Zdeno Chara doesn't like the word "rookie." The Boston Bruins captain is quick to correct the media if they use it in a conversation; Chara prefers the term "first-year player."

The 42-year-old Slovak has been in the league since 1997, and he has seen hundreds of players come from different countries, different backgrounds and, frankly, different sizes too (while the 6-foot-9 defenseman still exerts a physical presence, the league, as a whole, has trended much shorter as of late).

"Since a very young age, I didn't like the separation in a team between young players and older players, [or] players who have accomplished something or players that are just coming into the league," Chara told reporters in Boston this week. "I don't like to use the word 'rookie.' They are our teammates. I just don't like to separate. I don't think that's the right thing to do. Once you're a team, you're a team regardless of the age, or accomplishments. We have to treat each other with respect and the same way."

With deference to Chara, there are no "rookie" references in this article. However, it is a compelling exercise to dissect the makeup of both Stanley Cup Final teams. Where do the players come from and, perhaps just as important, how did they end up on the roster? While many hockey players don't see nationality -- often, they just see personality -- it's interesting to note the Blues are a decidedly more Canadian roster while Boston skews American. Here are some other notes that we found.

Note: For purposes of this story, we counted only players who have appeared in at least one playoff game this spring.

Age

• The average age of a Blues player? 26.9. The Bruins? 26.8. Pretty close! Chara -- at age 42, the oldest Stanley Cup Final participant -- helps skew Boston a tad older, while St. Louis has the Final's youngest player in 19-year-old Robert Thomas.

• Most common age for both teams? There are six players (three on each) who are 27.

• We often note that Boston has an aging core but has been able to retool on the fly. To that point, there are seven players (including the six who remain from the 2011 Stanley Cup team) 30 or older. There are also seven 23 or younger. The Blues have six players 30 and over, and just five 23 or under. Boston has three players (Connor Clifton, Jake DeBrusk, Karson Kuhlman) playing on their entry-level contracts, while St. Louis has two (Vince Dunn and Robert Thomas).

Drafting

• There are 10 Bruins players who were Bruins draft picks, and three who went undrafted (Torey Krug, Noel Acciari and Karson Kuhlman).

• There are 12 Blues players who were Blues draft picks and one who was undrafted (Tyler Bozak, though he initially signed with the Maple Leafs in 2009).

• Average draft round of players who have suited up for the Bruins this spring? 2.5. That includes six first-round picks and none drafted in the sixth round or later (excluding the undrafted guys).

• Average draft round of Blues players this spring? 2.4. That includes nine first-round picks and three drafted in the sixth or seventh rounds (and excluding Bozak).

• Among both teams, the most common draft position is the first round (16 combined players), then the second round (nine players), then third round (eight players). The fifth round features just three players -- all on the Bruins -- and the fourth round has two players, again, all on the Bruins. The Blues feature the only two sixth-round picks and the only seventh-round pick (shout-out to you, Carl Gunnarsson!).

• Now for the not-so-fun stuff for some of the wistful teams watching at home: There are two San Jose draft picks playing (2010 first-rounder Charlie Coyle and 2011 fifth-rounder Sean Kuraly), two Anaheim picks (fourth-rounder Steven Kampfer, fifth-rounder Chris Wagner), two Pittsburgh picks (third-rounders Robert Bortuzzo and Oskar Sundqvist), two Washington picks (second-rounder Zach Sanford and first-rounder Marcus Johansson). And we must mention that the Toronto Maple Leafs have a former first-round draft pick in net for the Bruins in Tuukka Rask. Things might have shaped differently over the past decade if they kept that guy. Then again, who knows?

How they ended up here

• The Bruins have only four players who were acquired by trade. That includes two from this year's trade deadline -- Charlie Coyle and Marcus Johansson -- as well as two acquired a while ago (Rask came from Toronto in 2006, and reserve defenseman Kampfer from Anaheim in 2010).

• The Blues have acquired eight of their players via trade, a group that includes some important players: Ryan O'Reilly, Brayden Schenn, Alexander Steen, Gunnarsson, Sundqvist, Bortuzzo, Jay Bouwmeester and Zach Sanford.

• The biggest makeup difference here? While nine Bruins players arrived as free agents, only three Blues players did. And for St. Louis, that technically includes 2007 first-round Blues draft pick David Perron, whose transaction history is fascinating. Despite playing for five teams in a 12-year NHL career, Perron has signed contracts only with the Blues. This is his fourth contract with the team, and third stint overall.

