The NBA, On The Midnight James Harden To Houston Trade: "Wow"

Tweets compiled with the help of Samer Kalaf.

When news breaks on a Saturday night during a holiday weekend, you can expect either a muted reaction (if it's complicated news) or all hell breaking loose (if it's simple enough to tweet about while you hold a drink in one hand). The James Harden trade was closer to the latter. Though some of the terms are deceptively complex—like the protected pick from Dallas that may not belong to the Thunder for a few seasons—the idea that Oklahoma City broke up the league's youngest and most exciting Big Three in recent memory is pretty easy to digest. The NBA got to digesting almost immediately last night, and sent out everything from sophisticated analysis to, in the case of a bunch of guys, just the word "wow." Below, the best from a wide spectrum of players talking about other players, between late last night and early this morning.

There you have it folks: professional athletes grappling with their own transience, in real time.