Master P’s professional basketball sojourn began in the Summit City, Fort Wayne, Ind. Sometime in the fall of 1998, Tim Redo, a No Limit employee, called Keith Smart, a friend of his from Baton Rouge. Smart, who hit the game-winner for the Indiana Hoosiers in the 1987 NCAA championship game, was now head coach of the CBA’s Fort Wayne Fury; a forerunner to the NBA’s Developmental League, the CBA was an independent professional basketball minor league. The league went bankrupt in 2001 and ceased play in 2009.

Redo asked if his boss, Master P, could try out for the Fury. With training camp on the horizon, Smart agreed to take a look. “We thought it would be exciting for the Fort Wayne community,” Smart says. “Master P and his group met up with ownership and they all thought it would be a pretty unique situation. He’d probably expose the team to other avenues.”

As a backup guard for the Fury, P earned $1,000 a week in addition to $15 per diem on road trips. Smart remembers P as coachable, an eager learner, despite the fact that the rapper temporarily left the team to shoot No Tomorrow, a direct-to-video film. In eight games for a talented Fury team that included future 9-year NBA veteran Moochie Norris and former high school and college star Damon Bailey, P had more personal fouls (24) than points (15). “He had a lot of flashes, but they weren’t enough to make you think he’s going to be called up [to the NBA],” Smart says. “That year we had nine players get called up. He was not one of the guys that people saw as a prospect.”

In Jan. 1999, with the NBA lockout settled, P asked Andrew Curtin, an agent with No Limit Sports, P’s sports agency that represented Ron Mercer, Derek Anderson, and Ricky Davis, to petition NBA teams for a tryout. Curtis heard from Don Nelson, head coach and general manager of the Dallas Mavericks. Soon P, Curtin, and a 10-man entourage were in Dallas.

A Friday morning meeting with Nelson went well. P was then chaperoned around the team’s facilities by Steve Nash, his old NorCal running mate, and worked out with the team. When he returned to the hotel, Curtin says that P told him that the next practice was scheduled for Monday. P flew to Baton Rouge that evening. Curtin, who remained in Dallas, says he received a phone call on Saturday morning from the Mavs trainer inquiring on P’s whereabouts. He had missed morning practice. P returned to Dallas later that day but the deal was rescinded. “He blew it,” Curtin tells me. “He absolutely blew it.”

P disputes this version of events. “No, I was in with them. They were going to sign me to that team. They liked me. It fit with me and Steve Nash,” he says. “I think the head coach ended up getting in trouble. He was leaving or something like that.” Nelson resigned as Mavericks coach during the 2004–05 season.

Later on, Curtin says he asked Nelson’s son, Donnie Nelson, then a Mavericks assistant, now their long-tenured general manager, about the team’s interest in Master P. “Donnie said [that] his dad said, ‘Maybe if I had this rapper guy on my team, we could be more attractive to attract free agents,’” Curtin says. “Don Nelson had run-ins with Chris Webber at Golden State and with Patrick Ewing in New York. He had a PR problem. He thought players would think a guy who had a rapper on the team must be pretty cool.” Through the Mavericks, Donnie Nelson declined comment.