• There are a whopping 12 players on the Bruins who played college hockey, but just four on the Blues. (As you'll see below, that's likely due to the American versus Canadian makeups.) There are lots of Boston connections, too. Three Bruins players suited up at Boston University. St. Louis' Sanford played for Boston College, while Noel Acciari played for nearby Providence and Clifton played for near(ish)by Quinnipiac.

Nationality

• Just like the Vegas Golden Knights last year, the Blues are pretty much Canada's team. Of the 21 players who have suited up this spring, 16 are from the Great North. Two players (Vladimir Tarasenko and Ivan Barbashev) are Russian, two are Swedish (Gunnarsson and Sundqvist) and there are just two Americans, though their origin stories are quite poetic: Patrick Maroon is a native of the St. Louis area, while Sanford grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, and went to Boston College.

• The Bruins have only four Canadians on the roster (Marchand, Bergeron, Danton Heinen and DeBrusk). They are one of the NHL's most American teams, with 13 players hailing from the U.S. There is also one Finn (Rask), two Swedes (Johansson and Joakim Nordstrom), a Slovak (Chara) and two Czechs (David Pastrnak and Krejci).

• For context, according to the website Quanthockey, 43.5 percent of the NHL this season was Canadian. Americans accounted for 28.6 percent, Swedes 9.7 percent, Finns 4.9 percent, Czechs 4.0 percent, Russians were 3.9 percent and Slovaks were just 1.1 percent (Chara is one of 11 in the league).

Height

• Despite having the tallest player on the ice in Chara, the Bruins are actually the shorter team on average (blame 5-foot-9ers Brad Marchand and Krug, good friends who are constantly chirping each other about who is shorter). The average height of a Bruins player is 72.7 inches, just below 6-foot-1.

• The Blues average out at 73.6 inches, just below 6-foot-2.

• Boston has three players under 6 feet. The Blues don't have any.

• St. Louis has eight players 6-foot-3 or taller, while the Bruins have five.

The Boston Bruins and the St. Louis Blues aren't just two well-matched teams meeting in the Stanley Cup Final. They're two teams with a collection of storylines that could elevate this series into an instant classic.

Haven't been paying too much attention? Was your team already knocked out? We'll help you decide whether to root for the Blues or the Bruins, with a look at all the sweeping narratives and overlooked angles in this championship round matchup, which begins Monday night in Boston.

St. Louis Blues

The drought

The Blues entered the NHL in 1967. They emerged from their expansion team-laden conference in three straight seasons to play for the Stanley Cup, losing twice to Montreal and once to Boston, all of them in sweeps. (The Blues are the only team to appear in multiple Stanley Cup Finals and not win a single game.) But after 1970 ... nothing. They made the conference final three times over the next 48 years, before finally advancing to the Final again this season. To say generations of Blues fans have been waiting for this moment is not an overstatement.

Worst to first

On New Year's Day, the Blues were tied with the Ottawa Senators for the lowest point total in the NHL standings. The reversal of those fortunes -- thanks to a new coach in Craig Berube, a hot goalie in Jordan Binnington and better team chemistry -- was one of the most unexpected stories of the season. The Blues are the fourth team in the expansion era to have reached the Final after ranking among the bottom three in the standings at any point after their 20th game. Only the 1968 Canadiens went on to win the Stanley Cup, for what it's worth.

"Gloria"

The late Laura Branigan's 1982 pop classic "Gloria" has become synonymous with this Blues team since they adopted it as their victory song. It started when a few players were in a bar in Philadelphia, watching the NFC wild-card game between the Eagles and Bears, and the DJ kept spinning "Gloria" during the ad breaks. The players decided to make the ear worm their victory song. It's now heard in the arena after victories (and well into the evening), on radio stations during 24-hour stunts, blaring from cars in St. Louis and inside the head of center Ryan O'Reilly. "It's our anthem here," he said. "It's so cool how it's brought the team and the fans that much closer."

