Chapter 39: When in doubt, ask Dad
If someone else trained like Pierce, especially at the age of 18, he would probably fail.
But the Phoenix is the Phoenix, and Pierce has transformed from a flexible fat man into a strong man...
In the evening, Pierce's mother prepared a sumptuous dinner and invited Zhang Hao and April Clark to join. The next morning, Pierce was urged by her mother to go to the University of Kansas.
In the words of Pierce's mother, if Pierce didn't choose UCLA, she really wanted to beat him to death with a belt.
On Zhang Hao's side, he went to USC with April Clark and completed the admission procedures smoothly.
After completing the admission procedures, Zhang Hao accompanied April Clark to buy a used car.
The cost of living on campus at a university in the United States is about US$6,000 a year. This year's housing fee is US$5,200. With miscellaneous expenses, it is almost US$6,000 a year. Renting an apartment, such as Pierce's apartment, is only US$3,000 a year, which is twice the cost. The money saved on accommodation in a year is enough to buy a decent used car for transportation.
The University of Southern California is less than 20 kilometers away from Inglewood, so it is much more cost-effective to drive to school than to live on campus.
After settling the enrollment issue, April Clarke was busy with school matters, but Zhang Hao was not in a hurry. April Clarke was busy because she was studying art and needed to get to know the teachers and other classmates and build good relationships. As for Zhang Hao, when he entered the school to register, people gathered around him and reporters took pictures...
The NBA negotiations broke down again, but the media generally predicted that an agreement would be reached in the first half of September to avoid affecting the training camp starting in October.
In addition, the NBA's purchasing department and the purchasing departments of each team have already released the tender notices and have begun preparing for the new season.
From the information he learned about this shutdown, Zhang Hao came to a conclusion that both labor and management were simply expressing their dissatisfaction directly.
Both sides have a basic goal, which is to avoid further negotiations and shutdowns before the current labor agreement expires in 1998, and to come up with a solution that both sides can compromise on and are temporarily satisfied with, so as to complete the remaining three years of this labor agreement first.
Because all current negotiations are conducted on the basis of the 1988 labor agreement, there is no way to make radical changes. If you want to make major changes to the labor agreement, you have to wait until 1998 .
This is just a shutdown to vent the dissatisfaction of both labor and management.
This also made Zhang Hao understand why basketball fans in later generations knew little about the 1995 lockout, because it was not important.
Zhang Hao's current plan is to go to class first. After more than a month of strength training, he also wants to take a break. It's not just a pure rest, but he will go to professional classes if there are any, and take time out every day to practice shooting, waiting for the team gathering day at the end of September and the training camp starting on October 1st.
Also, you should take this opportunity to find a lawyer in case you need help in the future.
The players' union was contacted, the announcement for recruiting an agent was withdrawn, and then an announcement for recruiting a lawyer was issued.
Although the players' union takes a cut of salaries and can also make money with the tax money entrusted by players every year, the players' union is indeed a useful organization. They will help with these troublesome matters, and they have also established a very complete network of relationships over the past few decades, which makes it convenient to do anything.
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Falcao Agency, Los Angeles.
This was a once very glorious agency. When there were only more than 300 NBA players, they owned more than 200 of them, and at least half of the players on each team were represented by this agency.
During that period, the percentage of agents' salaries that they took was relatively high, reaching as high as 15 percent at one point.
Among them, Falcao's agency earned the vast majority of the money.
In 1991, when NBA players' total annual salary income was US$260 million, this company's annual revenue reached more than US$27 million, exceeding 10% of the total annual salary of NBA players, of which US$16 million was a commission from the players' salaries.
The remaining 10 million US dollars in income was Jordan's endorsement dividend alone. After Jordan won the championship that year, his total endorsement income exceeded 50 million US dollars, and nearly a quarter of it went to Falcao's agency.
From 1991 to 1993, Jordan alone gave David Falcao more than 50 million US dollars in endorsement dividends.
There were rumors that Jordan retired because he didn't want to pay so much money to his agent David Falcao every year. This was because the contract between Jordan and David Falcao was valid during his playing career. If he retired and then returned to the game, he would have to sign a new cooperation agreement. However, Nike still had to pay him the same dividends during his retirement.
