Since the talk of the league right now is the Adam Silver vs Utah Jazz feud, I thought I’d share a story that I don’t think is super well known by most fans.

In 1976 the Jazz signed Gail Goodrich as a free agent from the Lakers. The league stepped in trying to discourage free agency, and forced the Jazz to give the Lakers 3 first round picks, including the #1 overall pick in 1979 that turned in to Magic Johnson. The Jazz were completely unaware at the time of the signing that they would have to do this.

Here’s an old interview with Gail Goodrich talking about it.

https://www.deseret.com/1992/7/16/18994586/goodrich-tells-his-side-in-jazz-magic-deal/

“Going in, the Jazz did not know they were going to have to give up all those draft choices for me,” said Goodrich. “They made a deal with a free agent that they thought would help their team. But the league, in an effort to discourage free agency - I’m not sure they’ll admit to this even now - stepped in and awarded the Lakers those draft choices as compensation.

“It was a big settlement that New Orleans eventually had to agree to. But not until there had been a lot of behind-the-scenes pressure from the league.

“The truth is, there was no trade at all as far as myself and the Jazz were concerned. The Jazz signed me, and then the league demanded compensation to the Lakers.”

mattameye

106 | 5 hours ago

Imagine the league stepping in and helping the Lakers…🤦🏻

SecretTurnover8939

18 | 3 hours ago

The league’s always had a soft spot for the big market teams, this is just one of the more blatant examples from back in the day.

ihatedougford | Toronto Huskies

5 | an hour ago

Imagine Kawhi’s contract gets voided, he goes to the Lakers, and they make the conference finals 🤣🤣

Acrobatic_Lynx_3362

1 | 18 minutes ago

If they void kawhi’s contract, force him to sit out the rest of this year and next year tbh and maybe force him to pay back some of that contract too

Diamond4Hands4Ever | Warriors

91 | 4 hours ago

You actually didn’t tell the whole story. What you mentioned is already pretty rough, but to add to your story, the Jazz also were forced give up future three time MVP Moses Malone as part of this agreement.

The Jazz actually initially got Moses Malone in the ABA Dispersal Draft. However, since the Jazz were forced to give up these 3 first round picks you mentioned, they were then forced to give up the rights to Malone in order to get back their 1977 first round pick as part of the agreement for Goodrich. So they not only gave up the 1979 first rounder which became Magic, they also gave up Moses Malone in order to get back the 1977 first rounder to give to the Lakers, to go along with the 1978 first rounder. I believe the 1978 first rounder was used by the Lakers as part of a deal with Boston to acquire future HOF Charlie Scott.

Moses Malone himself has an interesting story. Despite leading the ABA in offensive rebounding as a 19 year old rookie, people back then didn’t quite understand age adjusted production, so several NBA teams gave up on him (Jazz, Blazers, and Braves) when he went from the ABA to the NBA, until he found a home in Houston and the rest is history.

JMEEKER86 | NBA

35 | 3 hours ago

Could you imagine a Magic and Moses Jazz dynasty in the 80s?

idiotxd

1 | 10 minutes ago

Magic probably doesnt get AIDS in utah and plays 15 years in the league

Str82daDOME25 | Warriors

16 | 3 hours ago

“Malone…didn’t quite understand age”

Thought you were talkin about a different Malone there for a sec

Tuna-on-toast22

15 | 3 hours ago

Thanks for adding this.

They also had to trade away the draft rights to Dominique Wilkins just a couple of years later iirc because they couldn’t afford to pay him

CompleteFish | Jazz

1 | 26 minutes ago

Dominique also didn’t want to play in Utah. We also had Bernard King, but got rid of him because of rather disgusting behavior on his part.

Lazy-Agency-5013

9 | 3 hours ago

Man, the Jazz really got fleeced twice in one deal. Giving up Magic’s draft rights is brutal enough, but tossing in Moses Malone to get a pick back is just salt in the wound. That might be one of the most lopsided sequences in league history.

laxdefender23 | Wizards

1 | 16 minutes ago

Tbf to the Blazers, they already had Bill Walton and they just signed Maurice Lucas out of the ABA. They knew Moses was tuff, but they were worried about not being able to play Moses enough, which would lead to locker room problems.

dontgetitwisted_fr | Raptors

52 | 5 hours ago

League has always been simpin for the Lakers

MinuteSwan4839

8 | 3 hours ago

That’s the OG tampering penalty right there, basically gifted them a dynasty.

strata888

31 | 5 hours ago

That was how ‘free agency’ worked back then. If you signed another team’s player, the league would enforce some kind of compensation. True unrestricted free agency didn’t come along until the late 80’s.

adeptadapted

11 | 4 hours ago

Was 3 picks normal for the time though? From Goodrich’s statement it doesn’t sound like it

strata888

3 | an hour ago

Goodrich was the first ‘free agent’ and I’m sure the league was making an example of him/Utah and was being petty to put out the message that they disliked free agency. It took a lawsuit to allow free agency to exist at all. In support of league concerns, the NBA wasn’t doing all that well at the time. I was a kid in the 70s and as far as the tv networks were concerned, the NBA was less appealing than the NFL, MLB, hockey, tennis, boxing, college football and basketball, wrestling and even bowling. I could actually see those on tv on the weekends, but rarely the NBA. The NBA finals was taped and shown after midnight so that it wouldn’t pre-empt prime time tv shows. The league did need to keep interest in big markets to stay alive IMO so I could understand if the league felt free agency might damage the league overall.

