Call it destiny
The Hornets’ Tyson Chandler, who almost became the Thunder’s Tyson Chandler, certainly does:
We come together and we make sacrifices to win. A lot of guys on our team make sacrifices to win, including myself. I sacrifice myself every night to win, and I don’t care about anything except for winning.
And that’s the thought from every player in our locker room. Every player plays with heart and that’s very unusual to have in this league. It’s a beautiful thing we have. And when you go mess that up because of different financial things, that’s when players start having problems. I know I have a problem with it.
If you trade me away and it’s about the team getting better, it’s about winning and you feel like you have a shot to contend, I’m all for it. But you can’t trade me away for future cap space. I can understand if we didn’t have a chance to win, but if we’ve got a chance to win, you can’t break that up.
It’s destiny, and that’s why I’m back.
Or, as I said when the trade was first announced:
I can appreciate George Shinn wanting to avoid the luxury tax next year, but it’s a damn shame to break up that set.
The Hornets have ten players under contract for 2009-10 at a total of $76.4 million, which will almost surely be over the tax limit; there’s nothing much that can be done about it right now.
