Howlin' Wolf

You think about it, and everything is timing, is it not? You have to have something to sell, and you have to have someone who wants to buy. There has to be a demand.

No one ever had better timing than this kid. He caught the absolute crest of the financial wave and rode it farther than anyone in sports history had. He was in the right place, the right situation, offering the right mixture of performance and potential. He stimulated a bidding war. He had something to sell, and people wanted to buy.

Only two years into his career and he broke the bank. You think about it, and it's crazy. Crazy and wonderful.

The NBA was in the second year of a six-year labor agreement. A key part of the agreement was a wage scale for rookies. Burned by having signed rookies to extravagant contracts before they ever dribbled a basketball as pros, the owners had bargained for the wage scale. Every rookie signed a three-year contract for an amount determined by how high he had been taken in the draft. Garnett, taken fifth, signed for $5.6 million over three years.

At the end of the second year of the contract but before the start of the third, the player could sign a contract extension. This gave teams a chance to keep players they liked. At the end of the third year the player could file for free agency and make himself available to the highest bidder.

The Timberwolves wanted to keep Garnett. That gave him all the leverage. "I think the NBA had underestimated what would happen at the end of two years," Fleisher says. "I don't think the league knew how fast the money was going to go up."

"Every time you turned around, the benchmark figure went up," McHale says. "Each contract was for more money. It wasn't even about money anymore. It was about status." The most recent benchmarks had been established by free agents Alonzo Mourning and Juwan Howard. Mourning had signed with the Miami Heat for $105 million over seven years. Howard had signed with the Washington Bullets for $100.8 million over seven years. Minnesota owner Glen Taylor, a self-made millionaire in printing, electronics and marketing, looked at the numbers, swallowed hard and decided to get into the game. He offered Garnett $102 million over six years.

Garnett and Fleisher refused the offer.

"I couldn't believe it," Taylor says. "We came in high as a sign of respect, to make them know we were serious. When they refused, I didn't know what to do."

"It was a very, very good offer," Fleisher says. "We just thought there would be more if Kevin were a free agent a year later."