 | Rights: Be A atl GM | HT: 6-11 |
| Jersey: 25 | WT: 265 | |
| DOB: 7/14/1975 | Age: 49 | |
| Sal: $.00M | Inj: No Injury | |
| Player Avg: FBPPG =0.00 PPG=0.00 RPG=0.00 BLKPG=0.00 | ||
| Contract Status: RET - Retired Player | ||
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| Trans. Jul 8 1:19 ET This has been one crazy offseason! (I suppose. Kind of.) We’re a week into things, and with precious little to show. Kobe Bryant’s contract extension from last fall eliminated his name from the free-agent ranks, Dirk Nowitzki’s long-expected paycut took another big name out of things, and the (very much understandable) patience that LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh and Dwyane Wade are working with as they decide the most important contracts of their careers have kept actual basketball news to a minimum. And we kind of like actual basketball news, and less agent- and executive-driven speculation. One thing is for sure, though. With the ever-expanding world of social media, paired with long-held traditions of overextending oneself while talking about potential moves on the Internet, radio or TV, quite a lot has been said about things that currently hold very little of substance so far, leading many to presume that this is the nuttiest offseason on NBA record. It isn’t. And, no, 2010’s turn also pales in comparison to what we saw in the summer of 1996, when a series of league-altering moves were made in a just a few weeks’ time, with future Hall of Famers and team-shifters dancing about while one move led to another. Hundreds of millions of dollars were spent, franchises and careers were restructured, and the aftereffects can be felt to this day – as Phil Jackson and Pat Riley currently attempt to win with a franchise player making a cap-teetering salary all over again. With thanks to the minds at Pro Basketball Transaction Archive , we decided to list some of the more notable moves of that summer, in chronological order. 4-29-96: John Gabriel promoted to Orlando Magic general manager. No more was the affable Pat Williams, he of those good luck charms and lottery wins, going to be the last voice in charge. Gabriel, the slicked-back power broker who helped put the Magic’s 1995 Eastern winner together, would be asked to run the show in full as the team anticipated the most important summer of the franchise’s young lifetime. 5-01-96: Pat Croce takes over as both Philadelphia 76ers owner and president. Croce’s whirlwind turn lasted just four years, but during that time he was able to draft Allen Iverson, convince Larry Brown to take over as coach, while showing the necessary patience needed to work behind his two combatants in Brown and Iverson and make the 2001 NBA Finals. 5-01-96: Ross Perot Jr. takes over as Dallas Mavericks owner. Perot Jr. replaced the beloved Donald Carter, who helped established some great Mavericks teams of the 1980s, and some of the worst teams in NBA history in the early 1990s. Perot Jr. was nearly as bad, and the city of Dallas had just about had it with their flailing Mavs by the time Mark Cuban took over in early 2001. 5-13-96: Tom Thibodeau and Ron Adams fired as Philadelphia 76ers assistant coaches. Just two of the more respected basketball minds in modern NBA history, cleaning their lockers … 5-14-96: Magic Johnson retires. Magic Johnson’s 1996 stint with the Lakers has been taken to task, he was criticized for being both out of shape and for possibly trying to grab some of the limelight that Michael Jordan’s return to basketball was standing under. He was also damn good as a Laker in his brief run, though, and for one of the greatest players in NBA history to announce his retirement, almost anonymously, in this offseason? Speaks to its depth. 5-23-96: Jeff Van Gundy promoted from interim to head coach as New York Knicks. In the years since Van Gundy helped save a Knicks franchise that was in the midst of an identity crisis, his work has taken on the life of the gold standard for dogged assistants who get a midseason chance as the top dog, and help turn things around. The Knicks have flailed away since Van Gundy left the team in early 2001-02. 6-6-96: Danny Ainge hired as Phoenix Suns assistant coach. Ainge had nearly the same success as Van Gundy when he took over for Cotton Fitzsimmons eight games into the 1996-97 season. Inheriting a winless team, Ainge went ridiculously (as in, “Wesley Person as power forward”) small, finishing 40-34 with one of the more entertaining rosters we can recall. 6-6-96: John Calipari hired as New Jersey Nets head coach and president. John Calipari signed for five years and $15 million. Technically, he was allowed to make more money than any other coach in the NBA because he held final say on all personnel decisions (even though GM John Nash did the in-between work). The former University of Massachusetts coach went 72-112 in 2 1/2 years as Nets coach. 6-13-96: Mark Jackson, Ricky Pierce and a first-round pick traded from Indiana to Denver for Jalen Rose, Reggie Williams and a pick that turned into Erick Dampier. Jalen Rose is still complaining about his first year in Indiana , and for good reason. 6-14-96: Pete Carril hired as Sacramento Kings assistant coach. Hired by Princeton product Geoff Petrie to help young head coach Eddie Jordan, Carril would be a major part of the Chris Webber-led squads that made the NBA’s fans so darn happy between 1999 and 2005. 6-16-96: Johnny Davis hired as Philadelphia 76ers coach. In the immortal words of one ESPN scribe whose name I cannot remember, “Allen Iverson wasn’t going to slow down for John Thompson, you think he’s going to slow down for Johnny Davis?” Davis would last one year. 6-20-96: Phil Jackson signs a one-year, $2.5 million deal with the Chicago Bulls. When Jackson asked for money comparable to what Calipari was making, Bulls GM Jerry Krause sniffed that Calipari actually held two jobs, and that Jackson was due for only one. Jackson would go onto make half of what Calipari would the next year while winning 69 games. This really happened. 6-21-96: Dallas deals the sixth pick in the 1996 draft (Antoine Walker) and a 1997 overall pick (Ron Mercer) to Boston for the ninth pick (Samaki Walker) and Eric Montross. Dallas, working with a new owner in Ross Perot Jr. and new coach in Jim Cleamons, actually dealt down in one of the greatest drafts in NBA history and gave up a first-round pick for 1997 in order to grab Samaki Walker and the next 10 years (!) and $18 million of Eric Montross’ contract. 6-26-96: 1996 NBA draft. Kobe Bryant, Steve Nash, Jermaine O’Neal, Allen Iverson, Ray Allen, Peja Stojakovic, Stephon Marbury, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Marcus Camby, Kerry Kittles, Shareef Abdur-Rahim, Erick Dampier, Shandon Anderson, Tony Delk, Derek Fisher, Malik Rose. Solid night out. 7-4-96: New York Knicks sign Allan Houston to seven-year, $56 million deal. After making overtures at free agents Michael Jordan and Reggie Miller, the Knicks “settled” on the less-heralded Houston. Houston opted out after five years and re-upped for a six-year, $100 million contract because Knicks, that’s why. 7-11-96: Los Angeles Lakers deal Vlade Divac to the Charlotte Hornets for Kobe Bryant. Just your typical deal sending a borderline All-Star center in the prime of his career to a team for an 18-year-old shooting guard who was cautioned by many that his first few years in the NBA would turn out nothing like Kevin Garnett’s relatively steady rookie year from months prior. This move also opened up over $4.7 million in cap space for the Lakers, to potentially be used later on frontcourt help. 7-12-96: Chicago Bulls sign Michael Jordan to a one-year, $30.4 million contract. Just the greatest player ever, signing for what was then the largest one-year take in NBA history, only to be topped next summer by Jordan’s next one-year take of more than $31 million. If Carmelo Anthony signs a maximum contract extension with the New York Knicks this summer, during the final year of the deal he will approximate what Jordan made with this contract, while working at two years older than M.J., and without the benefit of Scottie Pippen’s tiny (ranked 122nd in the NBA that year) deal. You can understand Phi The Scoop: None. Jul 8 1:19 ET |
