Recently, former NBA No. 1 Joe Smith participated in a podcast and talked about his yin-yang contract with the Timberwolves. Joe Smith said: "At the time, it was my agent who secretly made a secret agreement with Timberwolves owner Taylor, and I didn't know about it. It ended up going to court, but it had nothing to do with me. ”
Veteran fans should have the impression that this is the most influential yin-yang contract event in NBA history. There hasn't been a lot of news lately, so I'm just going to review it with you. Joe Smith was born on July 26, 1975, is 2.08 meters tall and has an arm span of 2.13 meters. In the 1995 draft, Joe Smith was the No. 1 pick and Garnett was the No. 5 pick.
In 1995, the star was McDyce, the tanhua was Stackhouse, the No. 4 pick was Rasheed Wallace, and the No. 7 pick was Damon Stoudemire. Among the many talented players, the Warriors picked Joe Smith with the first pick. In his rookie season, he played in 82 regular season games, averaging 15.3 points and 8.7 rebounds per game, and was named to the All-Rookie First Team.
Joe Smith's stats are good, but the best rookie is Damon "Little Squirrel" Stoudemire. In the 1995-96 season, Stoudemire played 70 regular season games for the Raptors, averaging 40.9 minutes per game, scoring 19 points, 4 rebounds, 9.3 assists and 1.4 steals, shooting 42.6% from the field and 39.5% from three-point range.
Speaking of Joe Smith, in the third year of his career (1997-98 season), Joe Smith played 49 regular season games for the Warriors, averaging 17.3 points, 6.9 rebounds and 1.4 assists per game! The Warriors offered an $80 million contract extension, but Joe Smith refused, telling the Warriors that he wanted to go to the East. In February 1998, the Warriors sent him to the Philadelphia 76ers.
Then Joe Smith started making a fuss: in the summer of 1998, he joined the Timberwolves for $1.75 million in one year. Obviously able to get an 80 million contract, but chose to sign a base salary, many people didn't understand what Joe Smith was thinking at the time. In the summer of 1999, he signed a one-year, $2 million contract extension with the Timberwolves, which began to raise questions.
In the 2000 offseason, Joe Smith signed a one-year, $2.5 million extension with the Timberwolves. After signing low-cost short-term contracts for three consecutive years, other NBA teams also know that there is a problem, but there is no evidence. At this time, Joe Smith's agent Andrew Miller left the original agency, and the two sides went to court, and the agency exposed the yin-yang contract.
In order to obtain Joe Smith's "Bird clause", the Timberwolves let him sign a three-year short contract, after which he can renew the contract. The Timberwolves promised Joe Smith a six-year, $86 million contract in the summer of 2001. Looking back now, he might as well sign an 80 million contract with the Warriors, which is about the same as the Timberwolves' 86 million.
The Timberwolves were fined $3.5 million by the league, forfeited their first-round picks for the next five years (two were later returned), and Timberwolves owner Glenn Taylor and vice president Kevin McHale were suspended for one year. Joe Smith's contract was forfeited, he became a free agent and joined the Pistons. In 2002, Joe Smith returned to the Timberwolves for six years and $34 million.
Stealing chickens is not a recipe for rice, and in his entire NBA career, Joe Smith's total salary is $61.22 million, far less than $80 million! Everyone is welcome to discuss: Do you think Joe Smith really didn't know about the yin-yang contract?