The Trail Blazers' general manager Buckwalter was the one who handed a check to Moses Malone, creating the first high school player in American professional basketball history, marking his career-defining moment as a professional manager.
But over 20 years later, as Buckwalter watched Kobe and Little O'Neal train at the rookie camp sidelines, he wondered if he had made a massive mistake back then, and why he was repeating the same error now.
"That day, I put a stack of cash on their dining table, a total of 25,000 US Dollars, in 1974, 25,000 US Dollars... Back then, there was an oil crisis, prices were soaring, inflation was rampant, but 25,000 US Dollars was enough to buy and renovate that broken house of Moses', which had a big hole in the wall that leaked when it rained, a home devoid of furnishings. And that 25,000 was just a signing bonus; the real contract would reach a million, making it hard for him to refuse under those circumstances."
