When pride still matters

Chapter 538: Riding the Tide
Looking at the lockout history of the four major leagues in North America, whenever the labor and management sides canceled an entire season, the two parties involved would quickly regain their sanity under the heavy losses and begin to understand each other.

Because the loss of one season is huge enough.

No league can afford to suspend two seasons.

Therefore, in order to get the league back on track as soon as possible, both labor and management will make compromises within the possible scope in order to reach a new consensus as soon as possible.

Now, the owners have realized that the players will not accept a 47% dividend quota in any case, so continuing to insist will only make the differences between the two sides grow wider.

Derek Fisher has stepped down. He was the biggest dove in the player camp, and his resignation also successfully made the management side realize the bottom line of the labor side.

After clarifying each other's taboos, the negotiations began to go smoothly.

In mid-April, labor and management resolved their biggest disagreement - they agreed to share basketball revenue at a 50-50 quota under the new CBA agreement.

This gave the outside world hope that the shutdown would end.

The problems that have plagued both sides for a long time no longer exist, and subsequent negotiations will enter the fast lane.

However, the situation is not as ideal as experts see.

The two sides still have one issue to resolve.

So how can we formulate a set of effective rules to oppose the big cities' monopoly on the championship.

At this time, the myth created by Yu Fei in Seattle became an excuse for the alliance to actively promote anti-monopoly measures.

Yu Fei's camp was very dissatisfied with this.

You say Seattle is a big city and Frye has benefited from the big city dividend, which is understandable.

But is Milwaukee also a big city?
How do you explain Frye's record of four championships in five years in Milwaukee?

However, those involved in the negotiations were well aware of the principle of "exaggerating the facts that are favorable to me and ignoring the facts that are unfavorable to me", and they insisted on customizing a set of rules to restrict the big city teams.

Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert believes that one of the main advantages of big-market teams over small-market teams is that they can spend without restraint.

Gilbert produced a set of data that looked very convincing.

The total salary of the SuperSonics and the Lakers last season reached 1.5 times the salary cap. According to the current luxury tax rules, they need to pay fines at a 1:1 ratio. In this way, the two teams spent more than $ million on salary and luxury tax last season.

If this happens to a small market team, unless the owner is wealthy, it will definitely lose all its money after a season. However, the SuperSonics and the Lakers have made profits after paying hundreds of millions of dollars in salaries.

So, what was the trigger for the shutdown?

Wasn't it the SuperSonics that were exposed to have a profit of up to $1.4 million? The players' union was anxious: You made so much money, and we didn't ask you to share it with the players, which was already our duty, and you actually wanted to speak for the small-market team and demanded a reduction in the players' dividends? The owners of the small-market teams were even more dissatisfied. They saw that a boss like Bennett, who had no talent, had the opportunity to get on the GOAT's thigh, not only making a lot of money, but also winning the championship. Naturally, they were jealous. However, the big-market teams could not use their own profits to subsidize the small-market teams, so they could only choose to let the players bear this part of the money.

This is the root cause of the shutdown.

The same is true for the Lakers, except that the Lakers have long been backed by Hollywood, making huge profits by relying on Los Angeles' unique geographical advantages. Moreover, the Showtime Lakers made great contributions to the commercialization of the league, and everyone is used to their "superiority."

What about the SuperSonics? A few years ago, they were clamoring to relocate because they couldn't get food, and they wanted the entire league to endorse them. Stern even made a whole set of plans for this, but Yu Fei's return changed everything.

A dying team came back to life.

The long-time loss-making franchise became a hit.

It took only a few years for the SuperSonics to go from being the shame of big city teams to being the benchmark of big cities, and all this change happened only because Michael Jordan of this generation was "tired" of cold Milwaukee and decided to return to his hometown to be the revered savior.

Small-market owners had reason to hate the Sonics.

In their view, what happened to the Bucks will happen to them in the future.

The Bucks accepted all the conditions proposed by Yu Fei, signing short-term and large contracts to renew troublemakers, spending a lot of money to stay competitive, and finally achieved the result of four championships in five years.

But this result is still not enough to keep Yu Fei.

He flew directly to Seattle after becoming an unrestricted free agent, and although he had a lofty goal - to save the Sonics - but look at what he has now. His three years in Seattle far exceeded all he got in five years in Milwaukee.

In this case, the bosses will not believe that his original intention was to save the people.

Then, James' "decision" caused the situation to get out of control.

Owners are finding that even when they give their all to their players, they are still completely betrayed.

