What it's like to be traded in the NBA
In the words of Buck-turned-Wizard Khris Middleton
For more than a decade, whenever the Milwaukee Bucks would empty their hotel rooms and board their chartered bus bound for that night's NBA arena, one teammate could always be found behind Giannis Antetokounmpo, right over his hulking right shoulder.
The seat neighbor arrived in Milwaukee that same 2013 summer when the Bucks drafted The Greek Freak. Three times he reached All-Star status as Antetokounmpo's self-proclaimed sidekick. He helped the franchise win that elusive championship in 2021 to end a title drought of 50 years.
Then it all changed in February. On this particular afternoon, one day before the NBA's 2025 trade deadline, Antetokounmpo noticed something amiss as Milwaukee's traveling party rolled away from their Charlotte accommodations towards the Hornets' building.
"Khris?" Giannis said loudly. "Where's Khris?"
Middleton, meanwhile, had already rented a car at Douglas International Airport by this time. In the summers of his childhood, Middleton had grown accustomed to the three-hour trips to Charlotte from his hometown of Charleston, S.C. Now he needed that long drive south in the opposite direction to clear his head and process the shock of losing his seat on the Bucks' bus.
He had just been traded to the Washington Wizards.
"It was just a time to decompress, get my feelings out, reminisce, go through a whole bunch of thought processes and figure out what my life's gonna be like now," Middleton told The Stein Line. "When you get traded, it's a huge confidence killer, especially if you're not in control of it. You have to kinda talk yourself back up."
Middleton and the Wizards play host to Giannis and the Bucks on Monday night. Our conversation, adjacent to the Wizards' practice court, took place last month ... with both of us, I think, still adjusting to the sight of Middleton in Washington's red, white and blue as opposed to Milwaukee's green and cream.
"They don't want you anymore," Middleton said with a shrug of the Bucks.
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