The Whip of the God of Basketball

Andy Miller has been extremely busy recently. Starting from March, the United States will usher in the NCAA March Madness. The regional leagues of national universities will end, and brutal single-round elimination tournaments will begin across the country. This will be a stage for talents to show themselves, and it will also be a busy hunting ground for agents and scouts. For those experienced agents, if they want to get superstars to join them, they must start taking action when the big trees have just begun to sprout. If you wait until the tree reaches towering heights to dig again, the price you have to pay will be much higher.

For Miller, who aims to set up his own agent company, he has handed over many scouting tasks to professional scouts. He can sit in the office and wait for faxes and emails to read from those scouting reports. Pick slowly.

But not in March. He had to go out in person and go to various venues to watch the games of those young people. Some of them had already been spotted by him a year or two ago, and he began to secretly contact and secretly communicate with music artists early on, and some real geniuses Players who are aware of their own value and subject to strict discipline will not casually get involved with agents before they officially leave college and join professional sports.

In this case, the agent needs to personally do the peripheral work, so that when they announce their participation in the NBA draft, they can think of themselves and choose themselves first, so as to obtain a high-quality star that can bring them huge benefits.

Recently, Miller has started traveling to major NCAA tournaments, and has begun to focus on inspecting the newcomers. This year is recognized as a big year for the draft. It is another year of talent blowout after 1996. Since Kevin Garner was acquired in 1995, After that, Miller never signed a superstar with enough weight to satisfy his ambition to become the best agent in the league.

He missed out on almost every quality rookie in 1996. He was so focused on Kevin Garnett's shoe contract that year that he had no time to pay attention to those newcomers, and he wasn't working on himself that year.

It's different now. He has his own work team, his own office building, his agency is preparing, and he is confident that he will make a big splash in this year's draft. Of course, he still knows how much he weighs. Prodigies like LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony have long been targeted by big-name agents. Miller knows that he will not have any. Opportunity.

He set his sights on those potential players who have the potential to become All-Star players, but are not very popular with the public. Such players may not bring extremely generous commercial income like those superstars, but they will gain in the NBA. Stable, long-term large contracts and having multiple such players will be an important guarantee for an agency company to operate smoothly and move forward.

Miller first targeted Kirk Hinrich, a point guard from the University of Kansas. This steady white guard was known as the successor to John Stockton. The engine of the forward-cutting tactic used by the Jays of his University of Kansas team is this No. 1 position with excellent passing ability. Of course, he also has many flaws, the most obvious of which is his age. He is already a senior. Since Tim Duncan, no superstar has been willing to stay in college for four years.

The second is that he always played the shooting guard position from his freshman to his junior year, and did not switch to the point guard position until his senior year, and then achieved very good results. The University of Kansas also became the favorite team to win the NCAA this year, ranking first in the country. Before the start of the game, they had lost only 4 games in the Big 12 League and entered the national competition as a seed player.

Of course, these are the contents of the scout report. Miller doesn't care about his weaknesses or skills. He just knows that first of all, this player will definitely participate in the NBA draft this summer because he is already a senior. He is like this It is impossible for a talent to go to graduate school instead of going to the NBA, so Miller doesn't have to worry about not participating in the draft.

Secondly, judging from various scout reports, his pick will definitely not be in the top five, but he should be able to stabilize at around 10. It is not impossible to be in the top ten. Basically, players with this pick will become As the backbone of the team, it is not a problem to get a contract with an annual salary of more than 5 million. If he can get his hands, Miller is confident that he can get a contract with an annual salary of over 10 million, which is also his signature to promote himself to players.

Therefore, Miller had already booked a flight to California on March 19. In the first round of the NCAA, the University of Kansas vs. Salt Lake City State will be played in Anaheim, California. At that time, this city It will also host all Western Conference games.

But just when he was preparing everything and arranging and handing over all the work in New York, he received a call from a man named Rob Eads, who made an appointment with him for a drink at the Crescent Cafe on Fifth Avenue. A cup, saying that there is something important to talk to him about. Miller wasn't planning on going to the appointment, but when Eze mentioned it was related to the agency he was about to set up, Miller decided to go anyway. He knew that he was probably in trouble, because in the United States, when a lawyer comes to your door, you are either already in trouble or about to be in trouble.

