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I was thinking back to the 95-96 Bulls 72 win season with all this talk going on and how we beat them with like 8 players and Sexy Rexy Chapman went off for like 9 3s.. after we basically gutted our whole team.

Before the cap clearing for the 2010 free agent boom, and before the Magic and Bulls went for the same in 2000.. from what I remember, Pat Riley was really the first to have a plan to clear cap space to go after big time free agents in the off season. That season it was Zo, Howard, Payton, Chris Childs, Hardaway, PJ Brown etc. The day of the Bulls game, Riley went cap room trading crazy. From what I remember we traded Kevin Willis and Bimbo Coles for Timmy and Chris Gatling, Billy Owens to the Kings for Walt Williams...and I think Terrence Rencher(?) for Tony SMith. I could be missing some other moves. And, I think we signed Lenard the same day but I could be off.

Was Riley the first to use this blue print to build a team back in the 95-96 season or am I leaving another GM out?

HeatFanSince87 wrote:Before the cap clearing for the 2010 free agent boom, and before the Magic and Bulls went for the same in 2000.. from what I remember, Pat Riley was really the first to have a plan to clear cap space to go after big time free agents in the off season. That season it was Zo, Howard, Payton, Chris Childs, Hardaway, PJ Brown etc. The day of the Bulls game, Riley went cap room trading crazy. From what I remember we traded Kevin Willis and Bimbo Coles for Timmy and Chris Gatling, Billy Owens to the Kings for Walt Williams...and I think Terrence Rencher(?) for Tony SMith. I could be missing some other moves. And, I think we signed Lenard the same day but I could be off.

http://www.prosportstransactions.com/ba ... h&start=25
You were pretty much spot on, but Lenard was signed a bit earlier.

Crazy.. I forgot, we had Ty Corbin and Jeff Malone too.


Not that its a HUGE deal, but I do find it interesting Riley kind of set this trend so long ago and then pulling off the all time cap space turned to super star players moves ever, is never brought up that he did this before.

1996 was really the first year of true unrestricted free agency after the 1996 CBA. As mentioned, Riley was that coming and setup to clear salary for the 1996 offseason, when Shaq, Zo, Howard, Payton, Hardaway, etc. were set to become free agents. He realized that the NBA is a superstar's league, with it being almost a requirement to have at least 2 superstars and a third near superstar, all surrounded with a few shooters and some lunch pail big men. He has followed that model, or tried to, every time there was an upcoming class of superstar FAs. After 1996, he tried it again in 2000, trying to get Tim Duncan, Grant Hill and Tracy McGrady to add to Zo, but ending up with Eddie Jones and Brian Grant. In 2004, he made the Shaq trade and then followed up the next year with the AWalker, Posey, JWill and Payton acquisitions. I think he envisioned AWalker as the "near" superstar to go with Wade and Shaq. And then the past several years were all about setting things up for FA 2010, which went right according to plan (actually, probably better than planned).