Bullfrog said:
Absolutely agreed. As much as I do feel it's the player's own responsibility to get motivated, there's no doubt that team chemistry including management has a direct impact on performance. It could be from poor management (or coaching as it is) or from a toxic employee (teammate.) Even worse, as I've experienced, is management not acknowledging or dealing with the toxic employee. It leads to huge frustration for those that show up on time, work hard, and show ambition when there's no consequences for the poor actions and no rewards for the good.
One of the ways that it's tricky to draw a line though between pro sports and any other job is that I don't know that what went on at the deadline and in the weeks leading up to the deadline have an outside equivalent.
Despite it being in the best interests of the organization long term, there's no getting around the reality of what blowing up a team is. When the Leafs traded players, good players, for draft picks they did so knowing that every game from then on would be be a lesser product. They didn't offer fans discounts on their seats, they didn't announce a slash in ticket prices to correspond with their decision to not be good for a few years.
So I don't know that we have a good handle on things like this. How often do teams decide to blow it all up and tear it down midseason? How much credibility does management have to go to players and say "Hey, you still have to care about this season" when they've decided not to?
I don't know, to draw a parallel to any other business seems tricky because you'd almost have to have a situation where a business makes a bunch of decisions that lets it be known that they don't want to make any money for a few years but, also, they won't have any tolerance for individuals not working their hardest.