Travel tales + trade talk with Jake Fischer

ORLANDO, Fla. — Everyone loves the Brightline. The hotel clerk loves it. The guy across the aisle in 4A loves it. Like me he’s also riding the new train that chugs along Florida’s east coast for the first time.

It’s living up to the hype. These white-gray seats were as ballyhooed as any prospect I discussed during this year’s G League Showcase — swear to the Basketball Gods. Over four days, various front office executives professed their affinity for the six-year-old intercity rail running from Orlando to Miami. The wife of one friend, who’s an assistant coach, and her whole family all beamed when I revealed my mode of transportation away from the NBA’s answer to the winter meetings. Snowbirding parents … here I come.

That was me on Monday on the way to Christmas (and Hanukkah) with the family. I had just spent several days in Central Florida with representatives from all 30 NBA front offices … as well as hundreds, if not thousands, of costume-wearing anime enthusiasts who had flooded the same halls of the Orange County Convention Center that hosted the Showcase. Ditto for the attached hotels where NBA personnel and players shuffled to and from games. Last Friday morning, as I walked a skybridge towards the Showcase, I spotted former lottery pick Skal Labissière walking behind a woman wearing a full Mr. Peanut ensemble fit for Broadway. There were elves and tails and wigs and swords and onesies and NBA general managers. It was all quite the confluence of Events (yes … capital E required).

Yet that was just the scene. Here are some parting thoughts and musings from the Showcase, which crowned the Westchester Knicks as champions for the second year in a row amid no shortage of NBA trade chatter in the stands.