shawhtk | Celtics

1 | an hour ago

Tape delays didnt come until 1980 and 1981 which ironically were Magic and Bird’s 1st Finals. The 81 Finals had worst ratings in league history for over 25 years.

hatsofftoroyharper41

3 | 4 hours ago

It’s currently how the AFL run there stupid free agency system

CazOnReddit | Raptors

2 | 4 hours ago

Doesn’t the MLB have something similar to it?

km912 | SAC

2 | 4 hours ago

Kind of. The first time a player reaches free agency a team can offer the qualifying offer which is around 20 million right now, similar to restricted free agency in the nba. Assuming the player doesn’t take the qualifying offer he becomes an unrestricted free agent, but depending on how much he signs for the new team loses a pick, and the team that lost him gets a compensation pick. There’s a math formula that the teams are aware of that determines what picks are lost/gained, and first round picks are only lost pretty rarely for star level contracts.

HumbleFiber5633

1 | 4 hours ago

The NFL does iirc since it has restricted free agency, but I’m not as familiar with it. baseball has arbitration and qualifying offers which means the team makes the highest pick that isn’t a top 10 selection

TruWarierRecords | CHI

1 | 4 hours ago

Kind of, players can leave without compensation but there’s so many rounds in the draft that most teams will offer a filler pick anyway. Like Worpel going from the Hawks to the Cats.

It’s closer to the nba in that players with years left on their contracts will demand trades and more often than not succeed.

refreshing_yogurt

3 | 2 hours ago

Are you sure this is the case? When I’ve tried to look into this, I’m not been able to find a CBA for that time, nor any accounts of other teams having to surrender picks for signing free agents. So the only first hand account is given by Goodrich in the article cited here, which says this was not something Utah knew would happen and was not actually part of the rules before the NBA decided to step in.

rattatatouille | SAS

5 | 2 hours ago

I did find this article.

Basically Oscar Robertson sued the NBA, since at the time a team could hold the rights to a player in perpetuity, with the only ways to get out being traded (and the new team, of course, would get those rights) and retirement. Even before that Rick Barry sat out the 1968 season and played for the ABA in protest of this.

Robertson sued the NBA in 1970, and while he wasn’t able to succeed in his other aims (ending the draft and preventing the NBA-ABA merger), the suit being settled in 1976 served to delay the latter, and thus began the first era of free agency.

However, unrestricted free agency (where a team could snap up a player without compensating their original team) wouldn’t arrive until 1988 (with Tom Chambers being the first player to become a UFA), and in between 1976 and 1988 the original team had the right to demand compensation for losing a player to free agency. Hence the Goodrich signing leading to the Jazz surrendering picks to the Lakers.

rattatatouille | SAS

3 | 2 hours ago

Also free agency didn’t exist altogether until the 70s, after Oscar Robertson sued the NBA. His suit also delayed the NBA-ABA merger until 1976.

Fit_Huckleberry_4689

0 | 3 hours ago

Yeah, it’s wild how much the league has changed. Teams basically had to pay a ransom just to sign a guy who wanted to leave.

qqbeef

12 | 4 hours ago

We can add this to the huge list of evidence that the NBA hates free agency and wants to control where players are for their whole careers.

mucho-gusto | CLE

-8 | an hour ago

Funny how everyone here is up in arms about this but simultaneously for the draft which also takes away player agency

qqbeef

1 | 18 minutes ago

I recomend you look at this link to learn about the Nirivana Fallacy.

Most people want player agency, but do not want uncapped player agency. The draft brings enough benefits to the league (parity is the big one) that fans are willing to sacrifice some player agency for it to stay around. The example in OP is bad for both player agency and parity.

parksmart1 | Warriors

9 | 3 hours ago

Will also add that the Lakers won a coin flip with the Chicago Bulls to secure the #1 pick in the ‘79 Draft. If CHI had won the flip and Magic had gone to play for the Bulls, it’s not as likely that they’re woeful enough a number of seasons later to get the #3 pick in the ‘84 Draft that turned into Michael Jordan

GlueGuy00

8 | 3 hours ago

NBA won’t admit it but they view the Lakers as the backbone of the league.

ClutchOlday

4 | 4 hours ago

Magic wouldn’t have been happy in Utah. But he and Karl Malone would have had great conversations referring to themselves in the third person.

BaronsDad | Pelicans

10 | 3 hours ago

The Jazz would have stayed in New Orleans if they had had Moses Malone and didn’t have to give up their 1977, 1978, and 1979 picks. Moses was an All-Star in 1978 and MVP in 1979.

The punishment for signing Goodrich doomed the franchise. It’s doubtful that they would have ended up with Magic, but they would have had Moses and 3 picks.

mucho-gusto | CLE

2 | an hour ago

So honestly current day jazz fans should be happy the team was punished because otherwise they wouldn’t have a team. Or even worse… It could’ve been the clippers!

DesolationRobot | Jazz

2 | 3 hours ago

They were still in New Orleans then.

ClutchOlday

0 | 2 hours ago

The Jazz moved to Utah in June 1979. Magic was drafted #1 on 25 June 1979.

roshidawg23

1 | an hour ago

wtf this would have completely changed everything

jeffreycoley

1 | 36 minutes ago

Wow, almost like money rules…..

The NBA once forced the Jazz to give up 3 picks (1 of which turned in to Magic Johnson) for signing Gail Goodrich as a free agent.