NBA veterans open up about getting traded: 'It was the worst day'

For basketball fans, the NBA trade deadline is one of the mostexciting days of the year. It’s fun to track the rumors, react totrades and root for your favorite team to make moves.

However, for the players involved in these trades, it can bevery stressful and emotional.

Most players spend deadline day looking over their shoulder, andthere’s a lot of anxiety and nerves around this time of year. Therearen’t many professions where your employer can ship you across thecountry without any notice, but that comes with being aprofessional athlete.

To get a sense of what it’s like to be traded, Basketball Newsspoke to several former NBA players who opened up about gettingdealt and what the process entailed.

RAY ALLEN: “When I gotto Seattle, [here’s] the way the trade went down. I was inMilwaukee playing for the Bucks and we flew to Seattle, and we hada practice that day. It was coming up on the trade deadline, andeveryone was talking about Tim Thomas being traded. So we were onthe Key Arena floor in Seattle and the media came rushing in. I'msitting on the floor stretching and I'm looking around and as Iturn [toward the media], all of these lights come on. And I'm like,'What's happening? We're about to have practice.' And then I turnaround and I'm like, 'What's going on?' And they're all looking andpointing at me. I’m like, ‘Me?!’ [The media members] arelike, 'Yeah! You!' So we're stretching on one end and theother team is stretching on the other end, and [Bucks head coach]George Karl is down there on the other end. I kind of look aroundand I’m looking up [at Coach Karl], and he takes off. So,I walk over to the media and said, ‘What’s going on?’ They werelike, ‘There was a trade.’ I’m like, ‘Who got traded?’ They werelike, ‘You.’ I go into the locker room and check my phone and it'sblowing up. I got traded for Gary Payton. It was crazy to be tradedto Seattle in the middle of the season. I go back [to Milwaukee],get my stuff, take my physical and fly back in. And my first game[as a Sonic] is against the Detroit Pistons.

“I remember going out to lunch with Brent Barry, who was sogreat the whole time. He was such a jokester on the sly; he alwayshad his little sarcasm that he'd add to any situation. He goes,'Ray, just so you know, people aren't coming to the game to seeyou. They're coming to see the Barry brothers match-up.' BecauseJon [Barry] was on Detroit. That was always Brett, with his dryhumor. (Laughs) So, I'm watching the [Sonics'] film and Gary was‘The Glove’ — everybody knew how ferocious he was on defense. InMilwaukee, we had schemes, and I was used to that. But watching[the Sonics’] film, Gary would come from one side of the floor andjust start guarding a guy. And I was like, ‘What scheme is that?’And they were like, ‘No, that’s Gary’s scheme.’ I noticed how theteam was built around him, because a lot of the young players, theyhad kinda just waited on Gary to do whatever Gary did. So when Igot there, Rashard [Lewis] was young and impressionable. We hadAnsu Sesay, Reggie Evans, Jerome James and all of these young guys,and they all kinda just went as Gary went. So when I got there, Iwas like, 'Yo, get your shots up! I need you!' I was passing themthe ball; I was flirting with triple-doubles like every other game.But I was like, 'You guys gotta [do something]!' They would justsit around, and I could tell the hole that Gary left — these guyswere used to playing a certain way and kinda expecting him to doeverything.

“Rashard emerged because he started watching me come to the gymearly every day and he would always say, 'Man, I want to make themoney that you make and have the success that you've had. I reallygotta start focusing in and taking this seriously…’ So, Rashardstarted getting to the gym early. He saw the work that I put in,and he saw that it was something that he could do and something hewanted for himself. I like to think that some of that money that hegot from Orlando, he could have passed some of it [to me] on theside, but that didn’t happen. (Laughs) But he was a great partnerto have because he did get significantly better — so muchbetter — from the time I got there to when we parted ways with himgoing to Orlando and me going to Boston. [I never talked to CoachKarl about him running away] and since then, George has alwaystaken shots at me through the media or in writing his books. It'sjust the strangest thing because I always thought that we had astrong relationship as a player-coach.”