Loyalty in the NBA is no more… or at least very rare. But people often forget that loyalty goes both ways, and in today’s NBA even trying to be loyal to a team seems impossible. We’ve seen it when Isaiah Thomas, Blake Griffin and DeMar DeRozan got traded… and last, with Jrue Holiday.
Just a couple of days before his trade to the Portland Trail Blazers, Holiday was quoted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel saying that he wanted to spend the rest of his career with the Bucks.
Holiday’s wife Lauren now shared a powerful message on Instagram highlighting the human element of players being traded. She revealed that Jrue discovered he was being traded after waking up from a nap, without any prior indication from the Bucks that he could potentially be traded.
“‘It’s not personal, it’s business.’
That’s rarely true in real life. We just don’t want to see what makes it personal.
I’ve debated writing anything. But, being vulnerable helps me heal. This isn’t new. We’ve been traded before. Each time we’ve felt something different but this time it crushed me.
Our daughter started 1st grade a month ago. Our son started preschool. Our kids go to school with other Bucks children. Their dads walk them in and walk out together. The other women on the Bucks have been my workout partners, my confidants, and my support system. We have had Bible studies, and retreats and shared so many laughs and tears. Not to mention the relationships we have built through our church, our community, and our JLH grantees. All of this is personal to us. It’s our life. There’s no business to any of that.
Milwaukee was home.
On Wednesday, my husband took a nap. He woke up to news that he had been moved. No warning, no heads up, not even a conversation that it could be a possibility. Just, it’s done. Now move on because ‘it’s not personal, it’s business’.
I’m not sharing this to say we are entitled to anything. I’m sharing this to say we are human beings whose kids develop friendships with other kids in our community, we are people who value family and friendships and invest in the cities we play in. We don’t just take from the city we play in, we give to the city we play in and we give our all.
So, yes, this is more than business. Not because we’re offended by it but, because we are people, we’re humans, we have relationships, dreams, and a connection to where we play.
As I write this, we are grieving the loss of that while celebrating the hope and the joy of what’s ahead. The growth is in allowing ourselves to feel this pain now and turn it into power for how we move forward. That’s who we are and that’s who we always will be
Imagine a world where we didn’t hide behind the business of things, where we didin’t treat one another like commodities, instead we saw each other as valuable pieces of a human community meant to serve one another in a mosaic of ways.
Imagine if we didn’t just put dollar signs on athletes. Imagine if we invested in them as humans, as incredible forces for good, if we had the same expectations for ourselves i our everyday lives that we have for every athlete that steps into their sarena. We expect effort. We expect focus. We expect integrity. We expect greatness. What if our standard for business was the same? In other words, imagine if it was personal AND business. That’s the world I want to create.”
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