The Whip of the God of Basketball

Recently Andy Miller has been paying attention to the news of the Boston Celtics in newspapers and on TV, "The Celtics lost to the Wizards, Stackhouse played the best performance of the season", "The Celtics beat away The Hornets, Joe Johnson did not perform well in the case of his former owner "," the Green Army started their trip to Texas, and Dallas lost to the Mavericks in the first game. defeat", "Yao Wang battle, Chinese derby, Celtics shot down the Rockets away, Wang Zhizhi played the best performance of his career"……………

These are the news headlines related to the NBA's game with the Celtics in the last week. At the beginning of 2003, the Celtics began to encounter fierce battles, and their continuous road trips caused their state to fluctuate. The addition of new players has not only enhanced the team's strength, but also brought the team's tactics into a new running-in period. After a round of the terrible Texas Triangle, the Celtics won three wins and three losses after the New Year. So satisfying.

Miller was very satisfied with this. He cut out all these news pages and pasted them in his notebook. If someone opened his notebook, he would find that he had played every game of the Celtics this season. All the news after the game has been collected, and people who don’t know will think that he is a fanatical Celtics diehard. After all, the team with the most diehards in the United States is the more brilliant Boston Kyle besides the Los Angeles Lakers. special people.

But Andy Miller is not a fan of the Celtics. In fact, he is not a fan of any team. Since 1995, he has set foot in the NBA agent world. Andy Miller is a leader in this circle. Excellent sense of smell, strong negotiating ability and a never-ending greedy heart. Unlike veteran agents such as David Falk, Andy Miller represents the characteristics of the current new agents-everything revolves around economic benefits, they are not as good as David Falk with superstars Friends, become part of the NBA circle. On the contrary, they claim to be a faction and stand independently between the NBA and players, providing a bridge for negotiations between labor and capital. Of course, sometimes they make waves for commissions.

2002 was a turning point for Andy Miller's career. A new NBA broadcast contract was signed. He could smell the arrival of a new round of super contracts. In fact, he entered the NBA agent circle in 1995. In the summer when the salary cap increased sharply and contracts of 100 million yuan emerged one after another, how could this trendy player in the money pile miss this opportunity. He resolutely terminated the contract with his old club in the summer, and left with a group of players, planning to start his own sports agency this season. For this, he paid a high price of 4.6 million US dollars, which is enough to show his ambition.

However, the Boston Celtics and his coach became an obstacle in his heart. Since the 2002 All-Star Game, Andy Miller knew that the Celtics had come out of nowhere. The assistant coach wants to get Kevin Garnett and let him join the Celtics.

Garnett is Andy Miller's biggest star and also Miller's cash cow. Garnett's league's largest contract is also Miller's proud work, and he has obtained extremely rich profits from it. It can be said that this This profit is the confidence and basis for Miller to dare to spend 4.6 million US dollars to break the contract with his old club, because he knows that Kevin Garnett is still in the rising period of his career, although he has played in this league for 8 years. , but she entered the league after graduating from high school, he is only 26 years old this year, and has not yet reached the peak age of an inside player.

And Garnett's contract will also expire next season, reaching a staggering $28 million. Miller knows that next year will be another year for him to show his talents. Although the rules of the league have been changed, there is no way to sign another one. Such a terrible big contract, but Miller is still confident that Garnett will get another top super contract in the league-if he stays in the Timberwolves.

If Garnett does not stay in the Timberwolves, then Miller also hopes that he can go to major commercial cities such as New York, Chicago, and Miami to fully tap the commercial value of Garnett. The power forward has a very high popularity in the league, and his talent in fashion and aesthetics makes him different from traditional insiders and has a special appeal. Miller is also confident that using his characteristics will bring Garnett enough commercial contracts-if his city has enough open and inclusive business atmosphere.

