Of course, it's NOT the business of basketball. Trades are; suspending the soul of your team for SEVEN games for unspecified conduct detrimental to the TEAM is not business as usual in the Association.
The second part of what young Nikola said was true last night. He and the other players had their soul ripped out and consciously or subconsciously they were standing with Jimmy Butler wherever he is far off Pat Riley Court at Bang Bus Arena.
Pat Riley took this team's soul, collectively and in personification, from them. I can never remember seeing a before-and-after as stark. The players were in a frisson of pain. One man did this. One man suspended Butler when he just could have done normal business and traded him. Manifestly it is Pat Riley who committed an act extremely detrimental to the TEAM.
The soul is malleable. What can be broken can be fixed. It will be up to one man to mend it. But if a soul is dead, can it be resurrected?
