The Timberwolves' secret dual contract with Joe Smith was once exposed. Not only was the contract forcibly voided, but Joe Smith went from being the No. 1 draft pick to a journeyman.
The Timberwolves' general manager and owner were both suspended for an entire season.
The team was fined $3.5 million.
Worst of all, the team forfeited its first-round draft picks for the next five years.
As a result, Wolf King Garnett's prime was ruined because he couldn't get any strong teammates, and everything fell apart.
The Cavaliers and Hornets once had a secret dual contract, too. When it was exposed, the owner was forced to sell the team.
In more serious cases, doing something like this could even lead to jail time.
That showed just how risky secret dual contracts were.
So teams rarely took that kind of risk.
But Divine Calculator Pat Riley believed that if it meant getting Wang Yi, the risk would be worth it.
Still, human ingenuity knew no bounds.
There was always someone who could come up with ways to get around the rules.
Take AK47 Kirilenko, for example.
In 2012, AK47 was only 32, right in the prime of his career.
Given his ability, he could easily have commanded a salary of over ten million dollars.
But to everyone's surprise, he signed a $3.6 million mini mid-level exception contract with the Nets.
Many people suspected there was some kind of shady deal behind it.
At the time, the Nets' owner was the Russian Prokhorov, and AK47 was Russian, too.
Aside from the contract signed in public, the owner might well have had a separate agreement with AK47 in Russia.
Some said he'd given AK47 an oil field.
Others said the deal involved gold.
The league even formed an investigative team to look into