Dennis Lindsey recently was asked what life is like for him in the run-up to the NBA trade deadline, a date that is now just over two weeks out (Feb. 8).
He said it’s terrible.
He said it’s one of the worst periods of his year.
He said he loathes it.
The Jazz general manager wasn’t referring to the extra work he has to put in as his phone constantly rings and he punches up other GMs looking to organize possible deals. He wasn’t pointing to the pressure he feels. He wasn’t talking about the difficulty of pushing a deal through, especially as the Jazz have struggled to find positive consistency. He wasn’t targeting the fact that the Jazz have won six games out of their past 23 and now are feeling crazy urgency to get something — anything — done. He wasn’t complaining about the unreasonable demands of the guys who occupy his same office for different franchises. He wasn’t bemoaning that some players whose names have been mentioned in media reports as commodities in potential trades aren’t feeling all that comfortable about their situations.
Although that last one indirectly is related to what he hates.
Lindsey was talking about the human side of doing deals.
He reminded that players actually are real, live human beings, not mindless mercenaries, not unfeeling automatons, not robots, not inanimate objects of any kind, not slabs of beef, not pork bellies or soybeans.
They are … you know, people.
Wow. Who’d have thought of that?
In the case of the Jazz, they are people/players who kind of have grown up here in Utah. People/players who have developed their games here. People/players who have developed relationships, both professional and personal, here. People/players who have families, spouses and children attached, all of whom are affected by speculation about whether they would be where they had been, in some situations, for years now. Or whether they’d be shipped off to who knows where as a means to an end, in a manner that supposedly would be in the team’s best interests, in the spirit of … well, there’s something out there that the team wants more than you.
That is tough, Lindsey said.
There are those who might scoff and laugh out loud at that notion because these players are paid millions of dollars to play their games wherever they’re paid to play them and then get their carcasses sent off to points unknown, too.
Getting paid may, in fact, make being unwanted and saying goodbye a bit easier. It might make being seen as that commodity a bit easier. It’s a business, they say. It can be a cold business, they know.
But going to battle with teammates and coaches night after night, season after season, going to battle for executives and for friends and fans, often forms a strong bond that can be complicated and wrenching from which to simply walk away. Even for players who might see a better opportunity elsewhere or players with agents who think they’d be better off on a different team being used a different way.
On that human level, it can be hard.
As everyone wonders whether Favors will be sent to Chicago, in part, for Mirotic or if Hood will be shipped out for future considerations or if Burks might help land a better shooter, remember that there is a Derrick in there, too, a Nikola, a Rodney, an Alec, a man who really does have feelings, emotions, attachments, hopes and dreams and connections with/to a community that might be torn away.
Lindsey will do his job. If he sees a chance at improvement, he’ll take it. He’s not so sentimental as to blow off what his position requires. And if they think their team will be better for it, coaches and teammates won’t dip too low at the loss of a teammate and a friend.
One coach is known to have cried when a particular player he was close to was swapped for another player his team needed more. But he was glad to have ended the day-to-day association for a more free-flowing offense and a few extra wins.
Nobody’s blubbering like a baby here.
This market knows better than many that players sometimes want to get out of Dodge and begin again at some other place. Sometimes — like last July — it is the team and the fans who feel the rupture, all the human emotions of big, painful change. But it is worth keeping in mind that players are not pieces of meat. They are not just products or bait or pawns or exports to be sent packing for the greater good.
They are living souls who may feel and hate the trade deadline as much as Lindsey does.
Gordon Monson hosts “The Big Show” with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and 1280 AM The Zone.
Follow @GordonMonson