The NBA is a league that, in recent years, has been praised for its drama off the court with the rumour mill constantly turning and transactions aplenty.
Almost invariably it’s the NBA’s elite class that draw all the attention in this new drama-filled age of the league, but often forgotten about are the league’s lesser lights who get added to these kingdom-shaking deals as “throw-ins” usually to help match salaries.
And despite the popular belief that the NBA is only about the handful of royals in the league, the Association’s commoners — the guys fighting to remain one of just the 450 bona fide NBA players — make up the vast majority of the work force and, like any “regular” job, are often treated as more of an object or a number than an actual human being.
Cleveland Cavaliers guard Nik Stauskas is among this blue-collar sector of the NBA’s player base and while he’s already had his fair share of rude awakenings as to what the realities of the NBA actually are — having played for three different teams in just four seasons before this one — the trade deadline this year served to not only reinforce his view of professional basketball at the highest level, it put it into even starker perspective.
“You can’t trust anyone and you can’t really trust people’s word in this league and at the end of this day you’re only as good as your last game, you’re only as good as what you’ve done for the organization, and sometimes, in that case, they don’t really care,” said Stauskas over the phone, a day before his Cavaliers were scheduled to host the Toronto Raptors.
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Coming into this season, Stauskas signed a one-year deal with the Portland Trail Blazers after stints with the Sacramento Kings, Philadelphia 76ers and Brooklyn Nets. The No. 8 overall draft pick of the 2014 NBA Draft after being named the Big 10 player of the year in his sophomore year at Michigan, Stauskas never lived up to that billing, but appeared to be turning things around in Portland with fresher perspective on his life and career.
The Mississauga, Ont., native started the season strong, pouring in 24 points in the Blazers’ first contest, and then levelled off afterwards in a more limited, but still consistent-enough rotation role for Blazers coach Terry Stotts. It wasn’t the glamorous NBA life Stauskas had envisioned coming out of college, but it was a living, and he was making the most of it.
“For me, this year – not just this this year but throughout my career – has been humbling for sure,” he told Sportsnet’s Michael Grange back in December. “My time in Sacramento and Philly and Brooklyn – it’s been humbling. It definitely teaches you that everything in this league is earned, nothing is given.”
Then knee soreness came rearing its ugly head in January, followed by the dreaded DNP-CDs leading to Stauskas, once again, being another casualty in a transaction for a player who is supposedly better than him when the Blazers pulled the trigger to trade for Rodney Hood from the Cavaliers in exchange for the Canadian, Wade Baldwin IV and a couple second-rounders.
Stauskas was on his way to his fifth team in as many seasons he’s been in the league, and as things turned out there was going to be a lot more activity involving him in just three days’ time.
Feb. 7 was the trade deadline this year and it’s one that’ll likely stick with Stauskas for a long time as he was traded for a third time in less than 72 hours on that date. The night before the deadline, Stauskas and Baldwin were flipped to the Rockets, who then, just hours later on the deadline day itself, dealt the two players to the Pacers.
A whirlwind turn of events for Stauskas made even more bizarre when you consider a day after the deadline the Pacers waived him, and he then ended up signing with the Cavaliers for the rest of the season.
Even crazier, despite all that apparent movement, once Stauskas originally landed in Cleveland, he never actually left and like the rest of us, was seeing himself bounced around all over the place via social media.
“I was finding out most of my stuff through [ESPN reporter Adrian Wojnarowski] and through his Twitter,” said Stauskas of his trade deadline day. “Once I got traded to Cleveland the first time I never left. … Once I was traded to Cleveland initially, I kinda knew and was told I might get traded again so I knew it was a possibility.”
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It was rather fortuitous for Stauskas that he never bothered to pack up his stuff again upon arriving in Cleveland because after he was bought out and began looking for a new gig it became clear to him the Cavaliers were offering the best situation for him.
“I was talking to a few different teams and, honestly, what it came down to was Cleveland was the most serious team about re-signing me and they were the first to reach out to me and offer me a deal,” said Stauskas. “Some of the teams I was looking at and talking to weren’t quite ready to make a decision yet on whether they were going to sign me and my thing was I didn’t want to wait.
“Cleveland, I thought, was the best opportunity to just come in and start playing right away, and that’s what I needed.”
The decision to sign with Cleveland may seem like an odd one to outside observers as he won’t be part of a winning situation for this season, but when you consider that last point Stauskas made, it starts to make more sense: “That’s what I needed.”
As Stauskas has found out time and again, the NBA is a business, but that doesn’t just apply to the league, it can also apply to players, and in this case, Stauskas chose to do what’s best for himself above all else because, as he’s learned, no one else is going to look out for him.
“Most of the times it just comes down to making sure you realize that we’re all just pieces of the puzzle, we’re all assets and teams are willing to move us if it’s in their best interests,” he said. “They don’t really feel one way or another about whether it’s going to be good for you or bad for you. They’re just worried about themselves at the end of the day, as they should be. I don’t blame them, but me being what I’ve been through, I’ve had to learn that the hard way.”
He has, and though his struggle to remain in the NBA hasn’t always been pretty, he’s still here and that’s all that matters.
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