Yu Fei can also say that he left four championships to Milwaukee, and leaving the Bucks was a difficult decision because when he decided to leave, the Bucks were still a championship-level team.

And what about James? He did not bring any praiseworthy glory to the Cavaliers. Instead, he behaved ugly in the key games of the playoffs and then used an unacceptable way to trick the Cavaliers.

Then, the entire 2009-2010 season became a competition between the Supersonics and the Lakers.

The One Empire vs. the Evil Empire
What a great gimmick! Even the owners are involved. They want the Supersonics to win. Only in this way can they defend the justice of professional basketball.

To do this, they must ignore Chris Bosh, who also left his parent team and chose to join Seattle.

They can say, who cares about Bosh? James is the most important.

But now, they are starting to care.

They don't want this to continue, but as long as there is a distinction between big markets and small markets in professional basketball, small-market stars will continue to yearn for the big market.

Therefore, it is unrealistic to completely curb this trend. They can only let big market teams pay a heavy economic price while using their geographical advantages to get stars.

In this way, the punitive luxury tax was once again put on the table.

The players' union's concern about this matter is that a high luxury tax would turn the existing salary cap into a de facto hard cap.

Because the cost of over-cap is so terrible, how many teams would do this?

The labor and management sides, which seemed to have reached a mutual understanding, came to a standstill on this issue.

By May, the labor-management agreement had not made any further progress.

This directly affects the 2011 NBA Draft, which is not sure when it will be held.

Because this was the first time in NBA history that a season was canceled due to a labor dispute, during the lockout, not only did the players have no ball to play, but the entire management team also took vacation, which of course included the scouts.

Scouts are the busiest group of people in the league, with their schedules revolving around traveling, scouting young players, and staying in five-star hotels.

Thanks to the high welfare benefits of the modern NBA, all of these schedule expenses are reimbursed by the team.

During the lockout, scouts could not work on their own without the financial support of their teams. Therefore, NBA teams' understanding of this year's draft class can be said to be chaotic.

Instead, those general managers who are unemployed at home temporarily act as scouts. They will not take the initiative to go to the scene, but they can watch the live broadcast and recording at home.

Even so, without reports from professional scouts, their understanding of this draft is extremely one-sided.

This has led many potential players to consider returning to school for another year.

Among these people, Duke University's superstar Kyrie Irving has the biggest concerns about the draft.

Due to the NBA lockout, he missed almost the entire season due to injury after just a few games, which resulted in his outstanding potential shown in the limited games being ignored.

He's been ranked outside the top five in recent draft mock projections.

You know, it's still unknown when or if this year's draft will be held. Current mock draft predictions are extremely inaccurate, but these global predictions can show what professional teams think of the draft class.

Apparently, experts believe that Irving "fell behind" after entering college.

This made Irving seriously consider the feasibility of returning to school for another year.

Irving's mentality reflects the psychology of most players whose simulated draft picks are not as good as expected.

As time enters June, the NBA has been suspended for 335 days.

Time is becoming increasingly tight.

If it is delayed any further, the 2011 offseason will also be affected.

The labor and management sides, which had been deadlocked over the "punitive luxury tax", finally gave in.

Finally, everyone reached a consensus.

Fair dividends are a must, and so is opposing big cities’ monopoly on the championship.

As a result, the terrifying super luxury tax was introduced.

The first part about the super luxury tax is the same as Yu Fei's previous life. It is divided into levels of punishment based on exceeding the tax by $500 million. For every $500 million in tax that the team exceeds, the tax to be paid will increase by $1 for every dollar.

If a team pays taxes for three consecutive seasons, it will trigger the super luxury tax.

One of the most obvious differences between the super luxury in this dimension and the reality is the additional provision that if a team's salary in a season exceeds the salary cap by 2000 million US dollars, the super luxury tax will be triggered in that season.

It can be seen that this is completely aimed at the Supersonics and the Lakers, two teams with overflowing talent.

Despite Clay Bennett's strong opposition, the situation of labor-management negotiations at that time had become clear.

Everyone hopes that the lockout will end as soon as possible so that there will be no room for troubled times. Moreover, no one wants to see the Supersonics or the Lakers monopolize the championship.

This made Bennett feel that he was the only loser in the lockout.

The canceled season cost him more than $100 million in profits, and the upcoming super luxury tax rules will plummet his profits.

In mid-June, labor and management reached an agreement.

A day later, the players announced that the players union was back in action.

