The Trade Deadline: A conversation with Bryan Harvey

Andrew: Bryan, thanks for joining me on this email thread. I want our readers not just to learn about the trade deadline, but to viscerally experience it. Could you please tell The Step Back’s millions of fans about a time that you wore out your welcome as fast as Isaiah Thomas in Cleveland?

Bryan: In college I remember arriving late to a class and no seats were available except in the middle of the first few rows, so I disrupted the room on the way in as people stood up and I shuffled by in that awkward way reserved for sporting event aisles and movie theaters. When I sat down and took out my notebook, I then realized I was in the wrong classroom. The professor was discussing an entirely different continent than where I was supposed to be. I then packed my stuff up and started shuffling back down the aisle. As I went, I said excuse me a lot and received a rather muted ovation both coming and going.

A: Bryan, thank you for this great story. It was very IT-like, right down to the fact that you showed up late when class was already going on and made it awkward for everyone with your presence. Can you tell our readers about a time that you made a big show about having to leave a place and then had to go right back, just like Dwyane Wade?

B: What if I told you that first classroom was the right classroom?

A: Oh my god did you have to go back?

B: I did. I had the right room, but I read the schedule wrong twice, on the way to class and then when I double checked whether I was in the right place.

In some ways, maybe that makes me less like Wade or IT and more like the general managers trading for them. I’m probably also thinking more about Thomas here. But, when he’s on other teams, front offices don’t appear to recognize him for what he is, and when he’s on their own team, they clearly don’t see him for what he is. Maybe that has to do with the fact that the same guy who scored 28 points a game last season and sacrificed everything for Boston is also the same guy who didn’t last in Sacramento, Phoenix and now Cleveland. It’s hard to think of a player who is such a Rorschach chart as he is. Can you think of anyone else waiting on a tribute video from one city while talking his way out of town in another?

A: Oh my god, Bryan. Oh my god.

There’s a show that I believe is still on TV called Once Upon a Time and it is terrible. The first season was okay, but it turned out the actual plot for every subsequent season was that they accidentally found their way to another world and lost their memories. They then have — every dang time — to recover their memories and figure out how they got to this strange new world, and how to get back. So I stopped watching. But you know what would make that show great? If the last season was just, like, Snow White, traveling all the realms to receive all the tribute videos she’s now due. I mean wouldn’t it tie it altogether? I’d also like to see Paul Pierce get tribute videos in his other stops. Like who wouldn’t want a moving montage of him playing cards with DeAndre Jordan that free agency summer, which is the only memorable thing he did down there?

Now let me ask YOU something. As we all know, Joe Johnson’s official title is “Seven-time All-Star Joe Johnson.” And if we’re honest with each other, seven times is actually a LOT OF TIMES to be an All-Star. So far, I haven’t made it even once. But, somehow, it all happened so long ago that the tag line has become kind of a gag. Can you think of someone, even yourself, who did something legitimately impressive but so-long ago it’s embarrassing to keep talking about? For me it’s definitely the fact that I won the Texas Junior Classical League State Competition in Roman History in 2003.

B: I did two things today since sending you my last response that put into perspective my past self versus my current self. I went out and got a haircut, and when I returned home, I sat on the floor with my one and a half year old daughter. The haircut revealed pretty clearly that it may soon be my last, and my left knee really bothers me after being on the floor and that’s regardless of whether my daughter and I have been having a tea party or driving dump trucks. Thing is I used to have a lot of hair and my high school accolade was Most Athletic. When I go running later this afternoon, the sun will be setting and I will see my balding shadow and my knee will ache like a chipped teacup. I will think of Joe Johnson then, but also Dwyane Wade and Manu Ginobili. They are nothing like me, and yet I too am balding, have aching knees and past accolades that my students would find hard to believe. Also, my mom once bumped into Jeff Bridges at a soup kitchen in Washington, DC. So George Hill and Rodney Hood are in Cleveland now?

A: I feel ya, Bryan. I used to be a pretty good basketball player. Then I was a pretty good basketball player until my sacro-iliac started bothering me. Then I was a pretty good basketball player before I blew up my ankle. Then I was a pretty good basketball player until I tore my hamstring. My right hip and ankle and left leg are all mostly for show. Yesterday, someone I hadn’t seen for a while asked if I’d gotten a haircut. I had, like three months ago. It just doesn’t grow any more, Bryan. It just doesn’t grow.

George Hill and Rodney Hood are great throw-ins to trade. You can feel really good about having a couple of relatively young guys who are capable. When you’re struggling, it’s because they’re not premier talents. When you’re clicking, it’s because they’re better than anyone gives them credit for. The stories write themselves. What was your favorite trade today?

B: Probably the three-team deal involving Denver, New York and Dallas. There’s probably nothing to see here. Devin Harris in Denver is not going to transform the Nuggets. Doug McDermott in Dallas with Harrison Barnes is high school all over again, except they both know what they are, as opposed to what they think they are, or maybe athletes don’t think that way. Maybe McDermott and Barnes think Dallas is high school and that they’re about to take over the world. Then there’s Mudiay. I like to believe in the new environment and fresh start mentality, but does that fix a jump shot? Devin Harris, a former number five pick, only has so many stints left in him. Mudiay, a former number seven pick, probably has several stints left in him. I just love the idea of them crossing paths in an airport, whether they realize the symmetry to their journeys or not. Yours?

A: That’s a beautiful sentiment. My favorite is probably the blockbuster Bruno Caboclo, Malachi Richardson trade. There seems absolutely no reason to either do it or not do it. It just increases the amount of entropy in the universe. It gives people who work on paperwork something to do, and good names are involved. What’s not to like?

And, should we go to press?

Next: The Step Back's trade deadline GIF grades

B: You should probably wait. Jonathan Abrams’ big book on The Wire debuts this week, and we haven’t made any references to anyone named Barksdale or McNulty, although I do think you just described the Caboclo-Richardson deal as the Stanislaus Valchek of trade deals.

*Editor’s note:* He didn’t

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