Never in a million years would I have expected James Harden to be on the Cleveland Cavaliers. Then again, he's been all over the place since he left the Houston Rockets.

While the spike in the future NBA salary cap was unforeseen, Oklahoma City flipped Harden to Houston – one of his many future destinations –  for a few players and first round draft picks.

One of those first-round picks from that trade turned into the selection of Steven Adams, who if it wasn’t for Google, I would have no idea he is currently a Rocket.

Adams has always been an Oklahoma City player in my mind. Since the Thunders’ 2020 season came to an end, he has been traded three times: The first where he played a lone season for New Orleans, then another trade that saw him ink a two-year deal with Memphis, and his most recent stop in Houston.

Oh, the irony! I didn't even realize it until I wrote that last line above. I had a bit of a “Doctor Who” binge at some point in the last year and a half, so let's just say that Adams took the long way around to wind up in Houston.

The entire setup that I've laid out for you above was intentional. The part about  Adams wasn't – that was improvised on the fly.

There's been a ton of player movement around the NBA. While some of this definitely is a byproduct of the player empowerment era started by LeBron James back in the early 2010s, there's another issue at play: Both NBA teams and their players are far too trigger happy to move on to newer pastures, and those pastures aren't always greener on the other side.

Maybe I sound like a boomer here, but the fact that a sports nut like myself can't keep up with where some of the top players or even recognizable names in the association currently reside is a big problem.

I highly doubt even most casual NBA fans who would associate ‘Player A’ with their original team (‘Team A’) could guess how many moves have been made and that ‘Player A’ is now on Team D or E!!

Did you know that Zion Williamson and Anthony Edwards – drafted in 2019 and 2020, respectively – are the two current longest-tenured No. 1 overall NBA Draft selections that are still with their original teams since 2015?

2015 was when the Timberwolves drafted Karl-Anthony Towns.

Until this year, only Myles Turner and Devin Booker remained with the original teams among the 2015 lottery picks. That distinction now belongs only to Booker, with Turner now donning a Milwaukee Buck uniform.

Looking at the 2015-22 drafts, there’s an alarming amount of movement of the top players shuttling from team to team, the carousel not even slowing down once.

Only a few players remain with the team they originally started their career with (Jaylen Brown and Jayson Tatum with the Boston Celtics and Jamal Murray with the Denver Nuggets are among the more prominent cases).

Hell, the 2017 NBA Draft is an incoherent mess thanks to the inexplicable Luka Doncic trade (there's a funny story behind that, as I'm sure Brandon Lewis remembers from our Fitz On Sports Podcast episode in February 2025).

Pure ego is how I will always view Nico Harrison's screw up of the Dallas Mavericks. While he got bailed out in the lottery before getting canned mid-year during the 2025-26 NBA campaign, how the new ownership structure allowed him to be in charge of making that trade is beyond baffling.

Did they not remember that he was the one in charge of Nike's presentation to Steph Curry and screwed that up?! The rest is history, as Curry went on to make a name brand for himself with Under Armor.

Then we have the Atlanta Hawks. Somehow, they reached the point of needing to trade Trae Young to the Washington Wizards?

Trust me when I say it was far more confusing for me to have to go through all the various moves and acquisitions over the recent few years.

Doesn't it make your head spin? I know mine is still spinning.

I'm at a loss for words other than the league has an issue of either star players being traded because they don't feel appreciated enough (I'll keep my harsher criticisms on that front to myself), or teams have just gotten so used to player movement that they can't help it flip them around like disposable toys. That needs to be stopped immediately.

Do you know why Adam Silver is even having to consider alternatives to try and prevent tanking despite what would be an absolute implosion of the sport?

Take a look at the NBA landscape. How many stars that were drafted by their original team are still with the same franchise?

Year by year and summer by summer, the numbers dwindle further and further away.

Between ownership, league officials and the players themselves, everyone should be getting in a room and trying to stop the out-of-control carousel so that people can actually have an idea where players like Steven Adams are currently located.

I'll reiterate what I said above: If a sports nut like myself can't keep track, then that's a big problem for the casual fan.

It's time to stop thinking about tanking and more about retaining.