As the National Basketball Association’s 72nd season beckons, let’s briefly pause in admiration of the sauciest off-season in history. They all tried so hard — front-office deal makers, power-wielding stars, even the commissioner’s office. In nearly every corner of the N.B.A. universe, stubborn resistance to the supposedly inevitable ending June holds brought about heaps of change, change, change.

It had the feel of a coordinated leaguewide crusade, with team after team behaving as if it simply refused to hear the basketball know-it-alls saying, over and over for the past three months, that nothing can stop the Golden State Warriors from winning their third championship in four years.

Houston and Oklahoma City, determined to close the gap with the runaway Warriors in the Western Conference, swung as big as they could in retooling their rosters.

The frenzy those teams helped incite ultimately led the marquee quintet of Chris Paul, Jimmy Butler, Paul George, Kyrie Irving and, yes, Carmelo Anthony to new addresses. They all wound up relocating in splashy deals that had been nudged along by the players themselves, as the modern game’s biggest names continued to exhibit a greater measure of control over their own destinies than their predecessors ever enjoyed.