NHL Player Absolutely Eviscerates NBA Star for Moping About Trade
Getting traded is part of sports. Rare indeed is the player who plays his entire career with the team that drafted him, yet it’s always interesting to see the variety of reactions from players after they’ve been shipped out.
Enter NHL star Milan Lucic, who got sent from the Boston Bruins to the Los Angeles Kings and later to the Edmonton Oilers. Lucic is no fan of the way the NBA’s DeMar DeRozan reacted to getting sent to the San Antonio Spurs from the Toronto Raptors in the Kawhi Leonard trade.
“Looch” showed up on Barstool Sports’ “Spittin’ Chiclets” hockey-themed podcast Friday to offer his thoughts.
Milan Lucic RIPS DeMar DeRozan for being bitter about the Raptors trading him#BashingBasketball with @spittinchiclets – https://t.co/iQIRvpvItc pic.twitter.com/yw4U6pbzPy
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) July 27, 2018
At issue is DeRozan’s complaint that the Raptors never let him know that he was on the trading block until the deal had been done and the news was basically, “Pack your bags, DeMar, you’re on San Antonio now.”
Lucic pointed out that unless you’re an untouchable superstar — and DeRozan isn’t one — getting traded is part of being a pro.
“No, man. I wasn’t offended,” Lucic said of getting traded to the Kings after being a fan favorite for eight seasons in Boston. “It’s a business. Unless you’re (Sidney) Crosby or (Connor) McDavid or LeBron (James), you’re just another guy, just another player. For me, I understood they were trying to go in a different direction. How could I be bitter?”
Lucic also mentioned that DeRozan shouldn’t complain because he went to a quality franchise, one that made the playoffs last season despite Leonard only playing nine games due to injury.
“When I hear him talk about the bitterness and the disrespect and all that type of stuff, it’s like, you didn’t get traded to frickin’ Cleveland. You got traded to San Antonio, a team that competes for a title every year,” Lucic said. “You get to be coached by the Bill Belichick of basketball with Gregg Popovich. You feel like you’re being disrespected? Come on man, you’re still making $30 million a year living in San Antonio with no state tax. Give me a break, man. Nobody feels bad for you.”
You gotta hand it to Lucic; he knows his basketball. The Cavaliers are a train wreck now that LeBron James is in Los Angeles and Kevin Love is making max-contract money as the team’s highest-paid player.
It’s worth noting there is a big difference between Lucic and DeRozan in terms of the roles they played on their respective teams.
Lucic was considered an expendable piece as the Bruins, in decline after winning the Stanley Cup in 2011, needed to acquire assets.
DeRozan, on the other hand, was a key piece of the Raptors’ marketing, a guy who alongside Kyle Lowry had just led Toronto to a franchise-record 59 wins and the No. 1 seed in the East.
But when the Raptors meekly bowed out in the second round, steamrolled in four games by James and a G-League roster wearing Cavs uniforms, the franchise up north suddenly found itself a lot more amenable to wholesale changes in an almost Game of Thrones-like “nobody is safe” environment.
Coach Dwane Casey was fired. Trading DeRozan was not an unforeseeable next step.
And as Lucic mentioned, DeRozan is now coached by Popovich. He really shouldn’t complain.
The simple fact remains, however, that nothing lets the air out of a sports star’s ego quite like his team showing him in no uncertain terms that he’s not “untouchable,” that great honor reserved for a handful of sports’ most elite players.
If nothing else, that’s gotta sting for DeRozan.
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