"It does not matter: even the best franchises in the NBA can not compete with the whims of the superstar | Bleacher's report

Kawhi Leonard will soon be a Los Angeles Clipper, because the Los Angeles Clippers have done everything right.

They put together a list of tenacious and talented young players. They have built methodically and impressively – winning in the present while pocketing a salary cap room and additional choices of projects for the future.

They sold their vision with a championship coach (Doc Rivers), the richest owner of the NBA (Steve Ballmer), a legendary executive (Jerry West) and one of the most astute personal in the league.

And when it came time to close the deal last week, the Clippers have put everything to good use–their insight, their flexibility and a whole bunch of those choices – to acquire Paul George, which validated Leonard's commitment and transformed the franchise.

The Clippers have deserved this victory.

The same could be said for the Brooklyn nets, which spent three years of careful planning on a double-cap transaction.–the dedications of Kevin Durant and Kyrie Irving.

You can reasonably conclude that this is the moral of this dead season of the NBA, dizzying, upsetting and changing the landscape: the teams that do it well are rewarded.

It would not be wrong to think so. This morality gives hope to franchises and fans around the world.

But the more general lesson is a little darker, drowning in existential angst: Sometimes, nothing that you do actually matter. Nothing.

The Toronto Raptors did it all right – even win a championship–and still lost Leonard.

The Golden State Warriors made three consecutive finals with Durant, winning two titles … and lost despite everything.

The Boston Celtics surrounded Irving with veteran stars and young inflatable talents … and he coldly cut the ties.

And the thunder of Oklahoma City–who celebrated a new four-year contract with George last summer, traded it at his request.

These are four of the best NBA organizations, led by four of the league's top leaders: Masai Ujiri in Toronto, Bob Myers in Oakland, Danny Ainge in Boston, and Sam Presti in OKC. They all lost their best players in the space of six days.

Welcome to the new NBA, where it's not enough to be bold or clever. Where even championships and max contracts are sometimes not enough to satiate the modern player.

Leonard has just become the first NBA superstar to leave his team immediately after winning a title. Durant left his post just one year after being crowned finals MVP. Jimmy Butler just left a competitor in Philadelphia to join a non-candidate in Miami–and for less money.

"I think that in the end, no matter what the teams do, it does not matter," said a leading players' agent who represents none of the aforementioned players . "This is just not the case."

In the NBA of today, no force binds a team and a player.

Once upon a time there was a sense of loyalty–a picturesque concept that mainly benefited the teams. More recently, players have stayed for money, taking advantage of bird rights and other incentives for stars to stay put. Or they stayed because their team was winning.

When LeBron James launched this era of player empowerment in 2010, leaving Cleveland to form a great team in Miami, his goal was simple: win championships. He had two. The goal was the same when he returned to Cleveland four years later with a new, younger superteam. He won another title.

But when James jumped to the Los Angeles Lakers last year, he did it without a co-star. The Lakers were far from being a suitor. Indeed, they missed the playoffs. (James finally had a co-star, Anthony Davis, last week.)

What drove James to Los Angeles was a combination of peripheral factors: lifestyle, family preferences, business interests, proximity to his media empire. Agents and team leaders see the same motivations as most movements this summer.

Leonard and George want to win, of course. But they chose to team up in California because both are from Southern California. Irving, who grew up as a Nets fan in New Jersey, also called his move home. Durant wanted to play with Irving, a close friend. He also wanted to be in New York to get closer to his own booming business empire, Thirty Five Ventures.

"For me, it's beyond basketball," said the agent. "This is where they can impact beyond the courts."

Another point: Leonard, Durant and Irving have the luxury of leaving elite teams because the three have won championships.

"These guys now say," Well, I've already realized what I had to accomplish, "said the agent." Now, what are the outside factors that can influence my life? I want to be at home, I want to make movies, I want to be in the music, I want to be in venture capital, "whatever the case, and I think for now, these are factors that you can not determine. "

These are also factors that some teams can not satisfy.

"Masai can not change the fact that Toronto is not Southern California," said the officer. "I mean, Kawhi had a whole country behind him, and he chose to go near him … You can not compete with that."

Of course, that helped the Nets and Clippers do a lot of good–giving them a distinct advantage over their more intrusive (but often dysfunctional) rivals, the Knicks and the Lakers.