David Backes is back

In 2016, Backes left the Blues as a free agent for the Bruins, having played in St. Louis for 10 seasons and having served as captain for half of that tenure. He's chasing his first Stanley Cup in the same series as his former team, and teammates, are chasing theirs. Will friendships, like the one Backes has with current captain Alex Pietrangelo, be tested? "I told him I love him now and will love him after, but I'm going to hate him for the next three weeks here. That's a mutual decision; we're going to battle our butts off for this ultimate prize and we'll patch up whatever needs to be patched up afterwards," Backes said Wednesday.

Jordan Binnington, former Bruin?

The 25-year-old rookie goalie sensation, who helped resurrect the Blues' season and earned a Calder Trophy nomination it the process, lingered in the AHL for nearly six years before finally getting his shot at the Blues' crease. That included a 28-game stint with the Providence Bruins in 2017-18, where St. Louis loaned him after Binnington told the Blues he would not report to an ECHL team. Among his teammates: Current Bruins Connor Clifton and Matt Grzelcyk.

The forecheck

The Blues love to dictate terms to opponents via their forecheck, which can take over games when it's working. Like, for example, the majority of their final three games against the San Jose Sharks, when the Blues outscored them 12-2 and absolutely dominated them for great stretches of those wins. (The Sharks' injuries obviously played a role in that, too.)

Winning for everyone else

Besides one another and the Blues' long-suffering fans, there are plenty of other people St. Louis players are battling for in the Stanley Cup Final. There's Laila Anderson, the young girl with a rare disease called HLH, whose indelible presence at Blues games in the Western Conference finals was touching. There's Charles Glenn, their anthem singer retiring because of multiple sclerosis, whose stint has been extended by three rounds already. Then there are the many Blues alumni who still live in St. Louis and are around the team, from tough guy Kelly Chase, who was openly weeping after Game 6, to Bob Plager, an original Blues player who has been waiting over 50 years for "his parade."

Boston Bruins

Tuukka's redemption tour

As recently as this season, there was a faction of Bruins fans that didn't trust Boston goalie Tuukka Rask in big games; the distrust probably began when he was in net as the Bruins blew a 3-0 series lead against the Philadelphia Flyers in 2010; never mind that he played tremendously in the 2013 Stanley Cup Final run and then won a Vezina Trophy in 2014. Rask has been the hottest goalie in these playoffs, especially in games when Boston has a chance to eliminate opponents. He has gone 3-0 in those contests, stopping 95 of 96 shots (.990 save percentage).

One last squeeze for this core

Five regulars remain from the 2011 Cup-winning Bruins roster: Patrice Bergeron, Zdeno Chara, David Krejci, Brad Marchand and Rask. Bergeron is probably going down as one of the greatest Bruins of all time. Ditto Chara, who at 42 is already a legend. Boston did a masterful job of retooling on the fly to get one more quality shot for this group, though let's note Rask and Krejci are under contract through 2020-21, Bergeron through 2021-22, and opponents are stuck seeing Marchand in a B's uniform until 2025.

The city that won't stop winning

The Celtics blew Boston's chance to hit a City Slam (winning titles in all four major sports, consecutively), but don't let that obscure the fact that Boston teams have been obnoxiously good lately. A Bruins win would mean 13 championships in 18 years for the city. But hey, at least the folks there are aware of how ridiculous this run has been.

Resetting a trend

We know the NHL is a copycat league (what league isn't a copycat league these days?). That means other general managers might try to emulate Boston's winning formula next season. One thing GM Don Sweeney did exceptionally well: hit on two middle-six forwards at the trade deadline. Charlie Coyle and Marcus Johansson have been excellent for the Bruins. Perhaps at the 2020 deadline we'll see GMs of contenders not swing for the buzziest names, but instead try to land top-end forwards who would be better suited playing a role deeper in the lineup.

Too much rest?

We admit, this will only be a storyline until, at most, the first period of Game 2. But the Bruins will have had 10 days between games, and recent history suggests that's not always an advantage. Look at the strange trend in the East this postseason, where teams who swept one round got swept in the next round. The Vegas Golden Knights had a week off before last year's Final, then looked flat against the Washington Capitals in the early going.

Sizzling power play

A red-hot power play isn't a requirement for winning the Stanley Cup -- the Bruins' playoff power play in 2011 was actually not very good at all, hitting at about 11 percent -- but it sure strikes fear in an opponent. The 2019 playoff Bruins have a historically good power play. They're at 34 percent through 17 games; only one team has played at least 15 playoff games and did better: the 1981 New York Islanders (37.8 percent).

