Champion Creed
Chapter 367 - 367 148 Crazy Summer under the Influence of the Butterfly Effect Votes for Monthly Tickets Please!_3

367: 148: Crazy Summer under the Influence of the Butterfly Effect (Votes for Monthly Tickets Please!)_3 367: 148: Crazy Summer under the Influence of the Butterfly Effect (Votes for Monthly Tickets Please!)_3 But teams competing for an all-rounder champion like Horace Grant were simply too many, so the Mavericks decisively put up $10 million and ended all suspense.

Horace Grant himself was also willing to leave, as a role player, he had already won five championship rings and no longer had much desire for championships.

So if he had to choose one over the other, he would rather pick the big contract.

Given that he, who was no longer eager for championships, might not be able to perform as he had in the previous two years, and considering Grant also wanted to leave, Roger didn’t interfere much with the transfer.

They spoke over the phone, and Roger wished him continued freedom in airplane meals.

In the eyes of the fans, Horace Grant’s departure was a huge blow to the Magic, but Orlando fans still believed in Shaq’s words: “Everything goes smoothly with just two things, me and Roger.”

Fortunately, the Magic quickly found a replacement after sending Horace Grant away, acquiring an unbelievably good player through a sign-and-trade—Dominique Wilkins.

A year ago, when he was personally ousted from the NBA by Roger and Shaq at a press conference tearfully, he could never have imagined that one day he would become teammates with these two.

This is the wonder of fate, something Stevie Smith might have marveled at in his heart.

Last year, when playing in Europe, he was treated with the highest standard.

He joined the Greek league’s Panathinaikos Athens, signing a two-year contract worth $7 million US Dollars.

This meant an annual net salary of $3.5 million—the biggest contract for a basketball player outside of the NBA at that time.

Besides, the club also provided him with a four-story luxury villa, two cars, and even paid his taxes.

Most outrageous of all, Panathinaikos even equipped him with a squad of maids, serving him around the clock in the villa!

(This is true!)

There, Dominique Wilkins lived like European nobility.

The investment by Panathinaikos Athens paid off, as Wilkins helped them win the EuroLeague and the Greek Cup, and he also secured MVP of both events.

Although they missed out on the league championship, Wilkins’ performance was still outstanding.

However, Wilkins, who received imperial treatment in Europe, still felt unsatisfied.

Those European championships and honors tasted to him like vinegar.

After much consideration, he still wanted to return to the NBA to win a ring.

Thus, Wilkins gave up the more than $3 million annual salary in Europe, and had his agent, Steve Kauffman, look for opportunities in the NBA.

Eventually, the San Antonio Spurs extended an olive branch, but could only offer him a salary of $250,000 a year, which was all the cap space they had left.

Wilkins only wanted to chase a championship with a contender, but contenders, after strengthening their squads, mostly had no cap space left.

Moreover, no one knew how much gas Wilkins still had left in the tank, having faded out of the NBA for an entire season.

European MVPs were not considered solid currencies in the NBA.

So, the Spurs’ incredibly low offer of $250,000 astonishingly took the lead for a while.

You see, this salary wasn’t even one tenth of what Wilkins made last year.

Of course, the Spurs couldn’t possibly offer Wilkins a villa and definitely not a squad of maids.

But even so, Wilkins was still close to signing.

In his view, the Spurs were always a championship-contending team, and the value of a championship outweighed everything else.

Just then, Orlando Magic intervened.

John Gabriel sent a second-round pick and the additional player David Vaughn to the Raptors, allowing the Raptors to snatch Wilkins for $600,000, and then packaged him off to Orlando.

This way, the Raptors effectively paid $600,000 for a second-round pick, and the Magic signed Dominique Wilkins for $600,000.

A smart trade indeed, proving John Gabriel wasn’t just adept at bullying secretaries wearing black stockings and subordinates who took off high heels in the office.

With Grant gone, Derrick McKey needed to swing to the power forward position, necessitating a new small forward.

Wilkins was a fireman worth trying out.

Moreover, he was a whopping $9.4 million cheaper than Horace Grant!

The only question was, how much performance could Dominique Wilkins still bring?

Thus, the major free agent frenzy of the summer of 1996 had mostly settled.

It truly was madness because of the butterfly effect, many players’ destinations had been shuffled.

Most of last season’s strong teams had managed to further strengthen, the only exception being Scottie Pippen, who looked around to find only Toni Kukoc left by his side, completely baffled.

Oh no…

waking up to find, how come I’m the only one impoverished?

Finally, Scottie Pippen got his wish to become the team leader.

Unfortunately, it was as a merely nominal commander.

A tribute to the forever tearful yet never able to overthrow Scottie Pippen.

That evening, “SportsCenter” host John Anderson, after the crazy transfer period, made a small prediction for the next season:

“David Falk has so far signed contracts worth a total of $400 million dollars for his clients, an outrageous figure.

This summer, nine-figure contracts and ten million annual salaries seem to have become the norm.

But after a series of wild transfers, we are surprised to find that Roger still is the highest-paid player in the whole league!

In this league, still no one is more valuable than him!

So, after a series of transfers, will there also be no one able to shake his dominance?

I won’t say Roger is unbeatable, but it’s still a challenging task.”