NBA Trades and the Impact on Dads

Sure, it’s a business, but as a dad, it can be personal.

The 2025 NBA Trade Deadline was one for the books.

Between Luka Doncic, a 5X All-NBA 1st team generational player who made his move to the Los Angeles Lakers, of all places, and a rescinded trade that, as of this writing, is still being disputed, NBA fans were served a healthy level of entertainment value in recent weeks.

Every fan base wants their team to get better. It's why most of us cheer for these moves (sorry, Mavericks fans) in hopes that one day we can go downtown and celebrate a Championship with our favorite franchise.

Though as much as we live and die by a Shams tweet (Are we calling them Sham-wows yet?), there are very real consequences to trades; just ask your favorite players if they like waking up from naps to find they're moving across the country tomorrow.

Justin Holiday was a veteran NBA player, having won a championship with the Golden State Warriors in 2015. In February 2022, Holiday was considered a "throw-in" in a trade between the Indiana Pacers and the Sacramento Kings, one of the most shocking trades in NBA history.

Justin Holiday, playing for the Indiana Pacers in 2022.

Speaking as a Pacers fan, I was ecstatic to bring Tyrese Haliburton to Indiana! Domantas Sabonis was my favorite player on the Pacers. Still, based on five years of trying, it was clear that Sabonis himself wasn't going to bring Playoff success to Indiana the way a transcendent future all-star point guard could.

Admittedly, I put a lot of the blame on Pacers coaching, front office moves, Victor Oladipo's injury, and his insistence to play on other teams over Sabonis's skill set, but I digress.

Still, the majority of Pacers fans were thrilled with the trade, even if we knew it was because Sabonis would thrive in Sacramento. And while Domantas Sabonis would go on to be the star of the show in Sacramento, Justin Holiday and Jeremy Lamb would also be on the move, uprooting their lives in the middle of February to move across the country for a new job.

"Getting traded is always hard," said Holiday, who grew up near Los Angeles. "I was surprised; I didn't know until it happened. I also didn't know this would be a destination that I would go to as well."

For Holiday, a husband and father of two girls, a move also meant figuring out whether or not to move your family across the country with you or stay put in your previous city and wait until the offseason to make a move. 

According to Ohm Youngmisuk, "Players typically have a day or two to report to their new team, pass a physical, and try to figure out how to move their families, pets, cars, sneakers, or -- for those traded to the Toronto Raptors -- acquire a work visa.

Many end up spending the remainder of the season living in a hotel, turning their luxury rooms into storage units."

Sure, the players make good money, there is no denying that, but as a dad, you can't deny the difficulties of being forced to move jobs on a dime.

"We're all routine-based as humans, and you just get used to being in the same places and seeing your kids after school, picking them up, and then out of nowhere somebody calls you [to say] 'Hey, you are going 2,000 miles over here.'" - Mike Conley.

Sports are a tough business. Just ask Luka Doncic, who purchased a Dallas, TX, home just weeks before being traded to Los Angeles. But no matter how much money you make or the level of privileges you enjoy, watching your kids pack up their lives and move away from their friends, teachers, and lives can feel like anything but a business.