Balanced scoring

Hey, it's not all that different than the Blues, but one of the reasons Boston has advanced this far is because all four lines are clicking. Nineteen different Bruins have scored this postseason. The uber-talented top line of Bergeron, Marchand and David Pastrnak has scored 22 of the team's 57 goals, but there were times other players carried the team (especially earlier in the playoffs, when the top line wasn't together, and certainly not playing the way it is now).

Arsenal head of football Raul Sanllehi has said the club is in a strong position in the transfer market and have spoken to a number of players they want to sign this summer, but qualification for the Champions League could be a decisive factor in whether they secure their top targets.

Arsenal can qualify for the Champions League if they beat Chelsea in the Europa League final on May 29, but will miss out on Europe's top competition for a third consecutive season if they lose after finishing fifth in the Premier League under Unai Emery.

Emery spent close to £70 million during his first summer in charge, signing Lucas Torreira, Bernd Leno, Sokratis Papastathopoulos and Matteo Guendouzi, and Sanllehi has said the manager has been working with Arsenal's scouts in drawing up a shortlist ahead of his second season.

The club has been linked with moves for defenders Samuel Umtiti and Matthias Ginter as Emery looks to improve a backline which kept just eight Premier League clean sheets last campaign.

"We have identified very clearly and very unanimously with Emery and our technical people, we know where we want to prioritise," Sanllehi told the club's website.

"We are already in the market talking with the people who can help us cover those positions and I feel quite strong, it's going well.

"We need to go to where we belong and that's the Champions League, and many players really want us to be there also when we are talking with them."

Arsenal's Europa League final opponents Chelsea secured their place in the Champions League as they finished third in the Premier League, joining Manchester City, Liverpool and Tottenham as England's entrants in the competition.

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And Sanllehi said targets have asked for assurances of what level of European football Arsenal will be playing in next season.

"It is something which comes into the conversations," Sanllehi said. "Fortunately enough the image of Arsenal is strong enough.

"Of course the fact we have not been in the Champions League for two years and we're in question mark now for next season, that's not helpful."

Sanllehi added: "We have a lot to offer a player. I don't feel in disadvantage with anybody. The Premier League is exciting for any player in the world. London, Arsenal, the history, the dimension of the club, the stadium, the facilities at Colney, the fan base, the followers around the world and the exposure.

"I feel like I have a lot of ammunition when I talk with players to engage them in our project."

Manchester City forward Raheem Sterling has said he hopes to play in the United States at some stage of his career.

Sterling, the Football Writers' Player of the Year, told a conference in New York he was surprised by the level of enthusiasm for football in the U.S. and expected the sport to continue to grow.

MLS franchise New York City FC is owned by the City Football Group, which runs City and five other clubs around the world.

"English football has grown massively over here. It wasn't like that in the past, and it'll continue to get bigger," Sterling told the Wall Street Journal conference.

"I was surprised even just popping out to the shops and being recognised by one or two people. I didn't expect that over here.

"This is a country I would, one day, love to be able to come to. Your weather is a lot better than ours. Hopefully one day I can have my family over here."

Sterling, who has four years remaining on his City deal, said he and teammates watched MLS matches as well as Australian A-League games at the club's Etihad Campus training facility.

"There's always games on our television at the training ground," the England international said.

"For sure, it [MLS] is growing in the UK, and people are really taking it in and want to come over. Hopefully I will have a career here as well."

NYCFC are coached by Domenec Torrent, Pep Guardiola's former assistant at City, while a number of players have been loaned to the U.S. club in previous seasons.

India offspinner R Ashwin will join Nottinghamshire for the second half of the county season. Ashwin will replace Australia's James Pattinson as Nottinghamshire's overseas player at the end of June and is expected to feature in six of their final seven red-ball matches.

His stint will start at home against Essex on June 30, followed by matches against Somerset and Surrey. He will miss the away fixture against Yorkshire but will return to play against Kent, Warwickshire and Surrey.

"I'm really looking forward to joining up with Nottinghamshire, to playing cricket at an iconic venue like Trent Bridge and hopefully contributing to some County Championship victories," Ashwin said. "I enjoyed my previous stint in England with Worcestershire. It's a good, competitive standard of cricket over there and I can't wait to get started."

