How important is Loyalty to you when ranking players?

[Matt15]

When ranking players how important is it to you that a player only stayed with one team throughout their entire career?

[Colbinii]

It isn't bad when a player leaves on their own accord [Free Agency].

It is detrimental when a player demands a trade after signing a contract with a team.

[Owly]

When ranking players how important is it to you that a player only stayed with one team throughout their entire career?

Played on one team?
Not at all.
It's circumstantial and significantly outside a player's control. Hakeem and Kobe made trade demands (in Kobe's case in addition to significant flirting with leaving via free agency) but deals didn't happen to go through. Others can't control being traded. Different eras allowed different degrees of freedom (and different levels of restriction on pay ... if you don't give retaining team a significant advantage, don't allow a lot of freedom for teams and players to extend/restructure, have shorter max lengths then players move more).

Loyalty ... if you leave good outlook teams (for worse ones) maybe that could be a ding (or flirt with leaving good situations, act in a way that forces the team to become worse), depending on circumstances (e.g. money, career earnings etc). It's probably marginal just because we're working with very incomplete information.

[Heej]

Loyalty more often than not hurts the people we prop up most for it lol. Dame Lillard's not gonna gain any more career value in the eyes of most people sloughing it out in Portland compared to him going somewhat that he can be the 1b/2nd option and win a ring playing dominant basketball lol. As unfair as it is, in the long run (aka decades from now) KDs legacy is still marginally better having won 2 rings in a dominant fashion than if he stuck it out in OKC and never won anything imo. Even tho we all hated him for it.

Loyalty only matters as far as people trying to push an agenda about it to tear down other people. Or really more of a "aww that's cute" addition to someone's legacy as opposed to loyalty points automatically adding 2-3 spots worth of value on an all-time list relative to someone who was disloyal. If 2 players were neck and neck in a debate and one player stayed with one team their entire career I think you'd sound pretty dumb trying to argue that makes them a better player than someone who moved to a different team and produced just as well in a new environment and within a different system.

Maybe the discourse changes in time after seeing how much people ruined basketball with "rangzzzz" culture but as of right now I find it inconsequential and think there's just as much merit in a guy who's able to prove portability on different teams.

[parsnips33]

It isn't bad when a player leaves on their own accord [Free Agency].

It is detrimental when a player demands a trade after signing a contract with a team.

What if they are traded, but didn't demand to be?

[Colbinii]

It isn't bad when a player leaves on their own accord [Free Agency].

It is detrimental when a player demands a trade after signing a contract with a team.

What if they are traded, but didn't demand to be?

That isn't really relevant to demanding a trade.

Can you think of any circumstances where a Star player was traded without demanding/requesting a trade?

[parsnips33]

It isn't bad when a player leaves on their own accord [Free Agency].

It is detrimental when a player demands a trade after signing a contract with a team.

What if they are traded, but didn't demand to be?

That isn't really relevant to demanding a trade.

Can you think of any circumstances where a Star player was traded without demanding/requesting a trade?

KG to Boston? Or did he make a request I'm not really sure about the timeline of that one

[No-more-rings]

It’s not at all important when ranking their careers. It does matter though if you ask me who i’d rather build around though. Two different things here.

[Cavsfansince84]

Zero relevance. Teams trade players and players can leave teams.

[f4p]

about as much as i value "changed the game". absolutely none. loyalty tends to mean you got drafted to a good situation or a situation that became good before the typical 7 year itch. in other words, giving someone a loyalty bonus is usually just on top of the winning bonus they already got for being in a good situation.

it's almost always used as a copout to rank someone you like higher than their basketball skill would really entail.

[rk2023]

It is something I admire contingent on contexts' of players' career stories, but definitely don't use as a tax or stimulus for evaluating the careers of various players.

[Doctor MJ]

When ranking players how important is it to you that a player only stayed with one team throughout their entire career?

When you define it this way I'd say it's not inherently important, but can be an indicator of good things that are important to me when ranking players.

