Anthony Carter’s Agent Cost Him $3 Million. The Agent Paid Him Back.

“I wasn’t even mad, to tell you the truth,” said Carter, who is now back with the Heat as an assistant coach. “I didn’t think anything of it until lawyers and stuff called. I didn’t jump to any conclusions. I didn’t say, ‘What happened?’ Because I knew what type of person he was. Things happen.”

It was a blunder that had cascading effects.

The most noteworthy ripple was that it gave Pat Riley, the Heat’s president, an unexpected amount of cap space that summer, which he used to sign Lamar Odom as a free agent. One year later, in 2004, Odom was the centerpiece of a trade with the Los Angeles Lakers for Shaquille O’Neal.

Two years after acquiring O’Neal, Miami won its first N.B.A. championship. It was Duffy’s clerical error that, at least in part, allowed the championship to happen. That turned Carter’s contract situation with the Heat into one of the all-time “What Ifs?” in league history.

“I should’ve got one of them rings, too,” Carter, 45, joked.

Riley declined to comment for this article.

While Carter’s loyalty to Duffy may seem baffling to some, it was a result of Duffy’s previous faith in Carter.

Carter’s making it to the N.B.A. at all was a long shot. He dropped out of Alonzo A. Crim High School in Atlanta after his freshman year. He spent the next three years traveling around the city and playing basketball games for money to make a living. At one of those games in 1994, an opponent offered to send a tape highlighting Carter’s game to the coach at Saddleback College, a junior college in California. With some help of friends and family, Carter got his G.E.D. and headed west. Two years later, he transferred to the University of Hawaii, a Division I program.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/14/sports/basketball/anthony-carter-bill-duffy-miami-heat.html