When Desmond Mason learned the Milwaukee Bucks had traded him to the New Orleans/Oklahoma City Hornets three years ago, his reaction was resentment.
When Mason learned Wednesday the Bucks had again traded him to Oklahoma City, his reaction was relief.
"When I looked at it and saw Oklahoma City I was relieved because it's a place that we're comfortable with, a place that we enjoy being and a place we have history in,”
Mason told The Oklahoman in a telephone interview from Milwaukee on Thursday. "So this move is easier for us.”
To be clear, Mason didn't resent the Bucks for shipping him to Oklahoma City just before the start of the 2005-06 season, and the former Oklahoma State star isn't relieved to be leaving the Bucks now.
His displeasure three years ago stemmed from the Bucks pulling the trigger on the Jamaal Magloire trade with the Hornets at what was then a bad time in his personal life. Mason's wife, Andrea, was pregnant with the couple's first child, the soon-to-be 3-year-old Jada.
When Mason requested a trade months in advance of his daughter's birth, sensing he was the odd man out when the Bucks gave forward Bobby Simmons a 5-year, $47 million contract that summer, Milwaukee's front office executives told him they wanted him to remain a Buck.
The emotional Mason grew furious when the Bucks made the deal on Oct. 26, six days before the Hornets' season-opener.
"My daughter was 2 weeks old,”
Mason said. "We had to fly down (to Oklahoma City) and we stayed in a hotel for over a month with a 2 -week-old. So it was just a stressful situation. I was more upset for my family because my wife had just gone through labor and my daughter was young. We had to go find a new house in a new place and meet new people. And the situation the Hornets were in, they were still being moved there from New Orleans. So the organization was still trying to figure things out.”
Mason would eventually find happiness in his new home.
He and his wife, Andrea, made friends. They became active in the community. Best of all, Mason immediately became a fan favorite.
Now, Mason expects to pick up where he left off two seasons ago. Only this time, the trade holds more sentimental value because Mason is returning to the team that originally drafted him, the franchise formerly known as the Seattle SuperSonics.
"It's kind of ironic that a team moves to a place where I played in college and shaped the early part of me becoming a basketball player,”
said Mason, who is in the final year of his contract.
"It wouldn't bother me one bit to finish my career in Oklahoma City. I enjoy being there. We all know how negotiations go and how free agency goes, but Oklahoma City has a special place in my heart. For me, that would kind of be like a fairytale story to finish where I played college at, being around people that I love and being close to home. My wife went to college there, and our daughter will be able to experience what we experienced there growing as young adults.”
Mason said the fans are his fondest memories of his time with the Hornets. It's something he's eager to return to after hearing news of the franchise's ticket request list approaching 16,000 fans.
"We weren't making the playoffs but they were pumped up and screaming loud,”
Mason said. "In the NBA, you go to a city and you have a couple of bad possessions and you will get booed out of the gym in a lot of arenas."
"And to me, it felt like a college atmosphere where if you're kind of messing up a little bit, maybe you're dropping the ball on defense or you turn it over a couple of times, the fans started cheering trying to get you going again. And that's something that I haven't seen in my career as an NBA player. So that was refreshing to see that fan support.”
It's the type of support Mason feels will help a young team that won only 20 games a year ago.
"I know that's going to keep the young guys involved,”
Mason said. "Seattle was tough for them, because they couldn't get a lot of fans in and they weren't winning. But now they're going to have a fan base that's excited every night. When they step out on the floor it's going to be packed every night. And that drives people to play harder.”
