Rasheed Wallace looked set as soon as the Portland Trail Blazers dealt him to the Atlanta Hawks in 2004. In fact, the All-Star power forward even logged remarkable numbers in his debut as a Hawk, scoring 20 points, grabbing six rebounds, and blocking five shots.
Little did Wallace know that would be his first and only game with the Hawks as he was immediately shipped to the Detroit Pistons. Looking back at it, Sheed said he didn't have an idea that Atlanta would choose a different route right after acquiring him as he thought they had a good team.
"Not at all," Wallace once said on ESPN's The Jump when asked if he thought he would be traded to another team after his first game with the Hawks.
"Jason Terry was there, [Stephen Jackson] Jack was there, we had a pretty good team. And [I was like], 'Ey, look, we know we can't make the playoffs, but we gon' mess it up for everybody,'" he reflected.
Sheed was at a bar when the deal was done
Wallace once revealed that he was in a barbershop when the Washington Bullets traded him to the Trail Blazers. This time, Sheed was at a bar in South Beach, chilling with Jackson as they prepared for a road game against the Miami Heat.
To this day, Jackson still vividly recalls how he and Wallace learned about the unexpected trade on TV. That trade was a three-way deal involving several players that sent Wallace to the Pistons .
"Actually, we were in a bar in Miami, and we saw it on the screen: Rasheed Wallace has been traded. That's how we found out," Stephen remembered.
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Sheed just wanted to play and earn
What happened to Wallace in a few days was outrageous, but it was no problem with the man in question, as his approach to signing with teams was not merely about loyalty or the pursuit of championships. Instead, Sheed only cared about getting paid and providing for his family.
"As long as somebody 'CTC,' at the end of the day, I'm with them. For all you that don't know what CTC means, that's 'Cut The Check.'...whoever cuts that check, that's who I have to play for," Wallace said amid being constantly dealt from team to team.
In retrospect, what made Wallace's 2003-04 season even wilder was that he turned out to be the missing piece in the Pistons' championship hopes. That same year, Sheed helped Detroit win the NBA Finals, and he capped off the season with a championship ring.
Related: "You know the sh*t I said a couple of weeks ago... I was just playing" - Rasheed recalls talking trash to Pistons a few weeks before getting traded there
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