For basketball fans, trades are part of what we tune in for. Countless hours are spent debating hypothetical player swaps, and the trade deadline is always one of the most intense times in the NBA calendar.
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Sometimes a trade can be just the thing to put a team over the top. We just saw it as Alex Caruso helped the Thunder win the title after coming over in a trade for Josh Giddey last summer. Before that, Derrick White was the missing piece the Celtics needed to add to Jayson Tatum and Jaylen Brown and he was integral to the franchise’s 18th championship in 2024.
It’s easy to see what a difference trades can make on the court, but we don’t always think about the human element of shipping a player and his family to a new location. Imagine having your life turned upside down all because two general managers got together and decided they wanted to shake things up.
White just launched a new podcast called White Noise, and in his premiere episode, he broke down exactly what it was like to get traded from the Spurs to the Celtics. From the moment he got the news from Gregg Popovich until he put his first game in the books as a Celtic, it was a wild time filled with uncertainty and anxiety.
White remembers being in Atlanta when it all went down. “[Popovich] knocks on the door, he sits down in my room, and he’s like, ‘Hey, we traded you,’ and doesn’t say anything. I’m like, ‘To where?’ ‘We wouldn’t f*** you, we sent you to Boston.'”
By trading him to one of the better teams in the league, Pop was right that Spurs did right by White, especially since he had experience with most of the players and the coaching staff in Boston already. Still, it wasn’t easy to come to grips with being dealt. “I thought, ‘I’ll fit well there,’ but it’s also like, ‘What do I do?'” White remembered thinking.
In his final act as a Spur, White played dominoes and drank with assistant trainer Brendan Bowman, one of his best friends in the organization. “[Bowman] texts me like, ‘You want me to get you a bottle?’ I’m like, ‘Yes.'”
What sounded like a good farewell plan turned out to be a bad idea, because as White was tying one on, Celtics assistant coach Will Hardy called. “We’re gonna try to get you on this flight that leaves in like an hour-and-a-half, so can you pack up and go?” he said. “I’m like, ‘OK, yup,'” White recalled.
“At this point I’m lit. I’m going through it … like ‘This is crazy, like why?’ I’m upset that they traded me. But then I’m trying to get to the airport, barely make my flight.”
Hardy picked a still-tipsy White up at the airport and drove him to the hotel. Imagine starting a new job at a new company, except on your first day, you’re dealing with a hangover. That’s pretty much where White was as he took his physical and met his new team.
It was all overwhelming. “When you get traded, you meet everybody all at once,” White said. “It’s not just the players. You meet the front office, you meet the training staff, you meet the strength staff, you meet the nutritionist.”
White spent that whole day not knowing if he would play that night, because everyone involved in the trade needed to pass their physicals, too. Just before the game he found out he was good to go, and somehow, despite having a 24-hour period that would make Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifiniakis blush, he balled out with 15 points in 28 minutes, helping the Celtics overcome an early deficit to beat the Nuggets.
That first game was a sign of things to come, as White went on to play a huge role on that title-winning team two years later. He signed a four-year, $126-million extension to remain in Boston last summer and will play an even bigger role this coming season as the team waits for Jayson Tatum to get back from his torn Achilles.
All’s well that ends well but White’s saga is a reminder of just how crazy it is to get traded.
