The Milwaukee Bucks had called him.
Head coach and general manager Mike Dunleavy Sr. sounded exhausted.
His team had gone 20-62 last season and had just selected "Big Dog" Glenn Robinson with the first overall pick tonight, yet the executive was full of grievances.
"Mr. Lin Qi, let's talk about Ed Pinckney."
Lin Qi nearly laughed aloud, but his expression did not budge. "Ed? He's the rock of our locker room. Coach, you were there on April nineteenth, weren't you?"
An awkward silence fell over the other end.
On April 19, 1994, the Celtics had visited the Milwaukee Bucks, and their thirty-one-year-old veteran blue-collar player, Ed Pinckney, had pulled down twenty-two rebounds against the Bucks' frontcourt.
One glance at the Bucks' roster told Lin Qi what position Mike Dunleavy was in. This team now had the most unbalanced roster in the league.
The backcourt and wings were packed solid... and after tonight, they would be adding another possession black hole in "Big Dog" Glenn Robinson.
Aside from second-year player Vin Baker, their frontcourt consisted entirely of undersized players barely over two meters tall and veterans nearing retirement.
"Once Big Dog arrives, your logjam on the wings will turn into total gridlock."
Lin Qi laid his predicament bare.
"Blue Edwards is in an awkward spot with you. Expensive and redundant. Rather than let him rot on the bench, trade him for a piece you desperately need while people still remember that he averaged eleven points last season."
"You want Blue?"
"We each get what we need. I take Blue's contract, and you get Pinckney... Big Dog happens to need a bodyguard. Rebounding, doing the dirty work, teaching the rookies-Pinckney will be far more useful than those softies you have now."
Lin Qi paused, sliding his finger over the Bucks' roster.
"I hear you want that Russian forward, Andrei Fetisov. I'll throw in tonight's thirty-sixth pick. That's about where he'll go. But Blue alone isn't enough. Package Derek Strong with him."
"Strong?" Mike Dunleavy hesitated.
At twenty-six, the explosive Strong was one of the few players in the Bucks' frontcourt who could get off the ground.
"Coach, what your frontcourt needs is a veteran who can shoulder the load immediately, not a raw prospect who needs another three years of development."
Lin Qi steered him along.
"Pinckney and the thirty-sixth pick for Blue and Strong. Once the news breaks, the Milwaukee papers will call you a genius. You'll have cleared a bad contract and strengthened your offensive rebounding."
"And me? The Boston media will eat me alive tomorrow. All the criticism comes my way, and you get all the credit. You won't find that kind of sincerity anywhere else."
Mike Dunleavy laughed. "Young man, with that mouth, you should be selling used cars... deal."
With the thirty-sixth pick in the second round, Stern announced, "Boston selects Andrei Fetisov."
The Russian would not spend a single second in a Celtics jersey. The moment his name was called, he already belonged to Milwaukee.
The head scout clicked his tongue. "Well, at least Edwards can play. He'll be just right as a mentor for Jones..."
"Who said I was keeping him?" Lin Qi grabbed another phone without looking back. "Edwards won't even spend the night in my hands. He's leaving tonight."
When the call reached Phoenix, Suns president Jerry Colangelo was still in his office.
The team had won fifty-six games last season. On paper, its lineup featuring Charles Barkley and Kevin Johnson was star-studded, yet it had fallen short in the playoffs again.
"Jerry, I'll keep this brief," Lin Qi said. "You asked about Xavier McDaniel before, right?"
"X-Man" McDaniel, thirty-one, was one of the league's notorious enforcer forwards.
His numbers were past their peak, but when it came to holding his ground defensively, playing physically, and making young opponents' knees buckle with his elbows and his stare... nobody in the league knew those tricks better.
"You already have enough talent. What you lack is someone to do the dirty work for Charles Barkley. Otherwise, you'll struggle to get any further in the playoffs." Lin Qi rubbed salt precisely into Colangelo's sorest spot.
"Charles Barkley is thirty-one. His lower back and back are getting worse every year. You have him wrestling those bruisers inside for forty minutes during the regular season. How much gas will he have left when he faces Olajuwon and Robinson in the playoffs?
"X-Man can slide over to the four. When Charles rests, he can step in and body people. If the other side wants a wrestling match, he'll be the first lunatic to charge in and destroy them. Give him twenty minutes a game, and he can keep your championship window open for another two years."
"What's the price?" There was already warmth in Colangelo's voice.
"Tonight's twenty-third pick. I've got my eye on that shooter from Auburn University, Wesley Person... pick him for me, and his signing rights are mine."
"A late first-rounder for X-Man?" Colangelo immediately grew wary. "Those numbers don't work. McDaniel makes $2.64 million a year. A rookie salary won't come close to matching."
"So add Danny Schayes and a future second-rounder."
Lin Qi had long since memorized the Suns' payroll.
"You wanted to clear Schayes's $670,000 contract anyway. It'll work perfectly for matching salaries. Jerry, how will people describe this trade tomorrow?"
"...'The Celtics traded their enforcer for a late-first-round shooter, while the Suns secured the final piece of their championship puzzle without a fight.' You come out way ahead."
Colangelo weighed it for ten minutes before finally agreeing.
