With the Bucks beating the Hawks 118-107 in the Eastern Conference Finals to reach the Finals 4-2 on aggregate, the Suns will compete for this year's O'Brien Cup, and this year's first championship ring owner was born ahead of schedule! He is Torrey Craig, who currently plays for the Suns. So why didn't the Suns win the Finals yet, and Craig was eligible to book a ring in advance? It turns out that whether the Bucks win the championship or the Suns win the championship, Craig has the right to get the championship ring according to the rules!
It turns out that Craig has played for two Teams that have reached the Finals this year, playing 18 games for the Bucks at the beginning of the season, and then transferred to the Suns, playing 32 games and playoffs for the latter. Therefore, according to the rules, whether the Bucks or the Suns win the championship this season, Craig has a chance to get a championship ring, but presumably Craig must want the Suns to win the championship more in his heart, after all, losing the finals and then taking the championship ring, so that the players will feel strange in their hearts.
This is not the first time this has happened in the NBA, and Elgin Baylor, who was a Lakers superstar in the 1960s, has encountered this situation. Baylor is undoubtedly the saddest superstar in NBA history, reaching the Finals 8 times in his career, but returning eight times. In the 71-72 season, Baylor only played 9 games due to injury, and the Lakers' record was not ideal. In order not to affect the state of the team, after playing the ninth game for the Lakers, Baylor announced his retirement.
Coincidentally, that season, the Lakers, led by Logo Men Jerry West and Chamberlain, not only reached the Finals again, and this time they did not fail, but successfully won the championship. So at the end of the season, because Baylor has played for the Lakers 9 times this season, and remembering his previous contributions, the Lakers decided to give him a championship ring, but Baylor believed that he had not contributed much to this championship, so he rejected the Lakers' kindness.
And when the time came to 2016, Vallejo, who had been playing for the Cavaliers since entering the league, was traded by the team to the Blazers, and then cut off from the base salary to join the defending champion Warriors. You know, Vallejo played for the Cavaliers in 15 years, but at that time he lost to the Warriors in the Finals; and in 16 years, Vallejo transferred to the Warriors in the middle of the season, but that year the Cavaliers won three consecutive rounds before the 1:3 deficit situation, successfully overturned the Warriors, which team can be said to play in which team, which team will lose the championship.
However, because Vallejo played for the Cavaliers in the 15-16 season and had previously made significant contributions to the Cavaliers, the Cavaliers also prepared a championship ring for Vallejo. However, Vallejo resented James and the Knight, believing that they had driven themselves out of the Knight, and rejected the ring. Subsequently, at the beginning of the 2017 season, the Warriors cut Vallejo, but that season the Warriors won the championship again, so they made a championship ring for Vallejo, and this time Valejo accepted it with joy. （ikuet）