ALSO READ: Ajinkya Rahane scores hundred on debut for Hampshire

This will be Ashwin's second stint in the county circuit. In 2017, he had played four matches for Worcestershire to take 20 wickets at an average of 29.15, and scored 214 runs at an average of 42.80.

"We knew what we wanted to sign and that was a world-class bowler," Nottinghamshire director of cricket, Mick Newell said. "Whether that was a fast or a slow bowler, we were prepared to look at all options.

"As it happens, we've signed a very good spinner, a very experienced spinner and one we hope can contribute with the bat as well. We've seen world-class slow bowlers have a huge match-winning effect in county cricket over many years. Ravi certainly has that potential - and we're very much looking forward to welcoming him to the squad and letting him loose on our opposition."

Ashwin will be the second Indian to play county cricket this season. Ajinkya Rahane had signed for Hampshire earlier and started his season with a century on Wednesday, against the team Ashwin has signed for.

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0.1 starts over the wicket, ambles in and pitches it up outside off... and Roy carves it to backward point first ball! … well, England's plan was to be more attacking...

And that was how ESPNcricinfo's ball-by-ball commentary recorded the dawn of England's brave new world, in June 2015: their first completed ODI since the traumas of that year's World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.

As if to prove that blips and setbacks are as much as part of the road to triumph as the moments of glory, the newest batsman in their set-up got off to, literally, the worst possible start to his international career.

"I actually debuted in Ireland but it was a rained-off game," said Jason Roy. "But, for my first actual innings, I walked out there all prepped, all ready, done all my research. First ball, Trent Boult swings it in, nice straight, juicy half volley, fourth stump, I was like 'decent' … straight to point.

"I was like, 'no way, this can not be happening'. I felt like a bus had hit me. But we've come a long way since then."

England came a long way on that day alone, as it happens. With Joe Root and Jos Buttler making centuries in the first flourishing of the team's belligerent new approach, New Zealand's bowlers were carted for 408 for 9, the first 400-plus total in the team's history, but a score that they have since surpassed on three occasions.

And perhaps as a consequence of that mildly traumatic beginning, no player better epitomises the journey from zeroes to potential heroes that England's ODI team has been making in the course of the past four years.

Most importantly, Roy was given a licence to fail by the team management, in a bid to free him up to succeed, and the dividends are plain for all to see on the eve of the 2019 World Cup.

"It's about finding a way in international cricket.," he said. "And [Eoin] Morgan gave me the opportunity to do so, to find a way in international cricket to score big runs.

"He just said, 'You're going to play. We love what you are about, we love the way you play your cricket. And good luck.'

"It was very simple. Very simple from him. And I was like 'cool, focus on my second game'. I actually did not do very well that series. I can't remember what my top score was [39 from 37 balls, three days later at The Oval], but they stuck by me. I trained my arse off and worked hard."

Roy was named Player of the Series in the recent 4-0 victory over Pakistan, after racking up scores of 87, 76 and 114 in his three appearances - the latter coming after a sleepless and worrisome night, when his two-month-old daughter Everly had to be taken to hospital.

It would have been fully understandable for Roy to pull out of the contest in such circumstances, but amid the concern (now, thankfully, abated) he recognised the value of playing on through the anxiety, to prepare his mind for the prospect of a similar setback in the course of the coming seven weeks.

"Things get thrown your way," he said. "That's why I played the other day when my little one was ill. Because I wanted to make sure that if there was a World Cup game on, I would be able to replicate it.

"If that happened before a World Cup game there wouldn't be any [excuse] ... I'd 100% play and I'd have to deal with it. That's all part of professional sport and being who we are we have got to overcome little speed bumps.

"Not everything is going to be perfect, we are not going to have the perfect games but we have to find ways when we do have those imperfect games to come out on top, definitely."

That's been as true for the squad as a whole as for Roy individually. Despite completing, in Roy's words, "probably the best prep we could have had", there have nevertheless been issues to overcome in the final build-up - not least the disruption caused by Alex Hales' expulsion from the squad for recreational drug use - while Roy himself had to overcome back and hamstring issues early in the season that interrupted his Royal London campaign with Surrey.

"We've definitely had a lot of blips in the last year," he said. "But the way that we have overcome them and the way that we have bounced back from them all has always been outstanding. I think that that is going to stand us in great stead for the World Cup."

