Sometimes to make a team relevant, all a player has to do is appear. All fans need to know is that eventually that player will be wearing that team’s uniform and the sporting world will pay attention.
Take when the Suns traded for Charles Barkley, for instance. The day he arrived in Phoenix he was treated like a rockstar. Thousands of people swarmed the airport, the media reported on his every move, it was the kind of reception the Pope had received five years earlier, only Barkley wasn’t there to save man’s souls, he came here to win basketball games.