Our next player is someone I didn't initially expect to have a major Rewritten Rings story. In real life, Terry Cummings had a very good NBA career, but compared to some of the other players featured in our bios, his accomplishments were relatively modest.
He was the 1983 Rookie of the Year and a two-time All-Star, but never won a championship, and never reached an NBA Finals. In our universe, however, Cummings' career took a dramatically different path.
Like Mark Aguirre and Dominique Wilkins, most of Cummings' career was resimulated in our timeline. His professional career began in 1982-83, one year before our simulation starts, and he immediately made his mark by winning Rookie of the Year over Dominique Wilkins.
The first major change came in 1983-84. In reality, that would be Cummings' final season with the Clippers before being traded to the Milwaukee Bucks.
In our universe, the Clippers went in a completely different direction. After selecting Hakeem Olajuwon in the 1984 draft, Los Angeles decided to keep Cummings and build around the young frontcourt.
The Clippers made the playoffs in the first season of the Cummings-Olajuwon pairing, but their postseason ended quickly. Cummings was injured, and Los Angeles fell in the first round.
The following season both stars were healthy, but the result was the same. The Clippers returned to the playoffs only to suffer another first-round exit, both times at the hands of the Utah Jazz.
After two disappointing postseason runs, Cummings decided it was time for a change. He entered free agency and signed with the Indiana Pacers, joining a young Chris Mullin who was entering his second NBA season.
The move immediately helped Indiana improve, going from the seventh seed to the fifth seed, but once again the postseason ended in the first round.
The following season brought more of the same, but in 1989, Cummings finally broke through. In his seventh NBA season, he won his first playoff series and experienced postseason success that had eluded him.
Ironically, his real-life career had actually gotten further much earlier. During his first five seasons with Milwaukee, Cummings reached the Eastern Conference Semifinals four times and even advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals in 1986.
So while the Rewritten Rings version of Cummings had a slower start when it came to team success, something else was already becoming clear: his individual career was being rewritten.
By the end of the 1989 season, Cummings had already been selected to four All-Star teams, double the two appearances he earned in his entire real-life career.
Then came another major change.
Cummings once again entered free agency and this time signed with Magic Johnson's Los Angeles Lakers. Joining one of the league's premier franchises completely changed the trajectory of his career. The Lakers returned to the NBA Finals, and Cummings finally reached the mountaintop.
He became an NBA champion and Finals MVP, accomplishing two things he never managed in real life.
The timing was especially interesting considering what happened to Cummings in reality. During this same stage of his real-life career, he was traded to the San Antonio Spurs, where he would eventually help them reach the Western Conference Finals in 1995, but he would never make it any further.
In Rewritten Rings, Cummings instead found himself winning a championship alongside Magic Johnson and becoming one of the most important players on the Lakers' title run.
The 1990 championship would ultimately be the high point of Cummings' team success, but another opportunity came a few years later.
In 1993, the fourth-seeded Lakers returned to the NBA Finals. Standing in their way were David Robinson and the Cleveland Cavaliers. Los Angeles appeared to have the championship within reach after taking a commanding 3-1 series lead, but Cleveland refused to go away. The Cavaliers won three straight games to complete the comeback and stole the championship from the Lakers.
For Cummings, the ending was particularly painful. He played only 15 minutes in Game 7 before suffering an injury, watching from the sidelines as another potential championship slipped away.
Even though Cummings continued playing through the 1999 season, the years following 1994 marked the beginning of his decline. But by then, he had already accomplished more than enough to completely transform the way his career would be remembered.
In 1994, Cummings earned his ninth All-Star selection, seven more than he received in real life. Combined with his NBA championship and Finals MVP, his individual and team accomplishments had reached a level that made him a legitimate Hall of Fame candidate.
And unlike his real-life career, this version of Terry Cummings eventually received that honor.
Cummings' Rewritten Rings career is one of the clearest examples of how a few changes to a player's surroundings can completely alter his legacy. In reality, he was a Rookie of the Year, two-time All-Star, and a very good player who never quite reached the highest level of the NBA. In our universe, he became a nine-time All-Star, NBA champion, Finals MVP, and Hall of Famer.
His journey took him from the Clippers, to the Pacers, and eventually to the Lakers, where playing alongside Magic Johnson gave him the opportunity to accomplish what had always been missing from his résumé.
Terry Cummings may have been just above average in the history we knew.
But in Rewritten Rings, he became a legend.
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