And it should be noted that the teams that grabbed the biggest stars were either in the big markets (New York, L.A.) or the glamorous markets (Miami). That includes the Celtics of the big markets, who replaced Irving by attracting Charlotte's Kemba Walker.

So maybe the moral of this summer is this: do everything correctly and do it in a top 10 market in Nielsen or in a coveted city. Oh, and if you have a superstar, find him a co-starter before his eyes start to go astray.

"What it really does is it scares you if you have one of these guys and you do not have a way to find another one," said one manager. long time of the team. "If you are the rest of the NBA, how do you build, given this reality?"

Just over a year ago, the league praised the Raptors for taking the bold step of acquiring Leonard despite the risk of his departure. Two years ago, everyone congratulated the Thunder for doing the same with George. These franchises bet on themselves and, at least at first, look better. George signed a four-year contract. The Raptors won a title.

Now, both are gone. The teams took advantage – the Thunder toppled George for a huge cache of players and selections, and the Raptors got that banner – but the gain on the field was fleeting, it's the least that we can say.

This is the new reality that teams are facing. In the era of shorter contracts and the ultimate freedom of the players, the window for creating and maintaining a competitor is terribly brief.

"The theme is that players will change teams," said the executive. "What you need to do, is you focus on building an elastic and opportunistic franchise that can work successfully in the landscape.You must be able to rotate quickly.You must be able to write well. You need to develop players, can you go beyond an aging core, can you see the future and make the big decision? "

He paused.

"I do not know," said the executive. "I do not think you can count on the fact that you'll be able to withstand a long race."

As noted by the officer, teams today must be "prepared to [a star] stay as much as you are ready for their departure. Because nothing is guaranteed. At all."

Even a contract does not guarantee anything. George forced a transaction two years into the transaction, following the precedent set by Irving (two years), Butler (one year), Chris Paul (one year) and Davis (one year).

A handful of small market teams-Milwaukee, Indiana, Denver and Utah–challenge the odds and build potential contenders with solo superstars. But can not they win everything? And if they ever got this second star?

"These teams are probably not good enough to really win," said the executive. "And their best players will leave and go to other destinations … How do you behave in this environment if you are not at a place that realistically thinks that they can [acquire] two of the best absolutes [players] at their peak, together? "

The events of last week will certainly stir up old tensions between NBA owners over the power of big markets, the drawbacks of shorter contracts, the failure of the so-called supermax, the fear of a league controlled by the stars. All of this could happen in the next round of collective bargaining, perhaps as early as 2022.

There is a glimmer of hope in the league in this swirl of All-Star migration: the end, for the moment, of the era of the super team.–and the sense of inevitability that accompanied it. For the first time in years, there is no clear favorite in both conferences.

No team has four stars (like the warriors) or three (like the Cavaliers, Heat and Celtics). Instead, the league became a galaxy of two-star constellations: James and Davis, Leonard and George, Durant and Irving, Chris Paul and James Harden, Joel Embiid and Ben Simmons. (The Warriors still have Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, but Thompson will miss all or part of the upcoming season as he recovers from ACL surgery, and Green is in the final year of his contract.)

Suddenly, there is a sense of balance in the league. No dynasty to fear. No Voltron basketball that threatens to crush all opponents.

Half a dozen teams could compete for the title of the Western Conference next season. Four teams have a plausible chance of winning the East–and this does not include the Nets, who will probably not have Durant during this season while he is recovering from a ripped Achilles.

A new sensation will sweep the NBA next fall: the suspense.

We will almost certainly see two new teams in the finals next June and a new champion dancing under the confetti. And, soon after, another class of stars is busy playing together in a new city.

No NBA team, not even the best of the best, can feel safe now. No champion is assured of a sustained race. What does modern GM have to do?

"Have a plan B," said the agent.

Howard Beck, senior editor of Bleacher Report, has been covering the NBA full-time since 1997, including seven years on Laker's beat for the first time. Los Angeles Daily News and nine years as an editor for the New York Times. His cover was honored by APSE in 2016 and 2017 and by the Professional Basketball Writers Association in 2018.

Beck also welcomes the Full 48 podcast, available on iTunes.

Follow him on Twitter, @HowardBeck.

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Zach Lowe and Rachel Nichols of ESPN join Howard Beck to discuss NBA power games during the off season, of what the move from Kawhi to the Clippers means to the league and who has the worst name in the league. team in the match. All this and a lot more about The full 48.