A Chinese manager arrives out of nowhere to take charge of the NBA's worst team.
An astonishing pick at the 2009 Draft, later proven to be the greatest selection in history.
The 2010 free-agent market was packed with big names and seemed to yield nothing, yet he landed the cornerstone of a future dynasty.
Behind the money-losing blockbuster trade of 2011 lay a stunning masterstroke that left everyone speechless a year later.
In 2012, as the team's results kept improving, he volunteered to take over as head coach. The team grew stronger with every game.
In 2014, he even bought the team outright and became its owner, setting off on a championship run...
Twenty years later, he became the second Asian inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame.
He earned honors including Coach of the Year, Executive of the Year, Most Popular Executive, and one of the NBA's 15 Greatest Coaches.
Time magazine interviewed him:
"As the manager and coach of the most successful team of the second decade of the 21st century, how do you look back on those ten years?"
"I'd say that, at the beginning, I really was just trying to tank."
"Tanking is a necessary step on the road to success for any team."
"True, but it got in the way of my own road to success."
"Do you really think you aren't successful enough?"
"Spending every day chasing a ball around with a dozen big men? How is that success? I had much loftier ambitions..."
Min Congda, a man with great aspirations, tilted his head up at the ceiling at a forty-five-degree angle. He remembered that afternoon, when he woke from his nap and began his tanking journey.
