.

@OP all players in European professional sports have a NTC. All trades are done like this: 1. the clubs agree on a transfer, 2. the player decides whether he wants to sign a contract with the "new club".

Contracts aren't "carried over", the existing one becomes void when/if you sign a new one.

UcanUwill wrote:To me as European, it is crazy that a team could trade you to whatever, without your permission, to me the team power here is crazy, not NTC, American sports are insane. But anyhow, NTC are very rare and only very incompetent GMs can negotiate that these days, so to me it is not existent problem, if your team dumb enough to give NTC to Beal, you should live with it.

The NBA had this type of business model for years. If players don’t understand that teams can trade them anytime without their permission, they have not been paying attention. Also, the trade is within the States and Canada. I think they would have to put systems in place if the NBA was international and they are trading players to different teams that are in different countries.

*Yes, I understand that Canada is a different country but they have been so ingrained in the NBA that I just see them as part of the NBA culture. Like, we didn’t even bat in eye when they relocated to Tampa, FL for a season.

I think many superstars without NTC are still treated like they have one.
KD - no NTC. You wouldn't really trade him to, say, Charlotte (no offense, guys), simply because Charlotte will know he wouldn't show up/will not play 100%/won't resign, so they wouldn't be ready to pay any significant price, like other teams that know he wants to stay with them longer.
So in the end KD submitted a list of teams he "approves" and his request was granted, just like it would happen for a NTC player waiving this clause.
I think Jimmy was without NTC as well, right? And him publicly (through sources, ofc) threatening to not resign and not taking seriously any team outside his wishlist played a huge role of where he ended at.

It was a bit different with Luka - I don't believe conspiracies Luka knew about the trade, but Dallas and more importantly Lakers were confident enough he wouldn't sabotage the new team.
Maybe gambling on his character/winning culture, maybe some past conversations, long before the trade, whatever.
I mean, I doubt the Hornets or Nets team would even try to trade for Doncic, knowing they don't have any quasi-contender ready for him.
So Doncic didn't even ask for a trade, but no more than 10-12 teams would be ready to participate in such talks anyway.

The NTC isn't there to protect the franchise from players asking out, it's the exact opposite. It's a measure of a respect from the team to their franchise player, a "hey you're DEFINITELY our guy, we won't trade you and we're so serious we'll even write that into your contract". Players themselves can temporarily void that NTC at any time.

Kobe was requesting a trade, so at that point he was waiving his NTC. Timmy's NTC also had nothing to do with his FA choice 13 years before he even signed his first NTC. And the rest of the examples are NTC's working perfectly fine, serving the purpose they exist for.

Washington was stupid to lock themselves into Beal with that silly NTC. But they're such a dumpster fire Brad asks out, which temporarily waives his NTC. Then we have the Suns trading for him, and then realized they made a boo boo, so now they want out from it but can't because he won't waive it again. Brad's NTC is forcing accountability for Phoenix's absolutely dog water GM'ing.

When franchise level generational talents get them like Stockton or Lebron it makes sense. But when a NTC becomes a part of the ESPN reporting cycle due to it being misused, we end up with threads like this!

UcanUwill wrote:To me as European, it is crazy that a team could trade you to whatever, without your permission, to me the team power here is crazy, not NTC, American sports are insane. But anyhow, NTC are very rare and only very incompetent GMs can negotiate that these days, so to me it is not existent problem, if your team dumb enough to give NTC to Beal, you should live with it.

This.
I'm not even sure how it works in euro basketball, as trades are very rare. I guess just "selling" a player works just as in soccer.
(not explaining to you, ofc, but to the americans here) In soccer, due to different financial rules, trades are rare as well, most of the time teams "sell" a player, but they don't "sell" his contract - a player needs to reach an agreement on his contract with the new team. So if you have a 5y contract that pays you peanuts, but suddenly a bigger club is interested in you - they will have to negotiate a new amount with you, if they want to "buy" your rights.

I think they should remove the NTC option.

They have made other rules insane owners from themselves. What's the one about draft picks in consecutive years? The Stepien rule? Even named after a dumb owner.

ORLMagicGirl15 wrote:

UcanUwill wrote:To me as European, it is crazy that a team could trade you to whatever, without your permission, to me the team power here is crazy, not NTC, American sports are insane. But anyhow, NTC are very rare and only very incompetent GMs can negotiate that these days, so to me it is not existent problem, if your team dumb enough to give NTC to Beal, you should live with it.

The NBA had this type of business model for years. If players don’t understand that teams can trade them anytime without their permission, they have not been paying attention. Also, the trade is within the States and Canada. I think they would have to put systems in place if the NBA was international and they are trading players to different teams that are in different countries.

