Tyson Chandler was sitting in an office with New Orleans Hornets general manager Jeff Bower, filling out papers and trying to digest all that had just transpired. It was Feb. 19, two hours before the NBA trade deadline and a sleepless night after Chandler had been traded to Oklahoma City and then untraded when he failed the Thunder's physical.
Thoughts and emotions raced through Chandler's mind like a succession of alley-oop passes from Chris Paul. Just as rapidly, Bower's cell phone kept ringing. And ringing. And ringing.
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| Tyson Chandler didn't want to leave his teammates, including All-Star point guard Chris Paul. (Getty Images) |
The Hornets were about to head West for a three-game post-deadline road trip against the Lakers, Jazz and Kings. A few hours earlier, Chandler was trying to figure out how to get to Phoenix to join the Thunder. He was trying to digest why the Hornets had given up on him, the way the Bulls gave up on him when they traded him to New Orleans/Oklahoma City in 2006. He was going through all the emotions you would expect. What did I do wrong? Why are they breaking up this team?
"I wanted to stay here because of my teammates," Chandler said. "This is who I'm around every day. My relationship is with the guys here in this locker room, so I wanted to be here for that reason. I would never hold anything against these guys. So when I came back, I was like, 'This is going to make me play even harder, because they tried to break this up, this special thing we have here.'"
The biggest surprise wasn't the trade itself. Though Chandler said he tries to stay out of "the management thing," he can see the empty seats in New Orleans as well as anybody. He has asthma and turf toe and a bad ankle, but there's nothing wrong with his eyesight or business sense. The Hornets have a problem, and it has to do with their shrinking revenues and the shrinking luxury-tax threshold and a $76 million payroll that will force owner George Shinn to pay tax money he doesn't have if something doesn't change.
Chandler wasn't even stunned at the news that the Thunder had voided the trade over the results of his physical. The shocking part was the reason. It's well documented that Chandler was diagnosed with asthma in 2004, a condition he has controlled with simple treatments and one that has never affected him on the court. It's also no secret that Chandler sprained his right ankle in the second game of the season and hasn't been the same since.
But the last thing on Chandler's mind when Bower told him that the trade had been voided was a turf toe injury that required surgery in 2007 and hasn't caused him to miss a single game.
"When they said the doctor's not going to pass you through the physical, I was like, 'Is my ankle that bad?'" Chandler said. "That was the last thought in my mind. When they told me toe, I was like, 'Toe? Huh?'"
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| Hornets fans weren't happy when the popular Chandler was traded last month. (Getty Images) |
"It's always kind of out there, that there's a potential that they could make a move again in the summer," Chandler said. "It could be the same thing, the same issues -- me being more disappointed that we're not going to be able to finish something that we started."
Finishing what they started seemed like the next logical step after the Hornets pushed the Spurs to seven games in the conference semifinals last year. They lured James Posey from defending champion Boston with a four-year, $25 million contract and seemed poised for a run at the NBA Finals. With the precocious, dazzling play of Paul ... his rapport with Chandler ... the emergence of David West ... the no-nonsense leadership of coach Byron Scott ... plus Posey, a championship-tested defender and clutch 3-point shooter, all the pieces seemed to be in place. Yet instead of challenging the Lakers for the No. 1 seed, the Hornets are trying to avoid being the odd team out in a crowded Western Conference playoff race.
Injuries have taken a toll. In addition to Chandler, Paul has been hampered by a hamstring injury since before the All-Star break, a nagging condition that requires the team trainer to put him through a series of tortuous stretches before practices and games. All Paul could do before Sunday night's game against the Nets was turn on his iPod, close his eyes, grit his teeth, and submit to the punishment. West and Posey have been playing hurt nearly the entire season, Chandler said.
"We know what's at stake," Chandler said. "We were a game out of the Western Conference finals last year and we have an understanding of what it's going to take to get past that. Being healthy and having everybody on the floor, that's a different team out there. It's tough when you're undermanned and people don't necessarily know it. It definitely has an effect on you. Hopefully we can get past that and stay healthy."
The focus was on Chandler at the trade deadline because of two factors: money and production. Scott has never been one for subtlety, so he laid out his expectations to Chandler in one of their frequent one-on-one talks before the season.
"I was expecting 12 or 13 points a game and 12 or 13 rebounds a game," Scott said. "That's what I talked to him about this summer, and that should be his goal -- improve on what you did last year, which was close to 12 and 12. I thought -- and I still think -- he has the potential to do that."
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Sure enough, that's what Chandler has done in his first four games back -- 11.5 points and 12.0 rebounds, essentially his season averages from a year ago. But there are other numbers with dollar signs next to them that say the Hornets can't afford the luxury of a $12 million player scoring a point per million. Chandler holds a player option for 2010-11 at $12.75 million, so you can expect those phone calls to Bower's cell phone to be renewed in July.
"When you put us in that category, you've got to put another 14 or 15 teams that are going to make decisions based on financials reasons," Scott said. "I don't think we're at that point right now to be honest with you. When this summer comes, obviously it might be a different story."
For now, Chandler has had no trouble returning to the only locker room he wants to inhabit. Everyone asks what his coaches and teammates said to him when he returned, but Chandler wasn't paying attention to that. He was paying attention to what they said when he left.
"I was able to sit back and see the interviews and read the quotes about how much they were going to miss me and how much they enjoyed playing with me and how much they didn't want this trade to happen," Chandler said. "I'm a firm believer that people show their true colors during controversy. The way Coach and David and Chris stepped up and showed me how they feel about me, I have a lot of respect for those guys."
If nothing else, they can all lean on this experience when it happens again in a few months.
