Before going to meet that "big fish," Lin Qi first settled a matter everyone had thought was already decided.
Robert Parish, nicknamed "The Chief," was already forty-one, the last living fossil of Boston's Big Three era still on the Celtics roster.
Everyone, including Parish himself, assumed he would join some fringe playoff team on a retirement contract and bring his eighteen-year career to a dignified close. In the original course of history, he was supposed to go to the Charlotte Hornets that summer.
But after staring at the roster on the whiteboard all night, Lin Qi changed his mind.
"Chief, stay."
Sitting in Parish's slightly dated living room, Lin Qi got straight to the point. "Play one more year for Boston."
The eyebrows on Parish's perpetually expressionless old face, jokingly dubbed a "poker face" by media across America, rose slightly.
"Mr. Lin, I'm forty-one this year." The decorated center's voice was low and gravelly. "Young man, last night, before the trade deadline, you packaged Douglas, Brown, Pinckney, and McDaniel and shipped them all out. The whole league is watching you clear cap space. What does a young team committed to tearing everything down and rebuilding stand to gain by keeping these old bones running up and down the court?"
Lin Qi raised one finger. "First, for Magic Johnson. The twenty-six-year-old center I traded for last night has perfect physical tools, but he lacks an understanding of the bigger picture on defense. He needs the best living textbook on interior play in the league to teach him how to establish position and battle the centers in New York and Orlando. For that role, I can't find another teacher in the entire league besides you who could command that respect."
Parish held his glass of water without committing either way, but his gaze had visibly settled.
"Second, you know what next season means to Boston." Lin Qi leaned forward slightly. "It's the farewell season for the Old Boston Garden. The championship banners Bill Russell and Larry Bird won hang beneath that arena's roof, and you had a part in them too. Boston fans aren't cold-blooded at heart. They place tremendous value on their history and memories. The team needs an old friend with Celtics blood in his veins to see that arena through its final stretch. For an entire year, even if it's just to see you block one last shot inside, they'll willingly pay for tickets."
That point pierced Parish's tough shell with precision. He had held his ground in Boston for fourteen years; his blood and sweat were part of this city's glory.
"Third, and most practically, the money." Lin Qi played management's strongest card. "I'll offer you a retirement contract no other team in the league would dare give a veteran. Three million dollars for the first year, with a two-million-dollar player option for the second. Whether you play that second year, whether you stay, will be entirely up to you."
Parish fell silent for a very long time, a muscle in the jaw of that poker face twitching slightly.
"Why?" He set down his water glass and asked quietly, "If you're rebuilding, you should be saving every cent in your budget. Why are you willing to spend money on an old man who'll be retiring next year?"
Lin Qi smiled without answering.
Of course, he couldn't tell him outright that those three million dollars would buy the character of Boston's old era, order in the locker room, and an indispensable box-office draw for the coming season. In business terms, it was an investment in intangible assets guaranteed to turn a profit.
"Because the weight of some traditions is worth far more than the numbers on a financial statement," Lin Qi answered calmly.
Three days later, Robert Parish officially announced that he would remain in Boston.
That afternoon, as soon as the news became official, the Old Boston Garden's season-ticket phone lines were practically overwhelmed. In an unprecedentedly gentle touch, The Boston Globe ran a front-page headline: "The old Chief isn't leaving. He'll stay with the Garden through its final night."
With his locker-room anchor secured, Lin Qi finally had his hands free to catch that "big fish" on the free-agent market.
Dominique Wilkins.
Nicknamed "The Human Highlight Film," a nine-time All-Star and former league scoring champion.
On the 1994 free-agent market, this thirty-four-year-old superstar, who had recently suffered a major Achilles injury, faced an unprecedented cold shoulder. Front offices throughout the league were ruthlessly practical. No one wanted to give a lucrative long-term contract to an aging isolation scorer on the wing with a history of devastating injury.
