Anthony Davis’ trade demand is the latest example of a changing paradigm involving NBA superstars, argues guest Howard Beck (Keith Allison/Creative Commons).

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Bleacher Report‘s Howard Beck has been covering the NBA full-time for the past couple decades, and he detects an unmistakable change in the way the league’s superstars are increasingly dictating where they play. He discusses this phenomenon with regard to Anthony Davis’ recent trade demand, Milwaukee’s ongoing efforts to retain franchise cornerstone Giannis Antetokounmpo for the long haul and how the trend impacted this season’s awfully busy and entertaining trade deadline. Plus, the All-Star weekend is nearly upon us, providing an opportunity to touch on those festivities in Charlotte. Beck bites below:

12:54-14:52: “Tobias Harris, as a guy who’s in his prime who is a borderline All-Star, that’s, on its face, the flashiest acquisition of those contenders in the East. But it’s also the one that I think came with the most caveats and potential concerns. Because you already had a team with three stars, Embiid, Simmons, Jimmy Butler, where there are some tensions…there’s just some underlying tensions there about power dynamics and role and all this even though they [Simmons and Embiid] seem like they should fit together perfectly. And then you throw Jimmy Butler and all the volatility that can come with him on top of that…and now you throw [in] Tobias Harris who’s a high-usage guy…So, yes, the Sixers, their starting five might be the best starting five in the East now and may be the best starting five outside of Golden State, but that’s on paper, and the chemistry part of it I think has to be at least a little bit of a concern.”

20:49-21:30: “If you have a young superstar in the NBA in this era and you’re not doing everything that you have to do, if you’re not doing everything right, you are on the clock at all times and you are always at risk of losing that guy, whereas in prior eras of the NBA, guys would just generally stay and contracts were longer in prior eras too. So we’re in an era of short contracts, player empowerment, all of which makes for a very volatile and risky situation for owners and GMs because they have a very tight time timeframe to get things on track or risk losing their guy, and more so if you are in a small market as New Orleans and Milwaukee are.”

23:11-24:47: “Where the dark horses [for acquiring Anthony Davis in the offseason] come in is we don’t know who’s gonna have the draft rights to Zion Williamson yet, and it’s not a unanimous feeling about him, by the way…the [draft] lottery will be in May, we’ll see who has the draft rights to Zion Williamson, maybe that team becomes a trade partner. The other possibility is a team like Denver, which has phenomenal talent and depth but doesn’t have that one transcendent guy, and [Nikola] Jokic is unique and amazing for what he is and Jamal Murray is rising fast, but certainly a team like Denver would love to have Anthony Davis I’m sure. They’re not gonna make that trade now because you’ve got a young, deep team that is still in its infancy, that has not even been in the playoffs yet, that is just building towards something…Let’s say you get knocked out by the Lakers in the first round, for instance, just as a hypothetical. Do you then say, ‘You know what? We want to accelerate this. We’re not gonna just kick back and wait for Jamal Murray and Jokic and the rest of these guys to take the next step. We think we need to make a deal now, and we’ve got the pieces.’”

33:43-34:16: “There’s no ambiguity about how the league office views gay rights, any elements of diversity and just the embrace of people of all walks of life; that has been the NBA’s hallmark for many years. And you know, it has its faults like any other business or any other organization, but I don’t think there’s any question about Adam Silver’s stance on any of this. But he also has 30 owners to answer to, it is a business, and you still have to sometimes find these middle paths that not everybody is going to agree with and that’s understandable.”

50:49-51:15: “In fairness, the long view is you don’t know how the trade worked out for the Knicks for a few years. But I think that just in the moment, given how rarely the Knicks have had elite talent and somebody who was homegrown and worth building around, being excited about, to have sacrificed him just a few years in, I think is a dicey kind of transaction.”

*You can also find Howard hosting The Full 48 or appearing on NBA TV and NBA Radio as a wise and charismatic contributor. 

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Music: “Who Likes to Party” by Kevin MacLeod.