On the subject of his own injury, which first flared up in the Caribbean, Roy admitted he had been nervous coming back into the team after just three brief innings for Surrey in April. But he trusted his training to get him back up to speed as quickly as possible.

"I think the main case [for me] was mentally being switched on. Going through an injury is never nice … but I knew that my batting was going to be okay, just because I had been training a lot in the nets and I felt good.

"Injuries can reoccur but I've got all my training in place to make sure that there is less of a chance of that happening. But they are well and truly in the back of my mind and I'm not too worried about them at all."

Roy was speaking at the New Balance launch of England's team kit, an event that brought home the fact that the World Cup is just around the corner - not least given that it took place on the same day as the final 15-man squad was unveiled by the selectors at Lord's. And while he had sympathy for David Willey and Joe Denly, the two notable omissions from the party, he was happy to be able to fix his eyes firmly on what is to come.

"I think it's good just to get the squad together, to get the WhatsApp group set up and stuff like that." said Roy. "It's obviously heartbreaking for a couple of the players who have missed out but that just shows you how strong and how deep our squad is.

"We've been playing very, very good cricket for the last four years. Since the last World Cup, we've come together extremely well. And just because we have become No.1, we haven't got too big for our boots or we haven't got giddy, or we haven't stopped working as hard. We haven't stalled."

THE MILWAUKEE BUCKS are on the clock.

While things seem great in Milwaukee at the moment, greatness is fragile. Yes, the Bucks posted the best record in the NBA this season, are set to play a pivotal Game 5 in the Eastern Conference finals tonight, and have a young team that looks like it can be a contender for years to come.

But all of that remains contingent on one thing: convincing Giannis Antetokounmpo, arguably the best player in the world, to remain in Milwaukee.

This is precisely the situation that spurred the NBA and the players' union to create the designated veteran contract extension -- colloquially known as the "supermax" -- two years ago. The new option allows front offices to reward their superstars earlier in their careers, while helping teams avoid the fate of the Oklahoma City Thunder (Kevin Durant) or Portland Trail Blazers (LaMarcus Aldridge), who lost superstars for nothing in free agency.

When 2020 free agency begins, Antetokounmpo will still have one year remaining on his current contract. While no other team will be able to sign him, the Bucks can present Antetokounmpo with a five-year contract extension that is expected to be worth a league-record $247 million, according to projections by Bobby Marks, ESPN's front office insider. Whether he takes it or not will represent the biggest test to the new system.

To date, four players have signed supermax contract extensions: Stephen Curry, James Harden, Russell Westbrook and John Wall. The Curry and Harden deals have worked out splendidly for both sides. Oklahoma City's ability to build around Westbrook remains unclear, while Wall's contract has become regarded as the worst in the league even before it goes into effect.

Meanwhile, Anthony Davis is currently the only player eligible to sign a supermax extension this summer. But, later today, several other players - notably Damian Lillard, Bradley Beal, Klay Thompson and Kemba Walker - could join him when this season's All-NBA teams are announced.

How they, and their teams, react will be the last test of the supermax extension. Two years after its creation, something designed to be an answer has instead created more questions.

"I mean, when you've got guys that know their talent, know their skillset, and know what they're capable of from a money standpoint, you can't really entice somebody with a bag," Paul George told ESPN earlier this season, two years removed from bypassing his own chance to chase a supermax deal. "You know what I mean?"

VERY FEW PLAYERS actually have the opportunity to sign one of these massive five-year deals. To qualify for a supermax extension, a player has to be with the team he was on at the end of his rookie contract and entering his eighth, ninth or 10th year in the NBA. He also needs to have proven he's one of the most elite players in the league, in one of three ways:

• Winning MVP in any of the three most recent seasons;

• Winning Defensive Player of the Year in the most recent season or in the prior two seasons;

• Being named to an All-NBA team in the most recent season or in the prior two seasons.

Still, there is one other factor that isn't officially listed among the rules for supermax qualification, but might be the most important of all: the player has to want to re-sign with his current team, and the team has to want to give out the contract. Because, while the supermax extension was designed to help stem the tide of superstar player movement, it quickly became clear that wouldn't be the case.

"Everybody has their own agenda, and their own motive," George told ESPN. "For me, I just wanted to play and have a chance to win a championship. I didn't care about the money. For me, it was about where can I get a good opportunity to win, and I just felt that window was closing in Indiana, and I moved on."

