PHOENIX – Al Horford spent the final hours of Thursday’s NBA trade deadline the same way many NBA fans did: by obsessively scrolling social media, looking at updates and wondering if he would be the next player to change teams.
“You never know,” Horford said at his visiting locker after the Warriors’ improbable 101-97 victory in Phoenix. “Luka Doncic got traded (last season), and once that happened, you’ve seen it all.”
Horford remained unmoved before the deadline, but a trio of his teammates had to pack their bags and relocate.
Jonathan Kuminga and Buddy Hield went to the Hawks in exchange for Horford’s old Boston teammate Kristaps Porzingis, and Trayce Jackson-Davis was sent to Toronto for a second-round pick.
“I talked to all three of them. I’m gonna miss my dogs,” Gary Payton II said. “I know Buddy will be fine, JK will be fine. Everybody will get an opportunity to play and show what they can do.”
The Hawks trade brought in a frail but talented and effective center, but it also shipped out several beloved members of the team. Warriors coach Steve Kerr described the morning’s shootaround as being enveloped in “sadness,” and Pat Spencer backed up his coach after the game.
“I think people forget about the human aspect of it,” Spencer said. “I spent four years working my butt off with Trayce in that gym, four years with JK, and Buddy has been incredible to be around … that part’s tough.”
Draymond Green, one of the pillars of the team’s four championship squads, said he was uncertain about his status with the team until the clock struck 1 p.m. Arizona time.
Two days before, after playing what could have been his final game with the Warriors in San Francisco, Green told reporters he was at peace with whatever the team decided to do. Having played almost 14 years in the Bay Area after being a second-round pick, Green considered himself already uniquely blessed.
It did not make the final few hours of the deadline any less stressful.
“It was nerve-wracking towards the end,” Green said. “It’s not something I want to get used to.”
Green had engaged in conversations with general manager Mike Dunleavy about possible moves and trades, and held his breath until the deadline passed.
Kuminga’s departure was the most discussed, with Kerr admitting that the young forward never had the chance to play through mistakes like he could have in other situations.
Now with Atlanta, Kuminga brings lessons learned from the Warrior veterans to a fresh start. Green hoped that he would make the most out of his new situation.
“When you’re with a group that’s trying to compete for championships, you don’t always get that leash, and I think he’ll get a little more of that now,” Green said. “I hope he can go and become the player that we all thought he’d become.”
After the nervous scrolling, the fretting and trades that sent friends to far-flung locales, the trade deadline is now in the past.
The rest of the season, one the team believes can still conclude with a playoff run, lies ahead. And with it, a renewed focus on making a postseason push as the final third of the season comes into view.
“Another day, the end of the (walking on) egg shells,” Payton II said. “So we get back to regular programming.”
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