The trade deadline is a strange time for everyone involved. It is a day where grown men move their entire lives because a billionaire decided a different tall person might help them win forty four games instead of forty two.
In Toronto, we are currently waiting on the Trayce Jackson Davis deal to become official. This delay means Bobby Webster will not be speaking to the media until after tonight's game. He will likely take the podium around 10:30 PM, long after Darko Rajakovic has finished explaining why we should be happy about the things we just witnessed.
The Ghost of Players Past
There is a clerical error currently floating around the league. Jayden Ivey has been traded to the Chicago Bulls, yet the Raptors' systems still show him wearing number 23. This is a bold choice (one might even say a brave one) considering the history of that number in the city of Chicago.
Michael Jordan wore that number while winning many things, and now Jayden Ivey is wearing it while the paperwork processes. It is a reminder that in the NBA, you are never truly gone until the database says you are. Sometimes the ghost of a player lingers on a digital roster, much like the smell of a Scarborough basement when the dehumidifier stops working.
The Pizza Solution
Despite the chaos of the deadline, there is a silver lining for the fans. Someone mentioned free pizza. This is usually the only thing that makes a mid February basketball game in Ontario feel like a success.
Basketball is a game of runs, but pizza is a game of dough and cheese. If you get the pizza, the outcome of the trade deadline feels slightly less like a metaphysical crisis. We are all just searching for some sort of sustenance while Bobby Webster works the phones in a room that probably smells like expensive coffee and spreadsheets.
The Webster Era
It is worth noting that since Bobby Webster became the General Manager, the Raptors have the fifth best regular season record in the Eastern Conference. They also hold the second best playoff record in the East during that span. These are numbers that suggest we are doing well, even when it feels like we are just standing in the rain at a bus stop on Lawrence Avenue.
Success in the NBA is often measured in increments. We trade for a young center, we wait for a press conference, and we hope the pizza is warm. It is a cycle that repeats every year, much like the way I tell myself I will stop eating wings after midnight. We all have our patterns. Pascal Siakam used to spin (we all spin, in a way) and now we wait for the next person to arrive and do their specific thing.