One minute, Rick Mahorn was kissing each teammate amid a deafening rally celebrating the Detroit Pistons' first NBA championship.
A short while later Thursday, Mahorn was crying. He'd just become Minnesota's first Timberwolf."Of course there were tears," Mahorn said in a telephone interview. "There were so many feelings and so many friends. It's been an up-and-down day - but it's part of basketball. A champion one day, someplace else the next.
"I don't want to leave. But one thing about my friends here, they'll always be my friends."
Mahorn stepped up to The Palace podium at the afternoon rally and declared: "I'm the baddest boy you've ever seen." The Detroit fans went berserk.
When the rally ended, Mahorn and his teammates were ushered into the locker room for a sudden team meeting. That's when Mahorn was told he was going from the NBA's best team to its newest team. He was Minnesota's first pick in the expansion draft Thursday.
"I was shocked to hear about Minnesota, but no one will ever be able to take away my ultimate goal - winning this NBA championship," Mahorn said.
"I've pushed my career to the highest point and now I'll have to push it a little further. We'll have to stick together and play through the losing up there and never give up."
The Baddest Boy was now the saddest boy. He spoke softly, despondently.
"Everybody would like to play on a team like the Pistons, where you feel so comfortable," Mahorn said. "But this is a business."
As for his nasty image, which drew an NBA-high $11,000 in fines last season, Mahorn said what you see is what you get.
"The fans up there can get a description by what they've seen on TV," he said. "I hope they'll see me as a basketball player more than all that Bad Boy stuff. My reputation is unfounded. I can play. I wouldn't have been in this league for nine years if I couldn't."
Mahorn, who will be 31 this fall, has played in 655 games, averaging 8.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game. He's considered perhaps the league's most physical inside player and started for the Pistons this year as they won an NBA-high 63 games and their last seven consecutive playoff games.
After Thursday's team meeting, Mahorn left The Palace without a word to Detroit reporters. He went home and called his mother, Alice Mahorn, in Hartford, Conn.
"She's my inspiration along with my 6-year-old daughter, Moyah," Mahorn said.
"He cried and I cried," Alice Mahorn said. "It was a shock. Here he is on top of the world one minute, and then someone pulls the rug out from under him a little. He's bouncing back, though, he's ready to go."
Mahorn suffers from chronic back problems, the main reason given for his being left unprotected. He underwent surgery to remove a disk before last season.
"I couldn't tell you about it," Mahorn said. "We'll see when we get out there."
As for Minnesota, Mahorn doesn't know too much about his new home.
"I went to a wedding . . . up there one summer," he said. "And I know Prince lives there, that's about it."
Detroit Coach Chuck Daly said after the rally, "This is the happiest day of my life, but this is also the most devastating moment. We took a calculated risk."
Added Detroit general manager Jack McCloskey: "It was lousy timing."
Timberwolves officials, meanwhile, were thrilled to make Mahorn their first player.
"He's one of those guys nobody likes unless he's on your team," president Bob Stein said.
Personnel director Billy McKinney is slightly concerned about Mahorn's image.
"As long as Rick is committed to keeping his physical atrocities on the court, we'll be fine," said McKinney, who expects Mahorn's leadership to outweigh his violent side. "You would be a fool not to listen to Rick Mahorn."
Thursday night, however, you hardly could hear Mahorn's muffled voice.
"I've had the one highlight of my career," he said. "Now it's time to push on to someplace else."