Only a select few players in NBA history are able to chart the course of their own careers. LeBron James, for instance, has the power to play for pretty much whatever team he wants. But even lesser All-Stars don't have the luxury of signing a series of one-year contracts, nor the ability to pick a max-level salary slot of his choosing in free agency. Washington Wizards big man Bobby Portis is among a different group entirely, the type of solid, unspectacular, flawed player who routinely finds himself on the move throughout the course of his career – often by no choosing of his own.

Portis learned that reality the hard way on Thursday when he and Jabari Parker were traded from the Chicago Bulls to the Wizards in exchange for Otto Porter. The fourth-year big man had previously indicated he wanted to be “a Bull for life,” an unrealistic notion that new coach Scott Brooks made light of before the Bulls and Wizards tipped off at United Center on Saturday night.

“I wanted to be a Sixer for life and then a Timberwolf for life and then a Rocket for life and then a Maverick for life and then a Knick for life and then Cleveland for life and then LA for life,” he quipped, per K.C. Johnson of the Chicago Tribune.

Brooks, the very definition of a journeyman point guard, beat the odds after going undrafted to enjoy a 10-year NBA career in the late 1980s and 1990s. He played for six teams over that timeframe, as noted above.

Portis, though, will have every opportunity to carve his niche in a Wizards team trying to regain its balance after a tumultuous start to the 2018-19 season that has dragged on to the midway point.