How I tend to say it is that I count the negative impact that players have on a franchise, and that damaging, unprofessional behavior on a player's way out is very common.

[dygaction]

It isn't bad when a player leaves on their own accord [Free Agency].

It is detrimental when a player demands a trade after signing a contract with a team.

What if they are traded, but didn't demand to be?

That isn't really relevant to demanding a trade.

Can you think of any circumstances where a Star player was traded without demanding/requesting a trade?

Anytime another superstar was in the mix, like Steve Francis did not request but was used to trade for TMac

[Taj FTW]

It's important when I want to denigrate a player I don't like

[penbeast0]

I think Doc said it. When a player forces his way out by hurting the team that is paying him, deliberately or through creating dissension, yes I will ding him for that. Otherwise, probably not.

[Texas Chuck]

I try not to include it at all. I think as Taj points out, we often create narratives that suit us in that regard, choosing to blame the wrong player at times. Or to reward a player.

Now I realize I'm probably wrong for that. Is there a meaningful advantage to a team who knows they can build around a star player because they know how committed he is to the franchise? Absolutely. Having Timmy or Dirk and knowing they weren't looking around for greener pastures has real advantages over having Kevin Durant or Kawhi Leonard.

But I also believe really strongly that players don't stop being humans just because they make a bunch of money and fans get entitled regarding them. So when Lebron(best but far from only example) chooses to take control over his own career, I'm not docking him for that even if the Cavs pick 1st overall every year after he leaves.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I think it depends, like if lillard wins on the blazers that would be pretty lit but realistically him staying ends up hurting him because if a lack of winning

[SinceGatlingWasARookie]

When ranking players how important is it to you that a player only stayed with one team throughout their entire career?

I would prefer less players changing teams.

Owners have no loyalty. Players have no loyalty. It’s the American way.

I don’t care about rings and I don’t care about loyalty.
But if a player joins a super team I expect them to win.

[OhayoKD]

Loyalty more often than not hurts the people we prop up most for it lol. Dame Lillard's not gonna gain any more career value in the eyes of most people sloughing it out in Portland compared to him going somewhat that he can be the 1b/2nd option and win a ring playing dominant basketball lol. As unfair as it is, in the long run (aka decades from now) KDs legacy is still marginally better having won 2 rings in a dominant fashion than if he stuck it out in OKC and never won anything imo. Even tho we all hated him for it.

Loyalty only matters as far as people trying to push an agenda about it to tear down other people. Or really more of a "aww that's cute" addition to someone's legacy as opposed to loyalty points automatically adding 2-3 spots worth of value on an all-time list relative to someone who was disloyal. If 2 players were neck and neck in a debate and one player stayed with one team their entire career I think you'd sound pretty dumb trying to argue that makes them a better player than someone who moved to a different team and produced just as well in a new environment and within a different system.

Maybe the discourse changes in time after seeing how much people ruined basketball with "rangzzzz" culture but as of right now I find it inconsequential and think there's just as much merit in a guy who's able to prove portability on different teams.

Could always argue that "spreading the wealth" is a worthier ideal

[SilentA]

To answer the question more directly, loyalty has no effect when I try to rank a player's court impact objectively, but it will affect who I remember more or personally enjoy watching (i.e. when I rank them more subjectively, or their legacy).

Loyalty has pros and cons as far as legacy is concerned. For me it doesn't have to be 1 team forever, but players tend to be more memorable when they play the bulk of their career with 1 team (ideally overlapping with their peak and some playoff runs).

It's not because I morally value loyalty to a corporation. I'm neutral on that, it depends on whether it's a good workplace or not. My thing is that "teams" have way more compelling narratives to me than single players (the whole team, not just the brand), like a cast of characters representing a city vs following 1 player like a celeb fan.

LA will always embrace Magic and Kobe. San Antonio will embrace Duncan. Indiana will Miller. Dallas will Nowitzki. Boston will Russell and Bird.

This type of thing might not be important to everyone, and it depends on the city. But being the face of a city's basketball history like that is legacy too, and can sometimes be more lasting than trying to min max momentary individual success.