Agents continued to be as elemental to sports as athletes, as several erstwhile franchise players demanded cash, other forms of "respect" or dissociation from their longtime employers. Seattle's Ken Griffey Jr., upset about playing for a second-tier team in a cavernous park and far from his Orlando home, engineered a February trade to Cincinnati, who had tied for the NL wildcard a year earlier. Coincidence or not, the Reds promptly became a second-tier team and the Mariners went on to win the AL wildcard. Keyshawn Johnson whined publicly about the Jets ownership opting not to renegotiate his contract with two years to go, and in April New York unloaded its distraction on the Buccaneers for two first-round draft picks. Johnson got his money (a six-year, $52 million extension) and the Jets became playoff contenders. El señor Cub, Sammy Sosa, almost lost his stripes in July when his insistence on an extension of his deal, up after 2001, led penny-pinching Chicago to offer him as trade bait. The 76ers' dissatisfaction with Allen Iverson's off-court behavior, and the Flyers' concerns about the concussion-prone Eric Lindros led both Philadelphia teams to dangle their stars on the market, only to find a dearth of satisfactory offers. Value proved no obstacle to the Knicks, who traded icon Patrick Ewing to Seattle at his request and entered the season with no center and a glut of shooting guards. In mid-December, the news of the year's big-name trades was all but eclipsed by a single move in the baseball free-agent market. On Dec. 11, shortstop Alex Rodriguez, the 25-year-old former Seattle Mariners All Star, inked a 10-year, $252 million deal with the Texas Rangers, the most lucrative contract ever for a professional athlete. The A-Rod signing -- worth some $45,000 per at-bat -- thrilled Rangers fans but sent shivers down the spines of small-market team owners and some Major League Baseball executives, including Sandy Alderson, who called the deal "stupefying".

--Jamal Greene