Free agency in the NBA is heating up with July 1st marking the beginning of the period. The biggest name in this year’s class is of course LeBron James. Rather than take a trip to each city he’s considering, The King will remain in Ohio and allow the jesters to come to him. That’s not normally how it works; generally the highly sought after free agents are recruited by interested teams. With that in mind, I read this great story by current Magic VP Pat Williams in the latest edition of Sporting News Magazine. Williams, who was the team’s president at the time, gave this hilarious account of his attempt to sign Tim Duncan and how they screwed up the food order:
With Tim … we had a good read on him, and we knew he would have been highly offended if we had a ticker-tape parade through town or put him on a float and rolled him through Disney World with Mickey and Minnie. We wanted to have a situation that was more low-key, more suited to his personality.
We tried to take care of every detail. Hotel room, car service, all first-class. We had cold cuts out, for lunch. We had a buffet, and Tim didn’t like what we had. He really wanted Wendy’s. So we hustled to get someone out there for some Wendy’s. All the studying we did, we did not know he liked Wendy’s. You really have to know your target, I guess.
Whether or not the Wendy’s snafu played a part in it we can’t be sure, but we do know that David Robinson hustled back from a Hawaiian vacation to convince Duncan to remain in San Antonio. Duncan of course re-signed with the Spurs and went on to win three more NBA titles. The Magic got Grant Hill, their second choice in free agency, and Tracy McGrady, their third choice, and never got out of the first-round of the playoffs. Who knew Dave Thomas’ favorite girl would have such an impact on the NBA?
