Chris Boucher on the time he thought Toronto traded him

Raptors centre Chris Boucher tells the story of when he thought Toronto traded him. Listen to ‘Hustle Play’ wherever you get your podcasts and watch the full episode on our Yahoo Sports Canada YouTube.

Video Transcript

- Trade deadline?

CHRIS BOUCHER: Trade deadline was crazy. I won't lie to you. How did you feel about trade deadline?

- I mean, pretty much what happened is what I expected. I mean, from a Raptor standpoint, they traded Goran. That's pretty much all I thought they would do.

CHRIS BOUCHER: Yeah.

- So it wasn't anything surprising to me.

CHRIS BOUCHER: You never know. That's-- that's what-- I mean, for me, I just-- I was stressed, man. I won't lie to you. Like, I-- like, I was playing great basketball, and we won games and all that. But I felt like they could have took it as, like, what if we add another piece or a better piece? Can we make a better run?

So that's what I was scared of, because it's like, OK, maybe I'm-- they didn't want to trade me. But if they could get a bigger piece, they're just going to involve me in it, and another team might want me because they say, he's playing good, and he's not doing-- taking too many shots. So I was--

- Well, OK, yeah, when you mentioned it from that standpoint, I was thinking-- there's probably a team out there that's-- multiple teams that are looking at you. So I was starting to look at it from another team standpoint, saying, how do we get him? Or how do we--

CHRIS BOUCHER: So you understand why I was stressed, right? It's a little scary. I won't lie to you. And [INAUDIBLE] turned around like this [INAUDIBLE] not Twitter. OK, we're good. We're still good. It's Instagram. It's probably by my Slim Jim stuff. We're good. [LAUGHS]

We're good.

- Any crazy stories have from a trade deadline standpoint?

CHRIS BOUCHER: So last year, we're in Tampa, right? And I think I was having my best year. And, at the same time, during the trade deadline, I'd just signed with Puma, so I didn't know exactly when they were going to make their announcement.

So we have a game that day. Remember that day when Kyle did the-- and we thought it was going to be his last game?

- Yeah.

CHRIS BOUCHER: So they did that post that day. I'm taking my nap around 1 o'clock. So I go to sleep.

I wake up to, [SINGING ALARM SOUND]. It was--

- Phone's blowing up.

CHRIS BOUCHER: My phone is blowing. And I'm like, what is going on? So I'm doing this. I'm looking at my phone. I'm like, you know what? Let me just go on Google because I'm not trusting my phone right now. It's blowing way too much.

So I'm going on Google, google my name just to see if I got traded, and what I see is, Chris Boucher just signed with Puma. Did you see how my heart stopped so fast? I went on my phone. I'm calling, [INAUDIBLE] like, yo, did I get traded or something? Like, yo, my phone is blowing up, I haven't blown like that in a minute. And it was for Puma.

So the whole time, I think I'm traded. I'm going to another team. It's over. Almost packing my bags at the same time my phone's ringing. And it was just to say that I was signing with Puma. So that was one of the scariest moment of my life.

And then this year, was another stress for a moment. So trade deadline's not really my shit. I hate it.

- But it must be like that for a large majority of the league.

CHRIS BOUCHER: I don't know. I'm just thinking about me right now. Like--

- You ain't the only one going through it.

CHRIS BOUCHER: I was scared. Chris Boucher was scared because I needed [INAUDIBLE] think about our team. Most people are like-- they're still on their contract, or they still got another contract--

- You're expiring, right?

CHRIS BOUCHER: I'm expiring. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? It's like--