It’s quite impressive how quickly the rise and fall of an NBA career can be.
Remember Ian Mahinmi? In 2016, the French center signed a four-year $64 million contract, only to sit on the bench most of the time for the next few years as he was among the league leaders in fouls/36 minutes. During those four long years, he mostly branched out as a fashion model and designer. And he watched a lot of international soccer on TV.
Somehow, someway, then President of Basketball Operations Ernie Grunfeld and his sidekick Tommy Sheppard found a way to detect a brief, ephemeral, short, peak in a certain player’s career and make a big bet that he would be a star, only to see things blow up in their faces afterward.