And the man who ultimately invited him into that perpetually smoke-filled president's office in Boston wasn't Lin Qi, but Auerbach the Cardinal.
Lin Qi had a clear understanding of his own standing. He could calculate every angle at the negotiating table and use his foreknowledge to get something for nothing in trades, but when it came to persuading a proud league superstar fallen on hard times to set aside his pride and accept an invitation, no one in the world could match that cigar-chomping old man.
In the old-fashioned office, Auerbach poured the whisky Lin Qi had specially arranged for someone to bring back from Scotland into two glasses. Then the old man struck a match and slowly lit the Cuban cigar in his hand.
Lin Qi sat quietly in the shadows to one side without saying a word, handing complete control of the negotiations to the Cardinal.
Leaning back in his chair, Auerbach chatted with Wilkins about the scoring duel he and Larry Bird had staged at the Old Boston Garden in the 1988 playoffs, a battle that had caused a sensation across America. He talked about just how deeply Boston revered fighters who bled themselves dry in adversity.
"Dominique," Auerbach narrowed his eyes amid the thick smoke, his voice a little hoarse but carrying supreme authority, "Atlanta thought you were getting old. They treated you like a worn-out tool and casually sold you off to the Clippers. Those shrewd businessmen in Los Angeles only saw you as a temporary hire to fill out their roster, too. But I had Lin Qi invite you to Boston today because I know what kind of man you are in your bones... you're a killer. You won't bow to anyone until the day you die."
The old man flicked the ash from his cigar. "I've seen countless talents in Boston in my lifetime, but only a very few deserved to wear this green jersey. I think you're one of them."
At that instant, sitting in the corner, Lin Qi clearly saw an intensely burning fighting spirit suddenly flare in Dominique Wilkins's eyes, which had grown somewhat dim after an entire summer of being shunned by the league.
Lin Qi settled the specific contract details and salary structure in the negotiations that followed. But he understood better than anyone that what had truly hooked this elite scorer and brought him aboard the Celtics' warship was the cigar in Auerbach the Cardinal's hand, that glass of liquor, and the old man's standing, built over decades, that no one else could replicate.
When they stepped out of the office building, Boston's summer sunlight was somewhat dazzling. Wilkins stopped in front of the enormous glass doors and turned back, fixing a deep gaze on the young general manager half a step behind him.
"Young man," Wilkins lifted his broad hand and adjusted his suit collar, "my agent told me you were the one who stood up to pressure from the board in Boston's management meeting and insisted on signing me. Now the media all over America have decided I'm old. Only you and that cigar-smoking old man think I can still play."
Under the nine-time All-Star's gaze, Lin Qi planted his feet.
"Mr. Wilkins," Lin Qi extended his hand with a smile, "come next spring, twenty thousand Bostonians in the Old Boston Garden's stands will be screaming your name at the top of their lungs. When that time comes, let those reporters hiding behind their newspapers, writing that you're washed up, come and hear it for themselves."
Wilkins stared at Lin Qi for a full three seconds, then a wild, confident smile suddenly spread across his stern face.
He said nothing more, simply gripping Lin Qi's hand firmly. Lin Qi could clearly feel that he was still as hard as an indestructible rock.
The following morning, the Celtics officially announced that Dominique Wilkins had joined Boston as a free agent.
Less than an hour after the news went out over the airwaves, sports radio stations across Boston erupted.
Academically minded commentators openly questioned Lin Qi's sanity on air. In their view, he had just dismantled half the team with astonishing skill, only to turn around and pour an enormous amount of cap space into an aging star who had suffered a serious injury and was on the decline. They declared it a cheap commercial stunt by the Gaston family to salvage attendance, one that couldn't possibly win them more than a few extra games in the crowded Eastern Conference battlefield.
But some longtime fans stayed silent for a long time before finally saying just one thing.
"If Dominique really is willing to put on a Celtics jersey in the final stage of his career... then no matter what, I have to go see a game in person during this old arena's last year."