June 24, the expansion draft.
The Toronto Raptors and the Vancouver Grizzlies, two brand-new teams, were like two sharp pairs of scissors, tearing a gaping hole through the entire league's unprotected lists. Each existing team could protect only eight players. The rest were left for the two expansion teams to choose from.
That day, the league was filled with wails. Some lost reserves they had relied on for years, some were forced to clear contracts ahead of schedule, and some lay awake all night, trying to cover the holes in their protected lists.
Lin Qi did not go to watch the expansion draft spectacle. He sat in his office, staring at a chart he had drawn himself. It showed the protected lists and cap space of more than twenty teams, along with the names he had marked out, one by one, of general managers who were growing anxious.
For everyone else, the expansion draft was a loss.
For Lin Qi, it was the perfect catalyst within this window of opportunity... it made every team anxious, desperate to cut its losses, and willing to budge on things it would ordinarily never concede.
And the first source of anxiety he intended to exploit was in Detroit.
June 26.
The Pistons held the eighth pick in 1995.
It was a highly coveted pick. Lin Qi knew that another team already had its eye on it... the Portland Trail Blazers.
In the actual course of events, the Trail Blazers held two mid-first-round picks, Nos. 18 and 19, and were desperate to move up. They had offered both first-rounders in an attempt to acquire the eighth pick from the Pistons, then keep climbing to pursue the player they coveted, Rasheed Wallace.
This was a real avenue, and talks were heating up. The first thing Lin Qi needed to do was get ahead of the Trail Blazers and cut that avenue off at its source.
He called Detroit.
The person who answered was a familiar acquaintance... a year earlier, Lin Qi had sold them the backcourt pairing of Dee Brown and Grant Hill. Now Hill had become the Pistons' undisputed centerpiece, and the team was brimming with ambition as it prepared to return to the playoffs.
"I know Portland is talking to you about the eighth pick," Lin Qi said, getting straight to the point. "Two mid-first-rounders, Nos. 18 and 19, right?"
There was a brief silence on the other end, a tacit acknowledgment.
"I'll give you something better," Lin Qi said. "Will Perdue, plus a first-round pick this year... No. 20, and a future second-rounder. For your eighth pick."
The other party hesitated. "Lin Qi, Portland is offering two first-rounders. Your offer... a first-rounder at No. 20, plus Perdue, seems a little short on value."
"The value is there," Lin Qi said confidently. "Let's go through it one piece at a time."
"Start with Perdue," Lin Qi analyzed. "Will Perdue, a seven-foot center who just battled through the playoffs alongside Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. He's a tough guy who can hold his ground under the basket and serve as a bodyguard for a young centerpiece. You're in the Grant Hill era now. What does a gifted but inexperienced young centerpiece need most beside him? A veteran center who can shelter him in the paint and teach him a winning culture. Perdue is exactly right."
"Those two Trail Blazers picks will get you two rookies who still need two or three years of development," Lin Qi continued. "The Perdue I'm offering can stand beside Hill tomorrow and help him fight the tough battles."
The other party wavered. This angle really did strike at the Pistons' needs.
But Lin Qi knew that this alone was not enough to make the Pistons give up the Trail Blazers' two first-rounders. What he was about to offer was the true killing blow... something the Trail Blazers could never give them.
"And there's one thing that matters most." Lin Qi lowered his voice, enunciating every word. "I can give you back your first-round pick."
The other end of the line instantly fell silent.
Lin Qi was referring to the loose end left by the trade a year earlier. When he had sold Dee Brown to the Pistons, he had received a "lottery-protected" 1995 first-rounder... under its terms, that first-rounder had rolled over into a 1996 first-round pick, still protected.
In other words, Boston's blade had been hanging over the Pistons' 1996 first-rounder all along. As long as their record was not bad enough to land them in the lottery, that pick would have to obediently, unwillingly make its way to Boston.
It was a dark cloud hanging over the Grant Hill era.
"Grant," Lin Qi said in a heart-to-heart tone, "you've just entered the Hill era, and you're ready to climb. But our blade has been hanging over your heads all this time... I have your 1996 first-rounder tied up. You want to push for the playoffs? That pick could end up in my hands. You want to keep the pick to trade for help for Hill? Sorry, that pick could still end up in my hands. Before you build your team, you have to check whether we in Boston approve."
The breathing on the other end grew heavier.
Lin Qi knew he had once again struck precisely at a team's deepest anxiety. In the nineties, far too many rebuilding teams had their draft picks for years to come tied up by strong teams through protection clauses, all because of some foolish trade in the past. They dared neither push all-out for the playoffs nor tank completely-tanking would only benefit someone else anyway. That suffocating sense that "our future isn't in our own hands" was every rebuilding team executive's greatest nightmare when they woke in the middle of the night.
And the Pistons, having just established Hill as their centerpiece, stood on the brink of returning to the playoffs. More than ever, they yearned... to reclaim control over building their own team.
"Now I'm putting that opportunity in front of you." Lin Qi's voice carried a note of temptation. "Will Perdue... a seven-foot center who can shelter Hill. The twentieth pick... a first-rounder this year. And the most important thing of all..."
He paused, then slowly delivered the most lethal words: "...your own future."
"Accept this trade, and that 1996 first-rounder I have tied up will be released on the spot and returned to your hands, whole and intact. From then on, if you want to push for the playoffs, the pick is yours. If you want to find help for Hill, the pick is still yours. You'll never again need Boston's approval to build your team."
There was a long silence on the other end, so quiet that a heartbeat could almost be heard.
Lin Qi did not press him. He knew the deal was already done.
For the Pistons, this had long since ceased to be an even exchange of "the eighth pick for Perdue and the twentieth pick." What Lin Qi had handed them was a key to unlock the shackles on their team-building, the freedom to fully unbind the Grant Hill era. Perdue, the twentieth pick, and the freedom of a reclaimed 1996 first-rounder... the combined strategic value of those three things left the Trail Blazers' two cold, lifeless mid-first-rounders far behind.
"...Deal, Lin Qi." The voice on the other end carried the ease of a burden lifted. "That 1996 pick really belongs to us this time?"
"In black and white, released on the spot," Lin Qi said with a smile. "I'm giving Grant Hill's future back to you."
After hanging up, Lin Qi solemnly wrote the Pistons' eighth pick on the whiteboard.
Lin Qi knew perfectly well that this eighth pick was a stepping stone.
It was the final step he would use... to reach his true target.
In just two days, sitting in his Boston office and making one call after another, Lin Qi had completed a dazzling series of interconnected moves:
First, he had used Elliott to extract three first-round picks from the Spurs and the Chicago Bulls.
Then he had turned around and used Perdue and the twentieth pick acquired from the Chicago Bulls, along with the Pistons' own protected future draft pick, to pry the eighth pick out of the Pistons' hands.
Now he held three first-round picks for this year: the Pistons' eighth pick, his own nineteenth pick, and the twenty-first pick acquired from the Spurs.
Other general managers were still sighing over their expansion draft losses, still scratching their heads over which rookie to select on draft night.
But Lin Qi had already drawn the entire net in to its final knot.
Lin Qi picked up the phone, took a deep breath, and dialed a number...
The final blow was about to fall.