O

n a Tuesday afternoon in January 2007, then-Timberwolves coach Dwane Casey gets a call in his room at the Hotel Monaco Portland in Portland, Oregon. His general manager, Kevin McHale, is firing him from his dream job after only 19 months.

In an instant, Casey's needs have shifted entirely. He no longer needs a game plan for defending Zach Randolph in tomorrow night's game. What he needs in the midst of the most mortifying moment of his professional career is a way to leave the hotel with his dignity and get to Seattle, his offseason home.

Enter Joseph Sundberg, the Monaco's bell captain and the NBA's Winston Wolf, fixer of all.

That's Casey's next call.

"He was the first person I saw after the call. I knew he'd take care of it with one conversation," Casey says. "He's reliable -- whatever you need, whenever you need it."

An hour later, Casey's rental car pulls up to Monaco Portland's valet.

From the moment that NBA teams arrive at the hotel, Sundberg runs the show. It's both a logistical and intimate endeavor. It's the competence to ensure every piece of luggage in the traveling party of 45 to 60 finds its way to the correct room in 15 minutes, and the compassion to know that the NBA is a very personal business.

For the better part of their year, hotels are the primary interior in an NBA life. Players and team personnel spend maybe five hours at arenas, and that's only on game days. The rest of their time on the road -- both waking hours and sleeping ones -- is spent in a hotel. It's not home, but it's where they take refuge and where their needs are met.

It's a business, but one infused with trust. Trust that a room service meal won't upset a player's stomach before tonight's game, trust that a front-office clerk won't dish if she overhears an argument or if someone comes in a little tipsy, and trust that if any unforeseen needs surface, the hotel can respond without a hitch. Trust that even if a coach needs an emergency dress shirt in 15 minutes, someone on the hotel staff will literally give an NBA team the shirts off their backs.

This is the story of one hotel and how it has found its way into the hearts of NBA teams. In late February, the Houston Rockets checked in for a three-day stay, and this is how it went.