NBA: Becoming stronger starts with hard work and mastery

The two sides have been in a state of panic, and the two sides have been in a state of panic.

"You know, my job is not to be Jordan's agent, my job is to do my best to get a sufficiently lucrative commercial contract for each of my players."

"I can say responsibly that in the history of the NBA, no guy over 7 feet tall has ever received a sneaker contract of this level."

"For reference, Tim Duncan, who is in the same period as you, is also negotiating a sneaker contract with Nike. It is said that it will not exceed 10 million in 5 years."

"Of course, this is all your own credit, because your stable performance throughout the regular season and your explosive performance in the playoffs have given Nike enough confidence that you will break the curse of 'Giant does not sell shoes'."

David Falk's words seemed to be full of magic, bewitching Han Yi to sign the contract quickly.

However, Han Yi said: "David, you have to know that as an NBA athlete, no commercial contract can be compared with the importance of the shoe contract."

"So?"

David Falk didn't understand.

"So!" Han Yi pushed the contract back: "It has to be paid more."

"Oh, thank God!"

David Falk smiled slyly:

"I thought you would not agree, after all, you have pushed countless commercial endorsements on the grounds that you are not strong enough."

"I said, it is my duty to get a sufficiently generous contract for my players. It's just that he is not satisfied with the amount, so let's negotiate until he is satisfied!"

Then... there is nothing else...

It's not that David Falk didn't work hard, nor that Nike thought Han Yi was too expensive, but... the labor agreement, like in history, finally broke down!

The cause of the collapse of the labor agreement can be traced back to 1995, when the owners and players signed a six-year agreement. If the agreement had been implemented normally, the NBA would have been able to advance smoothly into the new century.

But the bad thing is that there is a termination agreement that is absolutely in favor of the owners, that is, if the NBA spends more than 51.8% of its annual income (especially basketball income) on players' salaries, then the owners have the right to re-sign a new contract with the players.

And three years later in 1998, the owners' spending on player salaries had reached 58%, far exceeding the previous agreement. More than half of the NBA owners have been losing money in the past two seasons.

The most direct trigger was that the Timberwolves offered Kevin Garnett, who was still in his rookie period, a huge 6-year contract of 126 million in 1997!

Fans 20 years later may not have any idea about this, because for the NBA 20 years later, this contract is pitifully small, and even non-All-Star role players can easily sign this level of contract.

But in 1998, this contract was the highest average salary contract in NBA history except for Michael Jordan. If you don't consider the number of years, this is even the highest total contract in NBA history.

You should know that the NBA salary cap in 1998 was only 30 million US dollars, and Garnett's average salary in this contract reached 21 million US dollars.

In comparison, Shaquille O'Neal, who is known as the most dominant center in NBA history and is at his peak, had a salary of 12.86 million US dollars in 1998. Don't even compare the average salary with Garnett, even the starting salary is not at the same level as Garnett!

This huge contract makes all the bosses tremble. Garnett is indeed strong and has explosive talent, but there are many young people as strong as Garnett in the NBA, and there are even players like Han Yi who are much stronger than Garnett!

You know, this is a statement that there is no restricted player. When the player's rookie contract expires, he can go wherever he wants and go to whoever pays more!

If the second contract of these super rookies can be high enough to compete for the entire NBA, it naturally doesn't matter for big markets like the Celtics, Lakers, and New York, but for some small-market teams, what's the point?

Another more direct reason is that more and more bosses have found through various inquiries that the possibility of Michael Jordan's retirement is getting bigger and bigger.

Although the bosses have been busy with labor-management negotiations, it does not mean that they are so busy that they can't even talk about Michael Jordan.

There is no time to sign Kerr Jordan back.

You know, although the formal signing will have to wait until July 1, this is only the time to sign the contract. The specific contract must be negotiated long before that.

But the Bulls and Jordan did not talk about signing at all after the season ended!

The Bulls did not make any statement, did not say renewal, nor did they say no, just focused on the dynamics of the labor-management agreement.

This itself is a statement. Maybe they also want to sign Jordan back, but don’t want to give him a big contract of 30 million.

In addition to the Bulls, there is really no second team in the league today that can come up with a big contract of 30 million+ for Jordan.

There are many people who want to sign Jordan, but there is really no one who can pay this money except the Bulls.

But if the NBA really doesn’t have Michael Jordan, is this league called NBA really worth so much money?

Chamberlain once said in an interview program after Jordan's first comeback:

"All NBA athletes should deposit 10% of their salary into Jordan's bank card, because without Michael Jordan, they would not make so much money."

Even the players think so, and the bosses naturally think so too:

"Jordan is about to retire, how can you players make so much money?"

29 bosses, 27 of them support reopening the labor agreement, so this long round of negotiations began, but this kind of negotiation is destined to be difficult. The bosses want to drastically cut the players' salaries, and even proposed a crazy idea of ​​a 50% salary cut.

The players think that all this is our hard-earned money, and you bosses are relying on us to make money, so you should pay more money, pay more money!

So, as expected, the labor agreement completely collapsed!

David Stern officially announced:

All teams stopped all activities, could not sign contracts with players, could not organize training, could not open training camps, were not allowed to carry out any commercial activities, and even did not allow the stadium to be open to all NBA staff.

The NBA has officially been suspended.

But for Han Yi, it doesn't matter, just keep training!