Sunday, 24 Nov 2024

The $1 million ‘bounty’ Team USA failed to cash on Yao Ming

The 2000 U.S. Olympic team wanted to make Yao Ming another Frederic Weis.

Weis was on the wrong end of one of the most memorable dunks in Olympic history when Vince Carter leaped over the 7-foot-2 center for a viscous one-handed slam. According to Kevin Garnett, the club had a wager on if anyone could do something similar to 7-foot-6 China star and former Rockets center Yao Ming.

“People didn’t know we had a bounty out on Yao Ming,” Garnett said in an interview with Yahoo Sports. “The whole USA team had a bet. We had a million-dollar bet on who was going to be the first person to dunk on Yao Ming. We all tried to dunk Yao, but he would block it or we would miss.”

Garnett said in the moment he thought Carter had won the money went he dunked on Weis, who was drafted by the Knicks in 1999 and never played in the NBA. The ex-Net then remembered it wasn’t the right center.

“The first thing I thought of when I saw Vince dunk on Frederic was, ‘Oh s–t, you won the million dollars,’” Garnett said. “But then I realized it obviously wasn’t Yao. I pushed Vince, and if you look at the clip, he almost punches me in the face by accident. But my first thought was, ‘Oh sh-t, you won, you got the million.’”

Ming made sure the million was never paid out.

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