A version of this story appears in the July 12 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
If you think trades are all about player value, team need and contract terms, think again. In many cases, midseason deals come down to the style of deal-makers (GMs) and how they get along. With a month before the trade deadline, we polled a dozen GMs about the deal-making traits of their peers. Because who would know better? We let them yak anonymously. Because who wants PC answers?