……………………

Miller met the lawyer Eze who invited him over in a small private room on the second floor of the Crescent Cafe. He was a middle-aged white man with short gray curly hair. He looked very peaceful and friendly. He was sitting on a chair drinking coffee. , with a white document in front of him and a black document bag beside him, a typical lawyer's standard equipment.

After seeing Miller coming, Eze stood up from his seat and extended his hand to Miller, but Miller did not extend his hand. Miller did not want to shake hands without knowing where the other party came from. .

Seeing that Miller didn't mean to shake hands, Eads didn't mind, but motioned Miller to sit down, and then said: "Hello, Mr. Andy Miller, please introduce yourself, I am Rob Eads, a lawyer from Washington. ...This is my business card...I mainly work for the trade union and am responsible for safeguarding the rights and interests of workers. There is a recent infringement case that should be related to you. The victim has found me and hopes that I can contact you to explain the situation. "

After listening to Eze's words, Miller frowned, mentally thinking about any recent signings that might lead to infringement. Logically speaking, although the employers have an advantage in the NBA, the labor side is not a vegetarian either. Agents like them are begging for money from both sides. When it comes to food, the most important thing is not to infringe on rights and interests. Like this time, Miller has made a lot of determination to break the contract with his former company in advance. After deciding to set up his own agency, Miller was careful, fearing that he would run into some minefield and cause his plan to fail.

"Can you talk in detail? Why didn't I receive a lawyer's letter?" Miller put his hands in his pockets and looked at Eads. At the same time, the hand in his pocket pressed the switch of the recorder. He now suspected that this was probably a legal blackmail. In order to protect himself, he brought a recorder before coming, and it seemed that it could come in handy now.

"The lawyer's letter is already on its way in the mail. I'm just here on a business trip to New York. I just want to meet with you to understand the situation. My client's name is Aaron Mintz, and he is a sports agent like you. , but it is not as successful as you. He does not have any great stars, they are all small characters wandering on the edge of professional basketball. In January you signed a player named Trip Neal, and now he is playing for He plays for the Denver Nuggets and has a non-guaranteed contract. Before he signed with you, he was Mr. Aaron Mintz's employer and had a contract with him..."

"Wait, wait, wait, I know who you are talking about, the shooting guard named Trip Neal, the commission from his contract is less than 20,000 US dollars!" Miller interrupted Eze, He remembered who Eads was talking about, the lousy shooting guard who came to New York in person to find him.

"It's not about the money...it's not the money that I'm here to say..." Eads added.

"What's the problem? Is it a contract issue? Before signing the contract with Trip Neil, he had terminated the contract with his agent!" Miller said with great certainty. He remembered very clearly that he was in Trip Neal re-signed with Trip Neal after he terminated the contract with his former agent for more than the specified number of days.

"Yes, yes, Tripnir did terminate his contract with Mintz first and then signed with you, and there is no problem with the time. But the question is, why did Tripnir terminate his contract with Mintz? Was it his own volition or was he Under your instigation? Sorry, my choice of words may not be very good..."

Eze's question made Miller fall into silence. He knew that agents in the league could poach each other, but it was all done secretly. It was an agent violation to openly instigate players to terminate their contracts with their former agents and sign with themselves. People's laws and regulations.

"He came to me on his own. Do you think I could dig a player like this?" Miller wanted to say this, but he didn't. He understood that such words could not be said, and he would not say that he signed Trip. Neal wanted to get Bynum, so he asked: "Please give me evidence or I will sue you for blackmail."

Eze smiled, pushed the document on the table in front of Miller, and said: "This is the termination fax sent by Tripnier to Mintz. On the last page of the fax, please see, there is a fax sent. address."

Miller turned the fax to the last page and was surprised to see an address line in the bottom row of the page, which printed 223 South Dean Street, New York, which is the building where his office is located.