This had nothing to do with return and everything with Chayka pacifying Burke
>offer Duclair for Hamilton
>get on the bad side of the oldest boy of the old boys club who now poisons the well with all the other old boy GMs/other people for you
>give him freebie on ~2nd pairing yet expendable player to get back on his good side.
How do you mean that?
Even if Chayka was the GM in question to whom it had been implied that Hamilton was available, then where does the problem lie? Either Chayka decided to flat out lie about availability, or Burke/Treliving was not clear enough that Hamilton could or could not be dealt. Clearly, not one of us was on the phone call that occurred between the two.
The question is, which makes more sense:
A. the player was never available and Burke goes public to blast another GM for putting that out there
B. the player could have been mentioned in talks, and the GM tries to put rumors to rest that he may be available after acquiring him a year earlier
I don't know which one happened, but I would see B as being a more likely option. Why blast someone for stating someone was available who never was? There isn't even a need for Burke to respond to that b/c other GMs will soon find out that the GM saying that was full of ****. But option B does sound like some sense of damage control where the GM doesn't want to reveal what players were talked about, and he doesn't want to create a rift where it appears that the team is giving up on a player whom they recently acquired.
Color me skeptical that Burke responded as a result of A. Think about it - why go back and deal with someone if A had happened with the same GM earlier in the year? If A was that detrimental from a dealing with a GM standpoint, lack of trust, etc., then don't deal with that person again.
