thursday was one of my favorite days of the year.
grand nubbins’ day? free lapdance day? give-a-wedgie day?
no, it was the nba trading deadline.
this is the last day of the season where nba teams can trade players with each other. after this day, they’re forced to go the rest of the season and (hopefully) the playoffs with the roster they’ve got.
the exciting part of it is that you never know what will happen. could there be big blockbuster deals? a huge three-team extravaganza? or a bunch of little piddly trades between irtrelevant teams involving players no one cares about?
what’s really interesting is that it radically changes the makeups of teams and therefore their playoff prospects and thus the playoff prospects of every other team in the league.
for example, one of the huge last-minute trades this year was trading chris webber from the sacramento kings to the philadelphia seventy-sixers. suddenly, a.i. has a incredibly talented big man with a great post game, giving them a scoring punch down low but not interfering with his perimeter game. suddenly philly is odds on favorite to win the pathetic atlantic division.
on the other hand, sacramento gives away the player who more or less single-handedly ressurected their moribund franchise to not only respectability, but into a true contender. and for what? basically, magic beans!
furthermore, you have to realize that these aren’t just parts in a machine, but atheletes with typically fragile psyches. will cwebb be able to accept being a second option, after being the man for so long in sactown? will peja be happy and step up now that cwebb is gone? how will gp respond after not only not getting his wish to play on a contender, but instead being shipped to atlanta, possibly the worst team in the league? can antoine walker play with paul pierce again after being shipped out just last year?
it’s like wifeswap, but you don’t get your mom back. ever. until maybe next year. but then she might be played by someone else.
then you factor in the coaches and the general managers into the equation as well, having players love/hate/appreciate/be resentful of how they’ve been traded/traded away, then suddenly it’s like a polyamory swing party. all the intrigue, all the gossip, but even better because there’s scoring and games that actually let you know how well things are working out as a result!
it’s like you can rate the effectiveness of swinging with other couples. with statistics.
beautiful.
there’s also a bizarre side effect: after the trades, what happens when some other player on your new team already has “your number”?
When Drew Gooden was traded from the Orlando Magic to the Cleveland Cavaliers after the 2003-04 season, Gooden wanted to wear the No. 0 he wore with the Magic and at the University of Kansas. But Jeff McInnis, who previously wore No. 5 with the Los Angeles Clippers and at the University of North Carolina, wanted $25,000 for the number. Gooden called off his quest and took No. 90 instead.
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