The Washington Wizards surprisingly integrated themselves into a trade between the Cleveland Cavaliers and Milwaukee Bucks, sending longtime big man and locker room favorite Jason Smith to the Bucks for young wing Sam Dekker as part of a three-team swap. The deal hasn't gone over all that well with the players, given their long rapport with the multi-faceted 7-footer.

“It’s been a crazy 24 hours for us but we’re making due with it,” Bradley Beal said late Saturday night, bringing up Smith on his own, according to Candace Buckner of The Washington Post. “A lot of us are a little iffy about it. We love Jason. Jason is a huge part of our team but you know, this is a business world that we live in and organization that we’re in … things happen. Players come and go and now we have Sam. We can’t heckle on it, because it happened but we definitely didn’t come out with the right focus tonight.”

The Wizards' front office warned earlier this season that no player is untouchable, even taking those permanent labels off Beal and John Wall, the two cornerstones of the franchise.

Smith was a fringe rotation player, but an integral one at that — having spent the last two seasons at the nation's capital as a security blanket and a trusty backup.

“In a straw poll conducted within the locker room Saturday night, Wizards' players expressed myriad emotions about losing Smith, with reactions ranging disappointment to feeling ‘pissed off,' as one player acknowledged,” wrote Buckner. “The word ‘tough' came up often as teammates described Smith as a morale booster, a brother and all-around good guy.”

The Wizards are slowly climbing out of their hole, but they are still four games under .500 at 11-15 this season, remarkably in need of a shift in gears if they hope to make the postseason this time around.