I love NBA trades as much as anybody. There’s just something fascinating about the process of multiple teams coming together to say, “I’ve got something that doesn’t totally work how I want it to, and so do you, but if we were to swap my imperfect thing for your imperfect thing, I think everything would be a little more perfect.”
Described that way, it seems absurd. And yet, we’re all addicted to the NBA rumor mill aren’t we — seeing which imperfect thing might be replaced by another.
Of course, describing trades that way also makes “things” out of players, actual human beings.