The biggest benefit to the rule for players is that it gives them yet another bargaining chip. The NBA has always been a star-driven league. Having one of the handful of top players in the league in a given year often is the difference between winning and losing.

It stands to reason, then, that those players will be demanding in exacting any and all answers they want about how an organization is going about its business before deciding to commit long-term -- no matter how much extra money is on the table.

After all, if the difference is between making $191 million over four years on a supermax extension or getting traded and inking a four-year deal worth $157.1 million two years from now. The total dollars are both unfathomable amounts of money.

Those could be two possible options for Beal, who is already is in the middle of a five-year, $125 million deal, if he makes an All-NBA team today.

"Money's not the problem," the Washington Wizards guard told ESPN before the end of the regular season. "It's what are we going to do here moving forward. And it starts with getting a new GM and building up our team this summer. I'll definitely give it a lot of thought. It's not an easy decision. It's not a simple one."

When Wall was deciding whether or not to sign the supermax deal Washington offered in the summer of 2017, he said he wanted to see what the team did in the offseason first. In mid-July, Wall made up his mind and signed the extension. George and Kawhi Leonard decided they didn't want to commit to the supermax deals and instead forced their way out.

Both options are still, at least technically, in play for Davis. The New Orleans Pelicans star is eligible to sign a five-year extension worth $235.5 million on July 1 -- an extension that, if he's still on the Pelicans by then, he will assuredly be offered by them. Davis has already issued a trade demand back in January -- one that his camp insists still stands.

David Griffin, the Pelicans' newly installed executive vice president of basketball operations, has insisted he is going to do everything in his power to convince Davis that he should reconsider his position on New Orleans. Griffin's argument got a boost when the Pelicans jumped to the top of the NBA draft order after winning last week's NBA draft lottery, landing the chance to select Zion Williamson next month.

Still, the power is in Davis' hands. If he continues to say that he has no interest in signing the supermax extension, New Orleans could call his bluff. But that would be an incredibly risky hand to play -- especially considering there will be any number of teams lining up to secure Davis' services if he is put on the trade block this summer.

It is that power, despite the immense dollars at stake, that still allows the players to dictate, in many cases, how these negotiations go.

"I mean, the players that are eligible, frankly, are players that are going to get paid, and they're going to have any number of alternatives," Michele Roberts, executive director of the National Basketball Players Association, told ESPN. "It hasn't hurt them. It was something that they were able to secure and they were interested in getting it and it was going to be a tremendous advantage in terms of just the amount of money.

"But I still don't see a downside. The only downside is to the extent that people absolutely believed that it was a slam dunk way to keep their guys. And it just isn't. And if they doubted it they can now take a look at Anthony [Davis] and see, 'Oh, wow, there is no way.'"

WHEN THE LATEST collective bargaining agreement was finalized in December 2016, DeMarcus Cousins and Jimmy Butler were well on their way to qualifying for the supermax extensions, which would've kept them with their current teams into the next decade. At the time, both players were amenable to signing such a deal, per sources, and locking in a massive amount of money for years to come.

Instead, the Sacramento Kings and Chicago Bulls opted to trade their cornerstones well before they hit free agency, opting for young players and draft picks over signing a current star to a massive contract as they move into their early-to-mid 30s.

This is the calculus teams have to make. It's exactly what the league wanted franchises to have the power to do.

"Part of the goal in 'early-ing' up the discussion was that those players then wouldn't reach the end of their contracts and, frankly, surprise teams by then announcing they were leaving," NBA commissioner Adam Silver said at his annual news conference last month. "The fact that a player left the market doesn't mean it was a failure, because at least in those cases the teams got value."

How much value they truly got is still up for debate. The eventual hauls for Cousins (Buddy Hield, Justin Jackson and Harry Giles) and Butler (Lauri Markkanen, Zach LaVine and Kris Dunn) were mixed, with none of the players acquired likely to be as good as the ones they were dealt for. After being widely criticized at the time of the deal, the Pacers turned out to have done well in dealing George for Victor Oladipo and Domantas Sabonis. Even then -- especially after Oladipo suffered a torn quad tendon this season -- it's hard to see that as equal value back for an MVP candidate.

