Ilya Kovalchuk: The Ugly, Selfish Side of Sports, Pt. 1

Selfish behavior is nothing new in sports, but in this rather strange summer, it appears that the players have taken an ugly turn for the worse. 

From the carnival show of LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, and Chris Bosh signing together in Miami to unprecedented fanfare and coverage, to the ongoing saga of Brett Favre's retirement drama, it has been a bizarre offseason in both basketball and hockey. But one of the players who has garnered the greatest attention, and been the most tiring, is Ilya Kovalchuk.

The drama surrounding Kovalchuk didn't begin with him becoming an unrestricted free agent this offseason, it started when Atlanta GM Don Waddell attempted to resign their star player for an enormous sum. Shortly after the trade, Waddell released a statement on why he eventually ended up trading Kovalchuk to the New Jersey Devils.

"Ultimately, we offered Kovy more than $101 million over 12 years, which would have been the highest contract signed by an impending unrestricted free agent in the history of the league," Waddell wrote in the statement. "If accepted, this contract would have been the second highest offer ever to any NHL player. We also met his desire to be the highest-paid player based on average annual salary with a separate offer of seven years at $10M per year ($70M). This offer is $0.5M higher per year than any other player.

"If we went beyond these offers, we would not be able to retain the young players on our roster when it came time to sign them, or invest in other top tier players needed to assemble a truly competitive team. Therefore, we are aggressively exploring all of our options as we move forward."

After a short stint with New Jersey, where they were knocked out early of the Stanley Cup Playoffs despite the addition of the star, he became an unrestricted free agent. 

Thus began a tiring, drawn-out bidding war between New Jersey and Los Angeles, each side being played against one another in an attempt to increase the overall years and money. 

After several false proclamations by his agent that he was on the verge of signing and LA actually giving up on negotiations twice, Kovalchuk ended up signing a 17-year, $102 million contract with NJ. 

The announcement would turn out to be short lived as the league would reject the contract that night, then following a surprise verdict by an arbitrator, Ilya Kovalchuk once again became an unrestricted free agent for the second time in one offseason.

The point is, wherever Kovalchuk signed, that team would likely have to trade off certain players to allow room for his contract, which would have the adverse effect of weakening the team around him. Even at a five or six million cap hit, New Jersey would struggle to get itself under the limit. 

Los Angeles actually has close to $13 million in cap space, but with several of its marquee younger players needing to be resigned next year, they might not have enough left over to retain them.

So suggesting that Kovalchuk left Atlanta to win seems a little premature considering what a team would have to sacrifice to fulfill his wishes. If he took less money in New Jersey or Los Angeles, what are already very good teams would likely be able to compete at a very high level for the next several years.

Obviously, there has to be pressure on players to sign for a certain amount of money from the NHLPA, player agents, and other players so that their contracts stay high. 

But there has to be a certain amount of independence among players and a willingness to take a little less for the benefit of the team, and to spread the wealth a little. These players have worked very hard to get to where they are, so there is no doubting that they deserve to get paid, but do they really need that much? 

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As this says Pt. 1, look for more to come in the series, as I will be looking at LeBron James, Brett Favre, and other selfish examples from the world of sports.  Also, to close the series, I will look at examples of team behaviour and self-sacrifice that shows the best of what sports is capable of.