Warriors players found out about the Jimmy Butler trade in one of the most awkward ways possible

Normally, NBA locker rooms are open to reporters for a 45-minute window pregame, but on Wednesday night, the Golden State Warriors raised alarm bells that they might have a deal imminent on the eve of the NBA trade deadline when they kicked all the reporters out so that Steve Kerr could address the team privately ahead of their matchup with the Utah Jazz.

Ringing further conspiracy bells was the fact they called players who were working out — including Stephen Curry — back from the floor to the locker room to participate in the team-wide meeting, per Ohm Youngmisuk of ESPN.

Just 10 minutes later, the media — and the rest of the world — found out what Kerr was likely telling the team: That Andrew Wiggins, Kyle Anderson, Dennis Schröder and Lindy Waters the III were getting traded so that the Warriors could add (and extend) perpetually disgruntled Heat star Jimmy Butler.

Now, the NBA has seen awkward trade circumstances before — Harrison Barnes getting dealt by the Dallas Mavericks while playing a basketball game most prominently comes to mind from my 12 years covering the NBA — but this is immediately on the Mount Rushmore of bizarre ways for the public to find out a deal is going down.

Having to hold guys out with made-up leg or wrist soreness so they don’t get hurt and jeopardize a deal is one thing, but having to call your whole team back to the locker room and kick the media out so the coach could let several guys who were otherwise planning on playing that night know that they were gonna have to catch a plane instead of playing against the Jazz? Or, in Schröder’s case, that they could just go to the other locker room? Less than an hour after said coach said he hoped the team didn’t “do anything crazy” at the deadline?

That might end up as one of the more publicly bizarre ways for fans and players to find out about a blockbuster deal that we’ve ever seen... especially when considering that Steve Kerr’s body language doesn’t sound like it was quite ebullient after addressing the team:

Now, maybe he was just sad about the NBA as a business, and having to tell several men he’d been in the trenches with that they’d have to move themselves and their families on short notice. Honestly, though, without psychoanalyzing too much, walking around with his head down is also a completely rational reaction for a coach who just found out they have to deal with Draymond Green and Jimmy Butler at the same time, so it could make sense on multiple levels.

We’ll find out which is which later on, but for now, all we know for certain is that all of this was awkward as hell.