_sturt_
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Well, I thought you might. In fact, I encouraged it multiple times. But you didn't. (Evidently, didn't serve your truest purpose to do that.)
So, but, I had a few minutes, and thought "okay, why not"....
I'm stumped at the embedded assumption that, as there is such a thing as an elite NBA player capable of playing a key role in winning a ring, there is also such a thing as an elite NFL owner capable of playing a key role in winning a ring.
There are 30 owners, all of whom are presumably seeking to win a SB trophy... though that's questionable in Cincinnati... and all of whom have a set of rules they have to abide by in the pursuit of that trophy.
None of them have any advantage on the others.
To gerrymander that concept into something vaguely similar to what Durant did when he decided to leave OKC and go to the world champion GSW, you'd have to have Jerry Jones sell off the Cowboys and become part owner for the Patriots, as-if Kraft would welcome that addition.
So relevancy? Not really much.
But let's address the question anyhow.
To what degree is it a pox on the integrity of a given NFL team's owner and/or general manager when they over-commit and make it impossible to keep a championship team together for more than a year?
Does that capture what you're getting at?
First, you need to understand that I'm all about consistency, so I don't come to the topic (as you oddly presumed I must) with anything less than a desire to treat all sides with the same standards.
Second, the problem is not that people want to win championships. Of course not. If that's not legitimate, we should just shut down professional sports.
The problem is that a few people have taken short-cuts to winning championships.
What's involved in taking a short-cut to winning a championship?
That inherently requires the cooperation of the player or players who are playing key roles in taking said short-cut. The acquisition of the 12 best head coaches in the league won't make any difference on the court or on the field... nor will acquiring the best GMs to fill out the entire front office and scouting department.
So theoretically, if the top FA at 10 different positions, all of them legitimately among the best at their positions, all came together and conspired to go to the New England Patriots to make New England a virtual lock for the next trophy... or for them, it might just take 3 or 4... or, for the Cardinals, perhaps it would take the top one at every position including a SB winning QB like Foles... then those players would be appropriately criticized for their lack of integrity.
Applied to that, your question seems to be... "well wouldn't the team where they all went also be appropriately criticized?"
Probably so. I'd go 90% probably.
I won't say 100% yes, because there's the possibility that maybe the players colluded ahead of time, and maybe they had multiple options in terms of teams that had cap room, and the one ultimately chosen just happened to be the one ultimately chosen.
But there's a pretty good chance that, yes, the team's owner and his front office are also culpable and ought to face public disgust for having manipulated the system to work in their favor.
Players and front offices both are 100% culpable to the degree that they manipulate the system to take short-cuts to a ring.
Now your original question went to what happens after they win a championship. No one holds a gun to the player's head. Can't get around that. It's a meritocracy, as one famous Cowboy QB once famously said. If you think you're that good, and you want to sign a contract for a lot of money for a lot of years, you know going into it that it's on you, then, to make sure that that's the kind of value that the team is going to want to keep on the roster for the entire term of the contract. By the same token, it's not as-if there are no consequences to teams when they cut players early. Again, see Romo, Tony... et al. Teams have to be judicious by virtue of the way the rules are set-up.
So, to be clear, everyone has to look out for their own integrity, which doesn't mean that players shouldn't want to go where they can win a championship, nor that teams shouldn't want to acquire players than can win for them a championship.... rather... it means that players shouldn't look for and exploit short-cuts to winning a championship, nor should teams' front offices.
In the NFL, that's a taller order than any other sport to accomplish because you have 22 regular positions on the field, and even the most important guy, the QB, only has an effect on about half the plays in the game.
Not so, the NBA. You only have 5 positions. And every one of those 5 players is involved on offense and defense, generally for 30-40 minutes of a 48 minute game, but if necessary, even all 48 is possible.
There's no denying that math.
And there's no denying that what Kevin Durant chose to do was all about taking a short-cut to a ring. Pox on his integrity.
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