How Will Perdue found out he was traded to the San Antonio Spurs

Will Perdue told the story about his trade from the Chicago Bulls to the San Antonio Spurs.

The Chicago Bulls shocked the NBA when they traded backup center Will Perdue to the San Antonio Spurs for Dennis Rodman before the start of the 1995-96 season. The Magic eliminated the Bulls in the second round of the 1995 NBA Playoffs, and they wanted to improve their team ahead of Michael Jordan’s first full season since his retirement in 1993.

Perdue was a solid player for the Bulls, and he averaged eight points and 6.7 rebounds in 20.4 minutes over 78 games in the 1994-95 season, but the organization felt they could replace his production with other players on their roster, and they needed more rebounding and defensive presence, especially in the playoffs.

At the time, the Bulls were facing salary cap constraints and needed to find a way to improve their team without spending too much money. Trading Perdue for Rodman allowed them to acquire the best rebounder in the league while also reducing their overall salary cap burden.

Perdue’s reaction to the trade

“If I would have been a gambling man, which I wasn’t, I would have bet every dime I had that we were going to the NBA Finals, if Michael stayed healthy, no question about it, so that’s that’s how excited I am about the upcoming season,” Perdue told K.C. Johnson of NBC Sports Chicago.

“And I still tell people to this day, the lockout’s over with, the next day I literally take my dog, every morning I used to get up, go outside, had the invisible fence, you know so my dog would run around and had built this, I mean I literally had just moved into this brand new house in Lake Forest, right?"

"It had nine foot doors and tall ceilings and I, I built it specifically for me, right, and old school you know, paper’s delivered, get up in the morning take the dog out, the dog’s running around, doing its business and the paper comes and you know I picked the paper up and like most people I’m just standing at the end of the driveway, flipping through, pull the sports section out and it’s all in big bold: Bulls trade Purdue for Dennis Rodman.”

It worked out

In the end, the trade worked out well for both teams. Perdue played with the Spurs from 1996 to 1999. During his time with the team, Perdue served primarily as a backup center, playing behind David Robinson and later Tim Duncan. The Spurs made the playoffs in each of his three seasons with the team, winning the NBA Championship in 1999.

Rodman, on the other hand, helped the Bulls win three straight NBA championships from 1996 to 1998.

“My agent didn’t know, Jerry never alerted me of it, you know the whole thing. Yeah and so I had to go back inside and call my agent and he’s like, my agent was that son of a b****, I’m like what do you mean, he goes well he briefly mentioned it, but he didn’t tell me he was going to pull the trigger, I told him if he was going to pull the trigger to call me first so I could talk to you about it and he didn’t do it,” Purdue explained.

“Well Jerry was afraid, and this was Krause to a t, he was afraid that if he told my agent, my agent would tell somebody and then it would get out and then this, the trade wouldn’t go through. So Jerry felt like he couldn’t trust my agent, he couldn’t trust me, he kept it to himself, and made the trade.”