[Saba Sports News] Austin Rivers recently talked about some of the changes in the NBA on “Off Guard.” He expressed his dissatisfaction with the state of the league, arguing that the NBA had been pushing out a lot of proven players over the past four to five years, and he had the misfortune to be one of them.
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“Over the last four or five years, a lot of proven players have been knocked out of the NBA, and I’m one of them, unfortunately,” Rivers said. I don’t mean to speak for myself alone. The current league is more inclined to look for talented young players, but it turns out that many of these players do not succeed, and some of the best players have to go overseas. Teams often say ‘we’re not going to be competitive next season, so we need to develop young players’. But that doesn’t mean I’m retired. Who knows what the future holds? “But that’s the trend, with Evan Fournier, Patrick Beverley going overseas, and even players like Jabari Parker not being able to find a bench seat in the NBA?”
Notably, Rivers, who last made an NBA appearance in the 2022-23 season, didn’t receive another contract from a team. However, as he mentioned, this does not mean that his career is over, but rather reflects the current trend change in the NBA.