Another day passed, and a new CBA agreement officially came into effect.

The nearly one-year shutdown came to an end.

It can be said that the management won a tragic victory in this shutdown.

They successfully wrested back 7% of basketball revenue dividends from players, shortened the maximum contract term to four years, and passed a super luxury tax.

However, the negative impact of losing an entire season will require multiple seasons to make up for.

From this point of view, there are no real winners and the past year has been a lost year for all industry insiders.

Next, the league will first hold the 2011 lottery drawing conference.

Since the season was canceled, teams participating in the lottery will be selected based on their rankings in the 2009-10 season.

In other words, the team that drafted last year will once again receive a lottery pick.

The 2011 lottery pick may be the least valuable lottery pick ever.

Because a large number of players choose to return to school to prepare for the 2012 draft.

The shutdown disrupted everything.

The team does not have enough time to observe the rookies, and the rookies are also worried that something unexpected will happen in the league.

Unless they can be sure that they will enter the league with a high draft pick, those who are not satisfied with their market will decisively return to college. Soon, the lottery draw results came out.

This time, no one can beat Washington in the competition of misery.

The Wizards won the No. 2011 pick in .

The teams after the Wizards are the Cavaliers, Bucks, 76ers and Raptors.

The Wizards are betting everything on keeping the nation's top-ranked North Carolina hawk Harrison Barnes in the draft.

For Barnes, if he had the chance to be selected as the No. 1 pick in the NBA, he certainly would not choose to go back to play in the NCAA.

In this regard, DC showed enough sincerity and they guaranteed to select Barnes with the No. 1 pick.

Then, the Cavaliers had trouble with the second pick.

They like Owen very much.

They sincerely believe that Irving is the most talented player in this draft, but unfortunately, they already have John Wall.

As a point guard, Wall looks far more solid than Irving and is more suitable to be cultivated as a core.

Therefore, Irving can only miss it and the Cavaliers need to find another good match.

The Bucks are not optimistic about this draft and they prefer to trade lottery picks.

The Raptors selected Swiss space forward Yijan Vesely from among a host of lottery picks.

Irving tried out for clubs with top-five picks but received no draft commitments.

This super point guard who should have been the No. 1 pick has made up his mind to return to the NCAA and prove that he has the potential to be a top three pick.

Irving withdrew from the race.

Since he did not sign a professional agent, this role was taken over by his relatives, so the NCAA determined that he was still eligible to play in college games.

This is another impact of the shutdown.

Irving, who should have entered the NBA with great fanfare as the No. 1 pick, accidentally started preparing for next year's draft.

In addition to Irving, there are Brandon Knight, Klay Thompson, Tobias Harris and Reggie Jackson who decided not to participate in this draft from the beginning.

Most of these people are sophomores and juniors. The turmoil in the NBA over the past year has given them a great sense of insecurity. This feeling of instability has made them unwilling to even try to participate in this year's draft, and they are simply placing their bets on next year.

As several high-ranking draft picks withdrew from the draft, expectations for this draft are approaching those of the 2000 draft.

An NBA executive who wished to remain anonymous pessimistically told the media: "This draft would be a success if we could produce an All-Star."

Even with such low expectations, teams are still preparing for the draft nervously.

Especially the strong teams.

Regardless of the talent depth of the draft class, they must go all out, as this is a rare opportunity to strengthen the team.

However, it is almost impossible to fill a year's gap in one month.

The Sonics are carefully selecting talent.

Sam Presti received Yu Fei's call in the midst of his busy schedule.

Yu Fei hopes that the team can try to get the signing rights of Patrick Beverley.

This is a player Presti had to search the Internet to find out who he was.

After figuring out Beverly's background, Presti began to have a dilemma.

In terms of price, Beverly is cheap.

He was a second-round pick in 2009, but has yet to play in the NBA because he was selected by the Lakers.

The Lakers chose to let him go.

Free-range is a modifier. Probably only one out of ten free-range players can touch the NBA floor.

Moreover, most of them were eliminated by the cruel competition after touching the NBA floor.

Because people who are truly worth training are usually not placed outside the NBA system.

So, Beverly is not worth the money.

However, the feud between the Supersonics and the Lakers is too deep, making it difficult to reach a deal.

That said, Presti still used a roundabout way to achieve his goal.

After all, Beverley is really an insignificant player to the Lakers.

Therefore, Presti contacted his former team, the Spurs.

No one knows what the specific negotiation process between them was like.

