Pirates: I am Six Eyes Sukuna, the strongest one

"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 your contemporary, 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 a sneaker contract."

"So what?"

David Falk didn't understand.

"So!" Han Yi pushed the contract back: "You have to pay 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 lucrative contract for my players. It's just that he is not satisfied with the amount. Then 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, eventually collapsed!

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

But the bad thing is that there is a termination agreement that is absolutely in favor of the bosses, that is, if the NBA spends more than 51.8% of the money it earns in a year (especially basketball revenue) on the salaries of players, then the bosses have the right to re-sign new contracts with the players.

In 1998, three years later, the bosses had spent 58% of their money on player salaries, far exceeding the previous agreement. More than half of NBA bosses have been losing money and gaining publicity 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 contract of 126 million for 6 years in 1997!

Fans 20 years later may have no idea about this, because for the NBA 20 years later, this contract is pitifully small, and even non-All-Star role players can sign this level of contract casually.

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

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

This huge contract made 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 doesn't matter to 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 negotiations, it does not mean that they are too busy to even sign Michael Jordan back.

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

But the Bulls and Jordan have been in the seasonAfter the end, there was no talk of signing at all!

The Bulls did not make any statement, neither about renewing the contract nor about not signing, just focusing on the dynamics of the labor-management agreement.

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

In addition to the Bulls, there is really no other team in the league that can offer Jordan a big contract of 30 million+.

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!