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Former Forward Claims NBA Team Shouldn’t Pay Current Player Over Effort Level
A lot of former NBA players have opinions on how current players play. It’s a generational thing that happens every time a generation of guys retires.
Most of those guys think that the younger guys are overpaid for the number of games that they play. A lot of the older guys who played in the NBA talk about how often they were out there on the court.
Channing Frye is one of those former NBA veterans. He played 15 seasons in the league for six different teams.
Frye was one of those players who was able to make himself valuable everywhere he went. He was never considered a star player, though.
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As a former NBA player, Frye watches a lot of current NBA because he likes watching the league. He was recently watching the Portland Trail Blazers and had some takes about a certain player on the team.
While Frye never actually names the player on the team, fans were quickly able to figure out who he was talking about in his social media post. Beware, it is NSFW.
I’m watching the Blazer game and it is gross watching a certain player absolutely FUCK OFF his minutes is unreal. Please stop playing this person Trailblazers
— Channing Frye (@channingfrye) January 15, 2025
It didn’t take long for NBA fans to speculate that he was talking about Deandre Ayton, the starting center for the Trail Blazers. He is the guy who matches this description.
Ayton is putting up career-low numbers in points, rebounds, and assists. With the Blazers not contending for a playoff spot, he is clearly not very engaged in the season right now.
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Frye was furious about his effort in this game. He wants the Trail Blazers to make sure that they don’t pay anymore money for him moving forward.
Ayton is a hard guy to move. He likely can’t be moved until the offseason, when his contract becomes an expiring deal.
He doesn’t have much value right now because of how poorly he’s playing. The Blazers pretty much have no choice but to keep playing him and hope he starts playing better basketball.
Ayton is averaging 13.5 points, 9.9 rebounds, and 1.4 assists so far this season.
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