*Yes, I understand that Canada is a different country but they have been so ingrained in the NBA that I just see them as part of the NBA culture. Like, we didn’t even bat in eye when they relocated to Tampa, FL for a season.

I know players know they can be traded and they sign on that, but when you think about it, it is still crazy tho.

BruttoNostra wrote:

UcanUwill wrote:To me as European, it is crazy that a team could trade you to whatever, without your permission, to me the team power here is crazy, not NTC, American sports are insane. But anyhow, NTC are very rare and only very incompetent GMs can negotiate that these days, so to me it is not existent problem, if your team dumb enough to give NTC to Beal, you should live with it.

This.
I'm not even sure how it works in euro basketball, as trades are very rare. I guess just "selling" a player works just as in soccer.
(not explaining to you, ofc, but to the americans here) In soccer, due to different financial rules, trades are rare as well, most of the time teams "sell" a player, but they don't "sell" his contract - a player needs to reach an agreement on his contract with the new team. So if you have a 5y contract that pays you peanuts, but suddenly a bigger club is interested in you - they will have to negotiate a new amount with you, if they want to "buy" your rights.

Trades in Europe is not a thing. Technically it can happen and very very rarely happens, but I am pretty sure it works like regular transfer where both players have to sign in on that.
Europe has loans, that is probably closest thing to being traded, where team can loan you to other team, but even then they can't loan you without your permission, that would be pretty wild.

UcanUwill wrote:

ORLMagicGirl15 wrote:

UcanUwill wrote:To me as European, it is crazy that a team could trade you to whatever, without your permission, to me the team power here is crazy, not NTC, American sports are insane. But anyhow, NTC are very rare and only very incompetent GMs can negotiate that these days, so to me it is not existent problem, if your team dumb enough to give NTC to Beal, you should live with it.

The NBA had this type of business model for years. If players don’t understand that teams can trade them anytime without their permission, they have not been paying attention. Also, the trade is within the States and Canada. I think they would have to put systems in place if the NBA was international and they are trading players to different teams that are in different countries.

*Yes, I understand that Canada is a different country but they have been so ingrained in the NBA that I just see them as part of the NBA culture. Like, we didn’t even bat in eye when they relocated to Tampa, FL for a season.

I know players know they can be traded and they sign on that, but when you think about it, it is still crazy tho.

Wait until you find out that they do it in corporate America and management as well. Sometimes if you say no, you might lose your job.

ORLMagicGirl15 wrote:

UcanUwill wrote:

ORLMagicGirl15 wrote:The NBA had this type of business model for years. If players don’t understand that teams can trade them anytime without their permission, they have not been paying attention. Also, the trade is within the States and Canada. I think they would have to put systems in place if the NBA was international and they are trading players to different teams that are in different countries.

*Yes, I understand that Canada is a different country but they have been so ingrained in the NBA that I just see them as part of the NBA culture. Like, we didn’t even bat in eye when they relocated to Tampa, FL for a season.

I know players know they can be traded and they sign on that, but when you think about it, it is still crazy tho.

Wait until you find out that they do it in corporate America as well. Sometimes if you say no, you might lose your job.

Well, I think that can happen anywhere. But in Europe, famous pro athletes have far more power, you can probably push some powerless guy around, but imagine telling MBappe that hes been trade to Sampdoria, thats just comically unrealistic, but in NBA it happens, Luka was traded against his wishes, he just got a call that he plays for a team thousand miles away and thats it.

jmo21 wrote:I think they should remove the NTC option.

They have made other rules insane owners from themselves. What's the one about draft picks in consecutive years? The Stepien rule? Even named after a dumb owner.

I personally pro more negotiation options, not like NTC is on itself negative, just like negotiating contract boost based on player's shooting percentages is not on itself negative. It becomes negative when you negotiate this with wrong people, like Beal, or that guy who stopped attempting 3s, because he hit his contract target, I don't remember who that was.

UcanUwill wrote:To me as European, it is crazy that a team could trade you to whatever, without your permission, to me the team power here is crazy, not NTC, American sports are insane. But anyhow, NTC are very rare and only very incompetent GMs can negotiate that these days, so to me it is not existent problem, if your team dumb enough to give NTC to Beal, you should live with it.

I still remember how flabbergasted I was when I first learned that almost everyone in US sports can be traded without their permission - it was shortly after I first started following English language news and discussions about the NBA and a blockbuster trade for Jason Kidd was stopped due to Devean George's no trade clause. Everyone was saying "How does this scrub has a no trade clause" and I was like "Wait, most players can be traded without their consent, that's messed up".

Don’t remove.

What problem are we trying to fix again?