In March 2021, NBA All-Star power forward Blake Griffin was bought out by the Detroit Pistons, who then later signed with the Brooklyn Nets. This move to the Brooklyn Nets caused a lot of controversy in the NBA community, and now the league is questioning whether or not buying out big name players from their contracts should still be allowed.

A buyout is when a player has a guaranteed contract with a team and is owed a certain amount of money over a period of time, but the team they play for does not need them anymore and cannot find anyone to trade their player for. When this is the case, a team will buyout a player from their contract, meaning that they will pay the player their owed salary, and the player is then free to sign with any team of their choice.

Various teams also have different takes and opinions on the issue. It seems that smaller market teams are more opposed to the idea of buyouts compared to bigger market teams. Some examples of the smaller market teams include the Charlotte Hornets, Sacramento Kings and Cleveland Cavaliers. The bigger market teams are teams like the Los Angeles Lakers, Brooklyn Nets and the New York Knicks.

The reason behind small market teams opposing the buyout rule is because big name players will almost never choose to sign with them over a big branded team. This is the case because for talented players; they can get better endorsements and advertisements playing for a team that brings more attraction to NBA fans.

As for the big teams, they are all in favor of allowing All-Star quality players to be bought out. This is because more popular big market teams know that they will be considered as the top destinations for the best players who get bought out of their contract around the league.

Although buying out high quality players may be a disadvantage for many teams, this rule should never be banned from the NBA. At the end of the day, the NBA is a business, and teams and players need to do whatever is best for them.

Consider, for example, the example of Blake Griffin, who was bought out by the Detroit Pistons because Detroit was a rebuilding team that had no use left for Blake Griffin. Small market teams should not be able to complain about his decision to sign with the Brooklyn Nets because before he was bought out every team in the league had a chance to trade for Griffin but decided not to. This gave the Pistons no option but to buyout Blake Griffin.

In a way, the buyout rule also brought some sort of balance to the NBA. Once Griffin signed with the Brooklyn Nets, Brooklyn was the clear favorite to win the NBA championship. But later in the same season, All-Star center Andre Drummond was also bought out of his contract and decided to sign for the Los Angeles Lakers. This now gives the Lakers a good chance to beat the Brooklyn Nets if they both end up meeting in the NBA finals.