There Is Nothing Like The Rush You Get When You See Your Favorite Team Is Involved In A Shams/Woj Bomb

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I love NBA trade season. Who doesn't? Twitter is both a horrific yet awesome place to be this time of year, we have #sourceoffs, there's posturing by every team in the league with selective leaks to try and create value. It's a wonderful time to be alive. Collectively basketball fans all make sure their notifications are on for all the usual suspects, and every single time you hear your phone vibrate you get a little shot of adrenaline. Then you realize it's just a Shams or Woj RT of their podcast and you get irrationally angry. I don't know why we do that, but we all do. I don't care about your sitdown with Player X, I want trade updates. I feel like during this time of year their timelines should only be allowed to be used for trade news. Put everything else on a separate account or something. 

Anyway, this is even more true when your phone vibrates and you take a quick look at the preview on your lock screen. You start frantically reading. First thing you check for is if your team is mentioned at the beginning of the blurb. If not, you exhale a little bit but then immediately open anyway because this shit is like crack. At least I imagine this is what crack is like, can't say I've ever had it. If you see your team mentioned in that tweet? It's almost like an out of body experience. Sometimes those trades end up being something big. Sometimes they end up being nothing but a business deal involving nothing players and everything is strictly financial. Like last night's Celts deal

This move was basically strictly a business decision for Boston. There's no real basketball angle here. Sure Bol Bol and PJ Dozier might have upside and who gives a shit about Juancho, but that's not why they made this deal. They did it to get close to being under the tax, and they didn't have to unload a pick to get there. It's about as nothing a trade as you'll find this trade season.

And yet…this shit had me WIRED last night. I felt that shit in my chest. I couldn't stop refreshing Twitter. It was like we all got a taste of that trade crack and we were instantly addicted. I cannot tell you the thoughts that went through my mind when I saw my preview screen and saw "a three team trade with Boston/San Antonio/Denver" come across my eyeballs. Did Brad just trade for Jokic? Dejounte Murray? Did he trade Jaylen or Smart? The number of thoughts that went through my brain in that 0.3 seconds I waited for my phone to open was insane. To then learn it was a salary dump was both a relief and a little confusing. When this stuff happens in real time, your brain is a mess. It's why you should always wait for smarter people who know the salary cap to explain trades when they go down. Especially small ones like this. You first see the Celts traded for two injured players and immediately wonder what the hell they are doing. Then the smart people explain it and it makes sense. 

But back to my overall point. There is nothing like the feeling of seeing your favorite team in a Shams/Woj/Haynes/etc tweet this time of year. It's why every fanbase is on edge, looking at their phone a billion times a day even though you know you already set your notifications. Try and tell me you haven't felt/heard the phantom phone vibrate. You know the feeling. Where you could have sworn you felt your phone vibrate only for nothing to be there. It's a sickness really. Considering we have like 22 days until the deadline, it's only going to get worse. 

All I know is after getting a little taste of this last night, I need more. I don't care what the move is or which teams it involves. We got things started with the Cam Reddish trade, last night gave us some late night adrenaline, and I need this train to keep on rolling. I need teams to start pulling the trigger. Let's get nuts.