Is the NBA a form of modern slavery? Golden State Warriors guard Dennis Schröder thinks so.
The NBA’s trade deadline is Thursday at 3 p.m, which means that teams are wheeling and dealing players and picks to other teams in the hopes of bolstering their own rosters. So far, the biggest deal was when the Dallas Mavericks traded All-Star Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers in exchange for Anthony Davis, another All-Star.
Dennis Schroder in his 12-year career has played for 8 teams, has been traded 5 times and wishes to stay with the Warriors
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In an exclusive interview, Schroder wants change to the NBA trade deadline and structure of sports: “It’s modern slavery.” https://t.co/z0MSuPPNMh
That trade made Schröder consider the cutthroat nature of the NBA, where every player has a chance to be moved at a moment’s notice. Schröder, who is 31, has been traded five times (twice on deadline day) and played for eight different teams in his 12-year career. Predictably, he knows how stress-inducing it can be as a player to wonder where you will be playing after a certain day. He’s not a fan of it, and that’s perfectly reasonable.
However, he went completely off the rails when providing a comparison for what the NBA trade deadline is like.
“It’s like modern slavery,” Schröder said. “It’s modern slavery at the end of the day. Everybody can decide where you’re going, even if you have a contract. Yeah, of course, we make a lot of money and we can feed our families, but at the end of the day if they say, ‘You’re not coming to work tomorrow, you’re going over there,’ they can decide that. They got to change that a little bit.”
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On the one hand, I get that its stressful to not know where you’ll be living and having to adjust to a new environment. On the other hand, all that’s happening is you’re getting paid millions of dollars to play basketball in a different city. While Schröder has played for eight different teams, he will have made over $100 million when this year is over to do it. That’s a far cry from slavery.
Making these kinds of boneheaded comparisons cheapens the meaning of the word “slavery,” and shows an unbecoming level of entitlement from some of the most privileged people in America.
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