I have no idea what you are talking about

Teams still do deals with the A’s and Red Sox in baseball. Teams still trade with the Patriots in the NFL. Morey’s interest in Lowry didn’t stop Memphis (then again, it is Memphis) from trading him for a crappy draft pick.

I don’t think it’s really “ego,” so much as the simple fact that every team does tons of research. If you’re the GM, and if you don’t trust your research enough that you’re willing to deal with Morey, then you’re not GM material. Yeah, I imagine that teams might take another look at a player they’re looking to trade if the Rockets or Spurs or Blazers ask about them, but that’s not going to overrule their own judgments.

but two things:

1) I rarely see ideas like this framed in terms of GMs “winning” or “losing” deals. Mostly it’s just the idea that, when a good GM comes calling, the other team begins to think that whomever the GM asks for is better than they originally thought, and so they begin to fear losing a valuable piece. That wouldn’t affect deals that involve a team with great depth at a particular position (take, for instance, Morey inquiring about Lowry; that would be a case where Memphis has no plans on playing him more, simply because they like Conley more and don’t see Lowry as nearly as valuable), but it might affect others.

2) To some degree, trades are zero-sum games because they are viewed as such. GMs fear getting “burnt” in a trade because it reflects poorly on them, and they’re competing for their jobs. If they “lose” too many trades, even if those trades were economically the right moves because of positional issues or whatever, then they might get fired. Irrational behavior creates more irrational behavior down the line.