Impact Of Outside Forces On Potential Free Agents

[Built Ford Tough]

After seeing a similar thread on RealGM and then thinking about some of the recent events going on with some of the more promminent NBA players heading into free agency this summer having a complete change of attitude over the past few weeks or so, I thought it would be as good of a time as other to make this thread.

 

Over the past week or so, LeBron James looks completely disinterested in the series against the Boston Celtics. Normally LeBron is one of the most passionate and fiery players in the NBA. Maybe it is because of the elbow injury, who knows, but at this point in time he looks like he simply doesn't care anymore, and this is something that you never see from James. Everything from his demeanor on the court, his non-chalant interviews and overall lack of passion is just not something that we are accustomed to seeing from LeBron James. Some comments he has made in interviews are basically saying that he has carried this team on his back and, say what you want about James being arrogant, that is simply not something you would normally hear from him.

 

With Chris Bosh, he has seemingly gone nuts on his Twitter account over the past few weeks and some of the "Tweets" (is that what they are called?) he has made are completely out of character for him. Over the past 7 years Bosh has been a consummate professional for Toronto, but these comments from him make him seem like he thinks he is bigger than the team and what not. Flash back to stretches during the season when the Raptors were struggling and under scrutiny, Bosh would make disparaging remarks about his teammates and basically throw them under the bus, which, again, is completely out of character from the Bosh that Raptor fans have watched over the past 7 years. Much like LeBron James, he also looked completely disinterested during points of the season.

 

From my understanding, Joe Johnson has always been more of a quite leader. A guy that doesn't like to talk all that much and would just go out and let his play do the talking. Ever since the playoffs started though, Johnson has made some very questionable comments about his status as a free agent, his desire when it comes to money and things like that. He has been much more vocal as of late. On the floor, he was playing completely selfish during the Orlando series (not sure about the Milwuakee one as I didn't watch much of it) and looked like he was just out there to get his and who cares about what else happens.

 

So it begs the question, how much of a factor do you think that outside forces play into the mindset, attitude and all of that of future free agents? How can a team control these factors and keep them to a minimum?

 

Feel free to ad your own two cents to this as I am not really asking any specific question, but just wanted to have a general discussion on this kind of subject.