Chapter 698 [The Lockout Ends and Trading Begins]
In mid-September, NBA labor negotiations collapsed again, and many bosses tried to implement a hard salary cap.
The hard salary cap, as the name suggests, is a salary cap that cannot be exceeded. Even if you have money, you cannot spend it. Everyone competes fairly.
From the perspective of fans and owners, implementing a hard salary cap is good for the NBA. If all teams have the same salary, there will be no Big Three teams like the Lakers F4, Cavaliers, and Celtics. It can greatly enhance competition, make the game more exciting, and small city teams also have the hope of winning the championship.
Many people think that the NBA in the 1980s and 1990s was better because at that time, a team could only have two stars. If there were one more star, the owner would not be able to make money. The only exception was probably the Bulls, because Pippen was a free agent. Comrade.
Now, the league is too divided between strong and weak. How can a weak team with a total salary of 50 million yuan beat a wealthy team with a total salary of more than 100 million yuan? There are at least two missing stars in the team, or there is a huge gap in strength between substitutes and role players.
The NFL has implemented a hard salary cap system to narrow the gap between teams. The NFL is also the most popular league in the United States. The Super Bowl is as grand as a holiday every year.
The NBA's current luxury tax collection system has indeed put a certain restraint on wealthy teams, but if the owner is extremely rich and has no fear of spending money, this system will be a piece of paper. Like the Russian owner of the Nets, who spends 200 million and doesn’t take it seriously, instead of keeping it to pay taxes?
You can't buy a Super Bowl in the NFL, but you can buy a championship in the NBA.
No matter what the owners and fans think, no NBA player is willing to cut his salary. Derek Fisher, chairman of the players union, made a strong statement that he would rather die than sign a hard salary cap.
Fisher has a calm face and a rational negotiating voice, and he naturally speaks like an official spokesman.
"We will not agree, nor will we have internal disagreements like team owners, which can be seen from the clothing of the players union members. We are together, we are united, there are no differences, and everyone has reported it many times , we want to continue to reiterate that.”
Union members printed special T-shirts with silhouettes of several basketball players on the chest. In front of the silhouettes, a huge "stand" was written in yellow bold letters! (Can be understood as "can bear it"!)
When a reporter asked if the bosses would unite and sacrifice a season in exchange for the implementation of the hard salary cap policy, Fisher gave a very domineering answer. "No, it's completely impossible. There are 30 owners in 30 teams. In my opinion, less than half of the owners have similar ideas."
More than just less than half,
No boss is willing to sacrifice a season, and no matter how the players lose money, they will not lose more than they do. Moreover, if the season is to be suspended for a season, David Stern will not agree. By then, the fans will probably run out and no one will have anything to play with.
In early October, a new round of negotiations broke down again. The two sides made a little progress, but there is still a long way to go. The players have agreed to lower their basketball-related revenue sharing ratio to 53%, but the players union has been told that such concessions still cannot make up for the differences between the two sides.
To put it bluntly, the difference between the two sides is money, which is no different from the 1998 lockout.
The NBA officially announced that it will cancel training camps and preseason games in October, as well as games in the first two weeks of November.
On the Internet, fans were full of curses, and some with bad tempers vowed not to follow the NBA in the future.
Yang Rui did not show up from beginning to end, did not participate in the negotiations, and was on vacation in Los Angeles. The advantage of this is that almost no one knows that he is the "owner" who owns 30 Clippers shares, and the players will not be disgusted with him.
Yang Rui doesn't care how much money the Clippers will make by shutting down, so now he lets Donald Sterling take the lead. Sterling lives up to his reputation as one of the toughest and most dynamic bosses.
As in the previous life, many NBA players without contracts went to China to play in the CBA, including several big names, Jr. Smith, Kenyon Martin, Wilson Chandler, etc.
Yi Jianlian joined the Guangdong team and attracted many fans. Unfortunately, Yao Ming did not play for the Shanghai team. He was seriously injured and reimbursed last season, which made him understand the importance of rest and was unwilling to play in low-level competitions. He has already won the regular season MVP. No matter what statistics he produces in the CBA, it will not give him a sense of accomplishment.
History has changed a lot from Yang Rui's previous life. If there was no butterfly effect at this time, Yao Ming would have become the boss of the Shanghai team. Now he has no interest in buying the Shanghai team. The newly signed contract will not expire until 2016. Even if he wants to buy in the future, it will be an NBA team.
Yao Ming's maximum salary contract plus advertising fees is an astonishing figure. Now he is one of the top five stars in the NBA in terms of commercial value.
The management of each team is not idle, sending the most unknown people to contact free agents to discuss signing intentions, such as assistant managers, setting up a minion account to communicate with players online, how does the NBA check?
Relying on the signing loophole, many teams have already discussed the deal, but have not announced it.
The league's "seven don'ts" are just verbal warnings, and management and players can get by without meeting. It’s impossible for the league to actually check everyone’s online conversation records or phone records. That would be too costly, and even Facebook can’t do it.
It was not until November 26 that labor and management finally reached an agreement, ending the 149-day shutdown.
Stern announced that the new season will kick off on Christmas Day, December 25, and free market and training camp will start at the same time on December 9.
The players finally accepted the 49-51 floating share plan. The management guaranteed that under the premise of ideal NBA revenue growth, the labor would be able to get a 51 share of the revenue, which was much lower than the 53 previously negotiated.
Players are willing to make concessions because the losses are heavy, and the owners are no exception. The combined losses of both parties exceed 2 billion US dollars. There are 82 regular season games in a complete NBA season, and now there are only 66 games left. The players’ direct economic losses amounted to US$5.3 billion.
Kobe is the player with the highest salary in the new season, with a total salary of US$25.24 million. Due to the shortened season, his salary loss reached US$4.92 million. The money he earned from playing 12 games less would be enough for an ordinary family to live on for a lifetime.
In order to make money, the league has arranged the most intensive schedule in history. Each team has to play three consecutive back-to-back games. This will seriously reduce the physical strength of the players, which will not only directly affect the quality of the game, but also increase the possibility of player injuries.
In December, the free market opened together, and each team began to strengthen.
The Clippers walked three players first. Novak joined the Knicks, Dunleavy joined the Bucks for 7.5 million in two years, and Sheldon Williams joined the Nuggets.
It doesn't matter that the two are marginal. The management wanted Dunleavy to stay, but he refused.
Dunleavy wants to join a team that can play football. He believes that he can still compete for a big contract and play a big role on the court, and he does not want to be reduced to a marginal player. If Dunleavy cuts his salary and joins the Clippers, he will be 33 years old in two years, and it will be very difficult to get a high salary.
This is the external view. The reason Dunleavy really doesn't want to stay with the Clippers is that he doesn't want to play the 4th position and is afraid of confrontation. He doesn't want to do the transformation requirements proposed by Yang Rui, and he played very hard last season.
The Knicks also renewed Greg Oden's contract. Since entering the league until now, "The Great" has only had a high attendance rate in one season, and it is still a blue-collar figure. The Knicks were unwilling to give up on him and gave him a year in the hope that he could regain his feeling.
The Knicks also signed veteran point guard Mike Bibby. The current Knicks lineup is pretty good. Apart from Stoudemire, there are no high-paid players. They will make big achievements in the summer.