With Paul George, the biggest fish of the off-season, finally "caught," the other teams immediately picked up the pace with their moves.
At the same time, though, something interesting happened.
Elsewhere, after his hopes of joining the Knicks fell through and a rift quietly developed between him and Los Angeles, James was actually reported by the media to have considered retiring.
The news sent quite a few of Old Zhang's fans into a meltdown.
For a while, cries like "If James retires, I'll never watch the NBA again!" were everywhere.
At the same time, fans from other camps were making just as much noise with comments like "It's a deal! Two reasons to celebrate!"
The clashes and arguments between those two camps made an already noisy public discourse even more of a cesspool.
Fortunately, however much the fans argued, they ultimately couldn't make any serious waves. Their squabbling didn't stop the teams' front offices from continuing to make levelheaded decisions.
Time moved on to June 21.
The Dallas Mavericks officially announced that they had signed another big fish of the off-season—Kyrie Irving—to a three-year, $126 million contract.
Luka Doncic finally had a sufficiently reliable partner.
Another player considered one of today's very best ball-dominant offensive centerpieces had gained an elite off-ball master and late-clock bailout specialist who had already found success alongside LeBron James.
If the two could develop excellent chemistry, then perhaps Dallas could finally break that damned first-round curse in the new season?
Doncic's fans couldn't help starting to dream of a bright future.
June 22.
No new trades happened that day.
But for Chen, who was in New York, there were other things to take care of.
George had originally been vacationing back home in Los Angeles. Once his management team finalized all the contract details