With the close of Wednesday's NBA trading deadline came a list of moves typically made by teams looking to stock-up for the playoff run and by those hoping to shed some dead-weight and provide financial stability for future seasons.
The league is a business, and sometimes it's easy to forget this.
Regardless of how much you love a player, he's simply a part of a whole, and a team, as a sum of its parts, is but a viable business plan in place to turn a profit. On the court winning is all that matters, and in the boardroom, winning is essential for meeting the bottom line.
Sure, there are more important issues today - but I don't really give a fuck - I wish the Celtics didn't have to trade Kendrick Perkins. I've followed his career path from an at-risk straight-out-of high school prospect to a fundamental piece of the Celtics success. Watching him play for the Celtics and witnessing the comaradorie shared by with his teammates offered but a glimpse of the family they had become.
When asked about the trade last night following Boston's loss to Denver, coach Doc Rivers had this to say; "I told them before the game, someone told me, 'Well, it's not personal.' I said, 'No, it's very personal.' Perk is a family member. He's more than just a player for us, and when you lose a family member like that, it hurts. It's emotional, and that's how the guys are. They understand the trade and all that stuff, but that still doesn't mean it's not emotional for you."
His loss leaves some questions about depth at the center position, with hopes that Shaq's aging knees and new acquisition Nenad Krstic can carry the load left by Perk. They've remedied an apparent weakness at perimeter defense by getting 24-year old stud Jeff Green back from Oklahoma City in the Perkins trade that also sent Nate Robinson packing, but I'm left nonetheless with a sour taste in my mouth.
These guys really were a family, and as a fan, I feels like a periphery member, a satellite cousin brought together by the luxury of digital cable.
ESPN's Bill Simmons covered the trade deadline in his column this morning at ESPN.com. He's an unabashed fan of all things Boston, and like many of the Celtics players, he loves Kendrick Perkins like family. Say what you will about Simmons and his penchant for writing as if it was recorded verbatim and transcribed, but in this case, the man perfectly conveys the feelings I have today. The last few paragraphs of his column hit the nail on the head;
You might remember LeBron and Carmelo getting excoriated for stabbing their respective teams in the back. You want to know why they didn't care? Because, deep down, they know that teams don't care about players, either. They probably witnessed 20 variations of the Perkins trade during their first few years in the league. Hey, it's a business. Hey, that's just sports. Hey, trades come with the territory. Isn't loyalty a two-way street? When a team does what's best for itself, we call it smart. When a player does the same, we call him selfish. We never think about what a double standard it is.
I thought Perk deserved better than getting blindsided in Denver, then having to limp around with a sprained knee and pack his stuff with tears rolling down his face. Maybe I'm a sap. But that was our guy. Family. On the phone, my dad decided -- completely seriously -- that he would rather have lost the 2011 title with Perkins than have tried to win it without him. Why?
"Because he was truly part of our team," Dad said. "I don't want to root for laundry. I watched that guy for eight years. That should mean something. Continuity should mean something."
Within a few weeks, both of us will have talked ourselves into the Jeff Green era. That's what fans do. We take the hits, shake them off, keep coming back. The Celtics will morph into something slightly different: a little more athletic, a little more flexible, a little younger and, hopefully, almost as tough. Perkins will fly to Oklahoma City, live out of a hotel room, make new friends and try to help Durant and Russell Westbrook make the Finals. Maybe the Celtics will see him there. It won't feel weird at all, because that's the way professional sports work. We are rooting for laundry. Whether we want to admit it or not.
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