When Oscar Robertson began his fight to create free agency

Every year, free agency ignites in the offseason, even if superstars change teams less and less during the summer, and it has become an essential event of the NBA season, just like the Draft. However, you should know that this did not always exist, and the origin of it was a legendary player.

As he celebrates his 87th birthday today, Oscar Robertson is one of the fathers of “free agency,” whose first traces can be found in 1970, half a century ago.

At the time, players had no say on behalf of their future team, and while Oscar Robertson had to go to Milwaukee to join Lev Alcindor, the future Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, he opposed the trade!

The president of the players’ union, “Big O” doesn’t want the Bucks to lose starters to draft him. He wants to be free to choose where he wants to play without that team having to send other players to pick him up. ” I told them that if they move one of the starters, I won’t play for them he said The New York Times. « If you kill the team, there’s no reason for me to go. »

A six-year legal battle

Oscar Robertson, who will be an NBA champion with the Bucks, then begins a legal battle with the NBA to prevent a player from being forced to stay with the same team for his entire career, except in the case of a transfer. He believes that NBA rules violate antitrust laws, whether they concern player movement or the draft.

His legal battle, which continues even in Congress, prevents the merger of the ABA and the NBA, and in the end it will take six years for the “Oscar Robertson rule” to free players and offer them the option of choosing a franchise at the end of their contracts.

« I don’t think anyone could have imagined what would happen today “, he admits. We were just trying to get better conditions. We wanted to make sure that if you signed with a team and didn’t want to play for it anymore, the team couldn’t stop you from leaving. »

Despite this victory, and this establishment in 1976 of the merger with the ABA, it was not until 1988 that the player truly acted as a “free agent”. This is Tom Chambers, the star of Sonic.

At the time, the All-Star wing claimed that “free agency” was just window dressing and that in reality players couldn’t go anywhere they wanted. “ You really couldn’t move », delivered the winger. « There was no movement. So the contracts kind of locked you in. »

“The owners would like the players to keep quiet”

Except the NBA decided as of this summer of 1988 that players have complete freedom to sign wherever they want, provided they meet two conditions: they have been in the league for seven years or more and they have two NBA contracts. This is exactly the case with Sonic. Phoenix therefore quickly positions itself to retrieve it.

More than 35 years later, the players have taken over, and more and more superstars manage to be traded to the team of their choice while still under contract. Unthinkable in 1970.

« If everything remained as before, the owners would not like the players to say anything. They would like to be silent: ‘Sit and play’ “, concluded Oscar Robertson.

The article was originally published in 2020