Zach Randolph says trade rumors hurt him, claims there’s no loyalty or love in NBA
By Josh Hill
The NBA is usually filled with plenty of trade rumors to go around but while fans love to hear about the next player their team might add or get rid of, we tend to forget about the person behind the the curtain who’s life is about to be uprooted. The movie Moneyball perfectly captured this when Brad Pitt’s character stated he doesn’t get close to the guys he knows he’ll have to uproot at some point.
Zach Randolph has been on the short end of that stick more than few times in his career and while stating that he’d love to stay with the Memphis Grizzlies for the rest of his career, he also noted that hearing the recent trade rumors about him hurts and he can’t just ignore them, whether true or not.
Per Randolph’s conversation with Fran Blinebury:
"“It hurts a little bit. I can’t deny that. But it goes to show you that there ain’t no loyalty in this game. It seems like you only get loyalty in certain organizations. You see it in winning organizations like the Spurs, the Lakers, the Heat. … The truth is there ain’t no loyalty or love, except in certain organizations where they keep players around, value them. Only a very few organizations seem like they want to keep players around to retire there. Hey, everybody gets traded. It’s part of the league, part of the life. I’ve been traded a bunch of times.”"
That’s both a dig at the Grizzlies and an obvious fact about the NBA and it’s culture. You can’t really find NFL trade rumors if you search the internet because the sport just doesn’t engage in the type of wild transactions that basketball does. In the NBA, unless you’re winning you’re not safe from trade rumors and even if you are winning, the rumors will pop up somewhere.
It’s clear Randolph wants to stay in Memphis but he’s also pointing out the nature of the NBA.