Cleveland Cavaliers guard James Harden made headlines after his home debut by saying loyalty is overrated after joining his fourth different franchise since 2022.
“It’s basketball, the whole quote on quote loyalty thing is, I think it’s overrated,” Harden said last week.
“I think this is a business at the end of the day, and it’s a lot of money involved and a lot of decisions that have to be made. If a player isn’t producing, or if you don’t see him in your future, you know, if the front office, some
of them have to do a job and want to keep their job. So they feel like they got to do what’s best keep their job, and they trade players.”
Donovan Mitchell was asked about those comments after practice on Wednesday and agreed with Harden. Loyalty in sports isn’t what it ideally should be, but many factors go into why it isn’t.
“I think as a sports fan, and as a diehard Mets fan, would I love for Jacob deGrom to still be here? Yeah,” Mitchell said. “You know, certain situations, it’s not always going [to work out]. It’s not always like that. For him to be honest with you guys and give that answer, I respect that. This is a business.”
And there are competiting interest at play, even internally.
“You can’t blame a guy for wanting to maximize his opportunity, maximize his life-changing money for his family,” Mitchell said. “On the flip side, it’s that weird side in sports where it’s like, this is a business, but there’s also the concept of, ‘Hey, I want to be here forever.’ There’s always that with every athlete.”
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Mitchell has seen how this dynamic works, even if he personally hasn’t changed teams as much as Harden has.
There were reports that Mitchell was open to being traded from the Utah Jazz back in 2022. It was also clear that this was something that the Jazz felt was in their best interest after they weren’t able to advance out of the second round with their team built around Mitchell and Rudy Gobert.
“This season wasn’t very much fun this year,” Jazz CEO Danny Ainge said a few months before the team traded Mitchell. “This draft wasn’t fun. Free agency wasn’t very much fun. You’re over the tax, no draft picks, and our team loses in the first round. It wasn’t fun for us. We want it to be fun for our fans and our players, but we just haven’t had much flexibility to do anything over the last little while.”
Whether or not this was ultimately the right move for Utah is up for debate. What isn’t, is the fact that they felt that their core wasn’t good enough to win, and it was time to move on.
In many instances, it’s in the team’s and the player’s best interest to open up a new chapter. And in the NBA, things can change quickly, as Darius Garland found out.
“You look at my situation in Utah,” Mitchell said, “you go from being the one seed and the next thing you know (he snaps), it’s like that. It just happens. With DG, it was the same thing. The Jimmy Butler situation, the Dame [Lillard] situation, there’s other situations. It’s so fragile. Everything is so fragile. One day could be great, the next day (snaps again) can be like that.”
Some of Harden’s exits have been messy and seemingly not as mutually beneficial as you’d ideally like. That’s part of Harden’s complicated legacy and the business of sports.
“I don’t know his exact experience,” Mitchell said. “All I know, is pretty much what you guys know. But I do know there’s certain things that can kind of skew that. … Not just speaking of him, but as a whole in sports.
“So I really respect the fact that he was honest. I think a lot of guys relate to that. I think it also gives fans a unique insight on like, hey, there’s so much love here for sure, but there’s also things that can get in the way.”
