To pay for Antoine's treatment, his family had gone deeply into debt.
Now, his parents could no longer keep up with the payments.
They desperately needed Antoine to make it into the NBA. If he did, he might be able to pay off their debts in two or three years.
What they hadn't expected was that Antoine would enter the NBA as the first overall pick. Under this year's NBA rules, a first overall pick could earn a contract worth at least eight million dollars in his first year.
That meant Antoine could pay off his family's debts in just one year.
Even though the Pistons were a small-market team, that didn't matter to his family now. The most important thing was getting Antoine into the NBA.
It didn't matter which team he joined.
Next, the second overall pick was Australian prodigy Noah.
He was selected by the Grizzlies, who had lost Morant.
After losing Morant, the Grizzlies had finished near the bottom of the league standings year after year.
This year, they'd drawn the second pick in the lottery.
Getting an Australian prodigy like Noah was a very good outcome for them.
However, Noah didn't look particularly happy after being selected.
When he went up onstage to shake hands with NBA President David Xiao Hua, his face was expressionless.
Noah had two reasons to be unhappy. First, he should have been the first overall pick.
In the NBA's many mock drafts, he'd been projected to go first. But just as the draft was about to begin, that Artificial Giant was cleared to enter the NBA draft, and Noah was suddenly pushed down to second.
The other reason was that he'd been picked by a small-market team like the Grizzlies.
Small-market teams didn't make as much money as big-market teams,