Coaches, and trades

Following the theme of the day, I thought it might be interesting to get Terry Murray’s thoughts on the trade deadline. Murray has been in coaching for more than 25 years, so certainly he knows whether or not the deadline can become an issue for a team, either in terms of players getting their hopes up about an acquisition or worrying that they might get traded away. I asked Murray whether, as a coach, there was anything he could — or even wanted to try — to do in order to address the situation as a trade deadline approaches…

MURRAY: “There’s nothing that I can do, personally. Most times, whenever there are rumors out there, the coaches are not involved in any kind of discussions at this time. At the end of the day, before a trade is made, a coach is brought in and it’s a short discussion. `What do you think?’ and `Here’s what we’re going to do.’ So there’s not much that I can do, in terms of going to the player or talking about it in front of the team, to say, `It’s unfounded.’ Because I honestly don’t know that, and I can’t put myself in that kind of a situation with the players. So they have to deal with it. It’s the playing field that athletes have to face all the time. Part of the business is for the media to create some rumors sometimes, so they have to deal with it.”