The problem is, the team that wanted Garnett, the Celtics, had the longest and most glorious basketball history in the league, but he was in a conservative, cold, small city with a notorious history of discrimination. The famous city with a long history-Boston, Massachusetts, this city that once made black players in the league avoid, this city that once created the famous "Boston Clause" in NBA contracts-that is, black players can specify in the contract , when they were traded to Boston, they had the option to veto the trade.

Miller didn't care about it at first, because he knew that YY transactions like this happened every day in the league, from fans to media to management, from TV programs to paper media, from people's mouths to their hearts , No one can stop other people's imagination, he puts all his thoughts on preparing his new company and constantly signing new players, he needs enough players to maintain the operation of his company in the future.

But when the 2002-2003 season was about to start, he gradually realized that something was wrong. First, the Timberwolves cut Garnett's friend Malik Siri, which made Garnett very unhappy. The Specials signed Sealy; after the start of the season, the Timberwolves' record was extremely unstable. Throughout November and December, their winning streak did not exceed two games, and their losing streak did not exceed three games. This means that the team Swinging painfully between losing one game and winning one game, losing two games and winning two games, this may be more terrifying than a bad one, because Garnett has experienced seven full seasons like this.

Instead, the guy who came out of nowhere became the head coach of the Celtics, and then led the Celtics to triumph after the start of the season, occupying the first position in the league for two weeks. . As Garnett's closest collaborator, Miller has begun to hear Garnett's dissatisfaction and a little bit of yearning for the Celtics.

This is a very dangerous signal. Miller understands Garnett. He knows that he is a contradictory and complicated guy. His style of play is loved by fans, but in fact his real strength lies in his unpretentious and strong defense. He loves Minnesota very much and is loyal to the Timberwolves, but he also desires to betray and seize the highest throne in the league. Miller, who has been with Garnett for many years, understands that his ambivalence may stem from his upbringing, or from his unreliable father-the person who provided a chromosome and then drifted away.

But Miller is not a psychologist, he doesn't want to uncover the secret of this contradiction, he just wants Garnett to stay in the Timberwolves, or he can leave, but he can't go to Boston or the Celtics.

Finally, when the Celtics visited Minnesota, Malik Sealy and Garnett participated in the party together and chatted at the hotel entrance, which caused Minnesota to question Garnett, Garnett’s counterattack to the media, and After a series of discordant incidents, Miller made up his mind to put the Celtics together and create confusion for them.

What Miller is most worried about now is that the Celtics can really reach the finals this season. He still remembers that at the beginning of the season, their head coach set the goal of "entering the finals" that was ridiculed by many people. As time went by, I felt more and more that he was not joking, let alone stupid. His goal was to tell Garnett, just like he said in the All-Star Game that he would use the championship as a bargaining chip.

So after learning the news that the Celtics were going to trade, he used his relationship with Popper to disclose the content of the deal to Joe Johnson, which triggered a small Celtic civil turmoil; He also collected black information about the head coach of the Celtics. It turned out that he used to be a gangster who punched fake punches in the bar ring, was involved in the underworld, beat people and went to jail.

Miller's design was very delicate. First, he posted some news on the lesser-known local media in Boston to make the public feel that there was such a thing. Then he used his relationship to name and criticize the well-known major media in the United States, which suddenly aroused people's attention. The gossip enthusiasm, relying on the reporters to turn that guy's dark history upside down.

It's just that he didn't expect the opponent's reaction to be so quick. Miller, who originally wanted to play with a time lag, gave the opponent a chance to catch his breath, but Miller knew that this matter couldn't just die down like this. He believed that as long as Kyle As the Celtics' performance gets better and better, more and more people will be interested in this kind of thing. What if the Celtics' performance is getting worse? That would be exactly what Miller wanted.

Thinking that the Celtics' results have become unstable recently, Miller can't help but feel a little proud. At this time, he is sitting in his office at 223 Nandian Street in New York, waiting for one of his guests, a less-than-remarkable guy. So he kept thinking about things related to the Celtics in his mind, but he didn't think too much about the small business in front of him.