With the twenty-third pick, the Suns selected Wesley Person for Boston... a lean, elite pure shooter with an extremely quick release and a soft touch.
Nobody in the war room understood. Trading locker-room intimidation for a late-first-round shooter?
Only Lin Qi knew what he had bought.
In the future he remembered, basketball would become a sport ruled by the three-point line.
Of course... that was a long way off.
And a shooter like Wesley Person, who could stretch the floor endlessly from the corner, was precisely the indispensable complementary piece for a certain gifted big man Lin Qi had long been plotting to acquire.
He was positioning his pieces for something that would not happen for another three years.
At eleven thirty that night, the final call went to Seattle.
If anyone in the league was more desperate than Gaston to prove himself tonight, it had to be the Seattle SuperSonics' front office.
Just over a month earlier, they had made NBA history... first in the regular season at 63-19, only to suffer an eighth-seed upset against the Denver Nuggets in the first round.
The image of Mutombo lying on the floor, clutching the ball and laughing, had played on televisions across America for a month. All of Seattle was waiting for an explanation.
"I have the piece you want," Lin Qi said without preamble. "Blue Edwards."
"...You only just got him from the Bucks." The voice on the other end sounded torn between laughter and exasperation.
"Then you should be grateful. I've barely had time to warm him up," Lin Qi said with a laugh.
"Think about next spring: Gary Payton, Edwards, Schrempf, Kemp, Perkins... that starting lineup takes your defensive intensity straight to the limit. Blue can drive and shoot, and he defends like a vicious dog. He's exactly the versatile wing you need most."
"Name your price."
Lin Qi gave a price that left the other side relieved and his own war room dumbfounded.
"That Serbian center taken with tonight's fifty-fourth pick... Rebrača. Give me his signing rights."
"Your 1996 second-round pick, unprotected."
"Your 1998 second-round pick, top-thirty-five protected."
"Package Rich King, Steve Scheffler, and Magic Johnson-all three-to match salaries."
The SuperSonics could barely believe their ears.
Two future late second-rounders, a European who probably had an eighty percent chance of never coming to the NBA, and three fringe big men with no place on the team.
Their combined salaries came to roughly $1.7 million, fitting neatly with Edwards's $1.6 million contract.
Consolidate the pieces, clear out three spare parts, and get an elite wing in his prime.
"Deal!" The answer came decisively, as though they feared Lin Qi might change his mind.
After he hung up, the entire Celtics war room was as silent as the grave.
Everyone looked at their general manager as though he were insane. Edwards, an eleven-point scorer, had come and gone within three hours, ultimately turning into a pile of scattered "scraps."
"Let me translate what we actually bought tonight."
Lin Qi tapped the whiteboard with a black marker.
"Magic Johnson, twenty-six, six-foot-eleven, a first-round pick last year, and his contract costs just $500,000... he'll become a capable NBA starting center. Once Parish leaves, we'll have someone inside."
"The two future second-rounders are pocket change I can keep snowballing. As for Rebrača, Rich King, and Scheffler... consider them the packaging that came with Johnson."
At one in the morning, the draft ended.
The final asset changes on the whiteboard were staggering.
[Assets sent out]:
Dee Brown, Acie Earl, Sherman Douglas, Ed Pinckney, Xavier McDaniel, Vern Fleming, Eric Leckner, Piatkowski (No. 15 pick), No. 36 pick
[Assets acquired]:
Potential starters: Eddie Jones (No. 9 pick), Wesley Person (No. 23 pick)
Starting-caliber immediate contributors: Sean Elliott, Derek Strong, Magic Johnson
Blue-collar players and prospects: Greg Graham, Danny Schayes, Rich King, Scheffler, Haskin (injured list), signing rights to Rebrača
Future draft picks: Pistons' 1995 first-rounder (lottery-protected), Clippers' future first-rounder (top-ten protected)
Philadelphia 76ers' 1996 second-rounder, Pistons' 1996 second-rounder, Suns' 1996 second-rounder, Seattle SuperSonics' 1996 second-rounder, Seattle SuperSonics' 1998 second-rounder (top-thirty-five protected)
The finance director checked the figures three times with a calculator. When he looked up, he looked as though he had seen a ghost. "The total payroll... is lower than yesterday's."
The next morning, Boston's newspapers erupted.
The Boston Herald's banner headline read: "A crazy night: Lin Qi dismantles half the team"
The Boston Globe was relatively polite: "We don't understand, but we are profoundly shocked"
At six in the morning, the private phone in the office rang.
Lin Qi picked up the receiver. After two seconds of silence, a steady voice with a slight West Virginia accent came through.
"When you snatched Jones at number nine, I thought you were just lucky," Jerry West said. "After seeing those five trades you made in the second half of the night, I take that back."
"Compliment received, Jerry." Lin Qi leaned back in his chair. "Happy with Montross?"
An extremely faint, cold chuckle came from the other end. "Kid, remember today. One day, I'll make you cough up everything you swallowed, with interest."
"Then you'd better hurry."
Lin Qi gazed at Boston's morning light outside the window, the corners of his mouth lifting. "Two summers from now, we won't just be fighting over a number-nine pick."
Beep...
This time, Lin Qi hung up first.