With all of the election-related craziness I didn't really have time to consider how depressing it was to see Chauncey Billups, easily my favorite basketball player this decade (see this post from last year for some evidence), traded to the Denver Nuggets last week. Beyond his reputation for steadiness and excellence under pressure (and, of course, his brilliant name), Chauncey Billups just seemed like a fundamentally friendly and bright person, the sort of guy that no one had a bad thing to say about and that seemed to be "close, personal friends" with about three quarters of the league.
Michael Rosenberg, (via DBB) has a very revealing and sad story about the moments after the trade went down in the Detroit Free Press today, that serves as a great reminder of how nice it was to have a person like Billups leading the Pistons for the last six years. I'm actually not opposed to the trade taking place for lots of reasons (see TrueHoop for a nice breakdown), but as member of the sappier, "Field of Dreams" school of sports sentimentalists, it would be impossible to not feel, even two weeks later, a lot of sadness about seeing Billups go.
Here's my single favorite Billups-related moment, the buzzer-beater against the Nets in the 2004 NBA playoffs:
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