For the San Antonio Spurs, trading Leonard last summer was complicated by his own injury history, forcing them to move both Leonard and Danny Green -- who have become key members of the Toronto Raptors' deep playoff run -- for DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and what became the No. 29 pick in this year's draft. Anyone who has watched these playoffs and seen how Leonard has performed will know the Spurs would much rather have just kept him in the fold. While the Pelicans will have far less difficulty getting value for Davis this summer, the prospect of trading him -- if it comes to pass -- would be equally painful for them.

Conversely, committing to a player early can go just as wrong as moving on from him. The supermax extension Wall signed in 2017 hasn't even kicked in yet. Now the Wizards, already a lottery team, are committed to a player coming off a torn Achilles tendon for another four years at a total of $170 million, drastically limiting their flexibility to improve their roster.

That turn of events is why Washington is in the midst of a search for a new president of basketball operations to replace the since-dismissed Ernie Grunfeld -- and why teams have grown wary of handing out these contracts even in the two years since the rule was implemented.

It is hard enough to build a championship contender as it is. Building one while having a contract on the books for up to six years in the future -- and at a gigantic annual figure -- comes with plenty of additional complications. It has to be truly worth doing. Deciding which players are, in fact, worth it can be a near-impossible task for NBA front offices.

THIS WEEK, MORE teams could be faced with that decision.

And while it's a difficult decision, at least when this season's All-NBA teams are announced today, Beal, Lillard, Thompson, Walker and their teams will know where they stand.

Lillard is a lock to make an All-NBA team, and sources say, he's also likely to sign the four-year, $191 million extension if he's offered it. However, the outlook remains murky for Beal, Thompson and Walker, all of whom are on the All-NBA bubble, and might not be locks to sign a supermax deal even if they make it.

Beal will evaluate the situation in Washington, which appears headed for a full rebuild in part because of what happened with Wall. Does Beal want to sign on for that? And whoever takes over as Washington's new president of basketball operations has to decide if Beal is better as a building block making 35 percent of the cap or a trade asset.

"At the end of the day, it's not an easy decision to make," Beal said. "It's only 15 guys that make [All-NBA teams] and it's so many people who deserve it. It is what it is when it comes down to it. I try not to, like I told you before, kill myself trying to figure out if I'm going to make the team and the money and all that. Just play it out."

Walker has been the lone bright light for the Charlotte Hornets, who are arguably in the most depressing situation in the league today. Walker could make far more money if he qualifies for a supermax deal and re-signs, but will he want to?

"I have no idea," Walker told ESPN during the regular season. "I have no idea. Like I've been telling everybody, I've never been a free agent. I've never been in this situation, so I don't even know what to expect. So, yeah, I'm not sure."

Thompson, on the other hand, is widely expected to return to the Warriors on a max contract. If he becomes eligible for the supermax, though, would Golden State be willing to pay? And, if not, could that be enough to convince him to look elsewhere? Meanwhile, given only two players on a team can be on supermax contracts at a time, Draymond Green -- who is hopeful of getting an extension done himself this summer -- will be watching to see if he'd even have the opportunity to get it from the Warriors in the future.

"Ultimately, you want a system, as I've said many times, where 30 teams can compete for championships, and that relates to all aspects of the system," Silver said. "You want a system that appropriately distributes the great talent throughout the league and that teams, regardless of where they're located or regardless if they're low-revenue or high-revenue teams, can all compete on equal footing."

Some have floated the possibility of adding an extra year to what teams can offer as a further enticement for players to stay. But consider how onerous Washington's commitment to Wall already is. How much worse would it look with another $50 million tacked onto it?

Meanwhile, some on the team side have advocated solving arguably the biggest issue created by the supermax for teams -- having to decide what to do with "fringe candidates" like Wall, Beal, Walker or Thompson, who qualify by making third-team All-NBA -- by only restricting eligible players to those who win MVP, Defensive Player of the Year or make first team All-NBA. That way, the only players who could earn it would be the handful of the best players in the NBA. And yet, it's hard to see why the players association would agree to take away the chance for players to earn a significantly higher amount of money that they have already won in collective bargaining.

All of these potential solutions, and the issues they present to one side or the other, show how the dance between both sides will continue -- with the moves to come over the next year adding further clarity to a situation that still bears watching.

"I think it's pretty clear that the system, while I believe it's gotten better over the years," Silver said, "there's still room for improvement."

Additional reporting by Ian Begley and Nick Friedell.