How Was NBA Free Agency Born?

Can you imagine LeBron James, Kevin Durant, Joel Embiid or Victor Wembanyama having no room for maneuver regarding the rest of their careers, being permanently dependent on the goodwill of their managers? And all that for life, or almost! Obviously not. At the end of their contract, they can sign with the team of their choice. LeBron James and Durant have never hesitated to do so.

But what is true today has not always been true. The concept of “free agent”, the player free to sign wherever he wants, and therefore of “free agency” was not born with the league. This absolute freedom of the player, to sign wherever he wants is not so old. Not at all in fact. The first real free agent was Tom Chambers. And that was in 1988!

As is often the case in the United States, it was necessary to stand up to the powerful, and to take some legal action.

This is what we are telling you today in Histoires de basket, based on an article by Samuel Hauraix.

Don't forget to subscribe to Histoire(s) de Basket to receive new episodes directly on your apps. More than sixty episodes are online! Including the latest ones, dedicated to the Dunk of the century by Vince Carter on Fred Weis, to the reason why we play the American anthem before games or to the strange idea of testing a basket at 3.65m.