Feeling different this season

[fifteenth]

@"cow", I get what you're saying. The LA teams and Miami seem to have an advantage in free agency, especially if they're any good at all at the time. But that's not the entire story.

One of the reasons that AD left was that they weren't able to build a good team around him. Aldridge played 9 seasons with Portland and the attempt to win with him had kind of run it's course. Seems like he and the team were both ready to try something different. Lillard is about to play his 10th season with Portland. He may leave, but they had ten years to try to build a better team around him. Harden with with Houston for 9 years and stayed until that thing started to become a train wreck. Beal has somehow shown loyalty to Washington. Booker shows no signs of wanting to leave. Jazz players seem loyal to them, and they've built a great team, even though Utah is such a bad city. 

Jokic is still in Denver. Embiid is stil in Philly. Luka signed his second contract. 

Here's what I think. It's easier for LA and Miami. Other than that, you have to build a good team by being smart (examples of this are all over the league), and if you do, you have a good bit of time to try to win. Giannis didn't just stay with the Buicks out of loyalty (though it was part of the equation). He stayed also because the Bucks built a really good team around him that gave him a chance to win. 

Pick your top 16 teams going into 2021 and LA, LA and Miami are there, but so are 13 other teams that aren't destionation cities. 

You can call the Nets a destination if you want, but that never really helped them until KD decided he wanted to build his kingdom there. If NY is a destination, it hasn't helped the Knicks lately. 

Short story. I think the fear of destination cities and superstars leaving is overblown. The fear is bigger than the reality, imho.