These Five NBA Players Traded Multiple Times In Two Months Flew More Than Dennis Schröder's 3,164 Miles
The NBA trade deadline festivities have been an absolute blockbuster. De'Aaron Fox. Jimmy Butler. DeRozan. Lavine. And, of course, Luka Doncic and Anthony Davis breaking the seal on it all.
It's easy to forget about the little guys that act as the glue to all this. Especially guys like Dennis Schröder. Except when he makes perhaps one of the most insanely privileged comments you will ever hear in your life:
Then it's harder to forget about them. And maybe that's how his name got tossed around in Jimmy Butler trade negotiations that ended with Dennis getting shipped to Salt Lake. That means in the past couple months Dennis has lived in three separate time zones and moved a total of 3,164 miles via trade.
But you know what, Dennis? It could be worse. A lot worse. At least you didn't buy a 15-million dollar house. Then maybe we'd have some sympathy. But so what? You moved twice in a 52-day span? That's nothing, my man. Many a trade glue guy has had it worse.
I crunched the numbers to find any such trade glue guys who had it much worse within a similar time-frame. It was a bit of a grind to code out on such short notice, so let me know if there's any obvious name I wasn't able to wrangle. We'll go in order of miles moved. And same day trades don't count. I'm only counting moves in which the player presumably actually had to travel to his new destination before getting a pink slip at the tarmac. We're talking presumed miles flown.
Let's get to it. First up we got Chucky Brown.
3,450 miles
It must have been scary to find out you've been traded from Houston in January. Especially when you got shipped out of Chicago that last October. Which was the case. No doubt Chucky was counting his lucky stars to miss the brutal Chicago Winter. And findgin out he was going to LA must have calmed his nerves.
Then February happened. Back to Chicago.
A second stint for a team he would never actually dribble a ball for in the absolute worst time of year. Then four days later he gets a call from his agent again. Imagine the excitement Chucky must have felt in this moment looking down at his Zach Morris phone. "Where am I going now? Back to Houston! Let's go! LA, right on! San Antonio? Utah? HONEY BACK OUR BAGS!! We are off to…."
Cleveland.
3,707 Miles
Good ole Furkan put some miles on the old frequent flier card trekking from OKC to Cleveland, on to Denver before ending in Philadelphia. He would eventually get traded again to Indiana several years later before getting waived a year ago.
3,799 miles
No man has been traded more in NBA history than our guy Trevor Ariza. 11 total trades in his career which included a tough November of 2020. Eleven trades is crazy. But I'll always remember him as a Laker in the Kobe Bryant days.
5,505 Miles
There is it. The Bol Bol Triangle. Starting in Denver, Bol was shipped for a nine-day stay in Detroit. Except he was never officially traded because he failed his physical. Now, I might be wrong here, but my assumption is you would fly to the place who traded for you to have your physical done there by the team doctors. Assuming that's correct, that means he would have to take a flight of shame back to Denver. The Nuggets would waste no time in patching up his ailments in order to strike a deal with Boston all of nine days after the failed trade with Detroit. Turns out, Boston must have some shitty doctors.
But even that snafu resulted in a shorter totality of miles traveled in a two-month-ish span than our #1 most tumultuous glue guy travels. Pour one out for Quinton Richardson.
5,619 miles
While Trevor Ariza has been traded the most times in NBA history, Quinton stands alone in second place with ten career trades. And this span from June 25 to August 13, 2009 was the roughest stretch you could imagine. Starting in New York, he would go to Memphis for less than a month, LA for three days, then Minnesota for about three weeks before getting shipped to Miami.
Honorable mention:
Luke Ridnour
Luke showed up in my code runs, but doesn't qualify due to having multiple same day trades. But if I'm being honest, this might be the saddest trade itinerary of them all seeing as how this is how Ridnour's career ended. I had to include it out of respect for what he went through from June 25, 2015 to June 30, 2015.
Here's what teams told him he was worth:
Matt Barnes. Then Jeremy Lamb (never heard of him). Janis Timma. AndTomislav Zubcic (not straight up though, Ridnour's team had to add cash to make it a fair trade). All on the same day. Poor Luke was passed around like a joint at a music festival before getting flicked aside by the Raptors as his career flamed out.
All of this to say - things aren't that bad Dennis Schröder. It could be a lot worse. So just enjoy the ride of being an NBA trade glue guy. Literally, enjoy the ride.