As a result, the Spurs bought Beverley's signing rights from the Lakers for cash.

Then, on draft eve, Presti traded this year's and next year's second-round picks to the Spurs for Beverley.

Presti's operation was also criticized by the outside world.

This is reminiscent of how Presti acquired Danny Green last year.

Due to the lockout, Green played in the CBA in China last season.

As a foreign aid, he was returned by CBA halfway through the season.

Although his average stats reached 23 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists, and his three-point shooting percentage was as high as 46%, in comparison, his stats only have a slight advantage over those national-level local players.

This advantage is definitely not what CBA teams want to see in foreign players.

They hope that Green can average 30 points per game like most CBA foreign players.

Green couldn't do it, so he was fired.

So, this is a player who can't even make it in the CBA, and people who care about the SuperSonics have begun to feel that something is wrong.

Now, everyone has just digested Danny Green, and Presti has brought in a 09 second-round pick who has never played in the NBA.

“Clay Bennett should probably consider taking the keys away from Sam Presti.” The Seattle Times reporters couldn’t get enough.

Presti had nothing to say about the outside world's criticism.

The reason why he used his own reputation to take the blame for Yu Fei was mainly because Yu Fei was indeed quite good at the talent show.

So, he believed that these two people could definitely make contributions.

A day later, the 2011 draft began with unanimous pessimism in the industry.

With so many players dropping out, this draft looks a bit lacking in talent even in the lottery.

Just as the Wizards promised, North Carolina prospect Harrison Barnes was selected as the No. 2011 pick in the draft.

The Cavaliers then selected the biggest safe card in this draft - Derrick Williams from the University of Southern California.

The Bucks, who wanted to trade the draft pick, chose Tristan Thompson as a supplement to the fourth position based on the current situation that Pau Gasol is about to leave the team.

The teams with the top four picks basically made what they thought were the right choices.

The draft has since gone into chaos.

It took NBA teams a month to confirm the T1 of this draft.

There are two players of this level, one is Barnes and the other is Williams. As expected, these two were selected in the top two picks.

Even for T1, the NBA's expectations for them are only to go from stable main players to potential All-Stars.

The T2 in this draft is considered to have the qualifications between sixth man and team starter.

Only six have reached this level.

From this we can see how unpopular this draft is.

Based on this severely underappreciated prospect, teams are very willing to trade draft picks.

This is an opportunity for small-market powerhouses that are about to face a lot of contract renewal pressure and are frightened by the luxury tax.

The Spurs struck again.

Last year, they didn't have time to inspect Paul George, and now, they used Goran Dragic and the 2013 first-round pick as bargaining chips to trade for the eighth pick from the Detroit Pistons and select Kemba Walker from the University of Connecticut.

This is a helpless move by the Spurs. Dragic has grown into a starting-level guard averaging 10 points and 5 assists per game, but he is about to enter the contract renewal season. At the same time, the Spurs also have Duncan and Ginobili who need to renew their contracts, and they do not want to bear three big contracts at the same time.

This is the original intention of the transaction. It can be said that the small market passively weakened itself in order to balance its income and expenditure. It was just a bad intention doing a good thing.

Subsequently, Kawhi Leonard, who Yu Fei paid the most attention to, was selected by the Warriors with the tenth pick in the first round.

Jimmy Butler, a latecomer outside the lottery, was selected by the Heat with the 20th pick in the first round.

When it came to the Sonics' round, Sam Presti broke through the chaos and selected the most handsome player in this draft - and who will also be the most handsome NBA player in active service - Chandler Parsons.

After this selection, the Sonics' draft day work came to an end.

Presti hopes his choice is the right one.

This will take time to test.

However, Yu Fei had already sent a celebratory text message.

"Great job as always, I love this choice!"

These few words made Presti feel relaxed instantly.

He sent a text message back to Yu Fei: "Fry, it's time to talk about your contract extension."

"The day after tomorrow," Yu Fei replied, "I'll go back to Seattle then."

The busy offseason is about to begin, and Presti is excited after a year-long break.

The worst thing about the lockout is that it froze all personnel changes, but it is also because of this that the offseasons that should have been spread out in two different years were accidentally squeezed together.

If this year's draft is as sluggish as the 2000s, this year's offseason will be as grand as the summer of 2009.

Led by Dwight Howard, Duncan, Yao Ming, Gasol, and Nowitzki, the league's top inside players seemed to have agreed on it and all became completely unrestricted free agents this summer.

(End of this chapter)