As the most successful athlete agency in the world in the past decade, Falcao Agency has declined since the 1990s. The league does not want to continue to see one agency own more than half of the league's players. According to Detroit media reports, three years ago, the Pistons suddenly fell from a 50-win team to not making the playoffs, and Rodman and the rest of the Bad Boys had an internal conflict. It was David Falcao who instigated it behind the scenes. Although the Bad Boys were unlikely to continue to cause trouble for Jordan at that time, the conflict between Rodman, who was under David Falcao, and the rest of the Bad Boys made Jordan's path to dominating the Eastern Conference easier.
In 1993, when Jordan retired, the league set a new salary commission rate, which could not exceed 4%, directly cutting off more than half of the agents' income. In the previous season, the average salary commission rate for all players in the league was close to 10%.
Of course, during that period, player salaries were rising rapidly, so it didn’t have much of an impact on the agents of players who had just signed new contracts.
But for the agents of most players who still have a salary of more than 100,000 US dollars a year, the 4% commission on these players' salaries seems dispensable. Maybe after a lawsuit, the agency will have to pay out of pocket. These days, players generally like to cause trouble, and the old agent contracts have clauses that the agency has to help the players with lawsuits...
Among them, David Falcao's agency was the hardest hit. They once owned more than half of the players in the league, and in fact, most of the low-paid players belonged to their company.
More importantly, with the substantial increase in players' salaries, the league has tightened its control over agents. The previous situation where players were weak and agents were strong has been quickly reversed. In the past, agencies were powerful, and their style of doing things naturally made many players dissatisfied.
Gradually, David Falcao's agency also declined. NBA players are replaced frequently. Up to now, David Falcao's agency has only more than 30 players under its management.
The point is that in recent years they have been defeated miserably in their game with the NBA officials!
David Falcao has witnessed the skills of the old Jewish man in New York.
10 years!
It took Stern 10 years to bring down this big boss in the agent industry.
During this period, he also took the initiative to cooperate with him and used Jordan to promote the NBA to the world.
Finally, at the critical juncture after Jordan retired, he brought down his agent who used players to control the league.
He admired this skill.
However, David Falcao was not too depressed about this. He did not feel ashamed to lose to a figure like David Stern.
In any case, during the period when players' salaries and endorsement fees skyrocketed, he had already made a lot of money from those players.
David Falcao is really facing a headache now. Charles Banks, one of his very capable and eloquent agents who has signed several talented new stars, has come to him to complain again.
These two days, Charles Banks came to him to scold Zhang Hao, one of this year's two major high school lottery picks, because Zhang Hao rejected his interview request.
Reject that statement, David Falk found it very interesting.
Banks are scammers...
David Falk also thinks that Charles Banks loves to brag and always makes wild promises to players. What he says sounds good but the probability of fulfilling them is extremely low. He is really no different from a liar.
The point is not this. David Falk knew why Charles Banks came to him to complain - he wanted him to give up his position as the boss of the agency. Because Banks, who had Glenn Robinson, already had the highest salary of the players under his management among all the agents , higher than him as the boss, because Jordan still had a salary of more than 3 million US dollars, and he had no share of the endorsement dividends. Garnett was also a player under Banks, and Banks actually tricked Garnett into giving him 1 million a year for the endorsement fee of 4 million a year.
Compared to him who was just brought down by David Stern, Banks is currently at the peak of his career in their company.
David Falk has another option, which is to let Banks go independent, so that Banks doesn't have to pay any money to the company.
David Falk would definitely not choose either option.
Just drag it on...
Banks was scolding Zhang Hao when his cell phone rang. After answering the call, he was overjoyed and said, "That Chinese high school student has removed the information about recruiting an agent. It seems that he doesn't want an agent anymore. When he renews his contract, we will send the player to any team that is interested in him..."
David Falcao was speechless when he heard what Banks said. This trick worked ten years ago, but now, there are more and more connections between players. The relationship between players may be much better than that between players and agents. Times have changed.
But it didn't matter to him, so it didn't matter.
After sending away the chattering Banks, David Falcao thought of Jordan's training he saw a few days ago...something can happen next summer!
For this purpose, he was ready to contact the victim in New York. In this kind of situation, he had to find someone to step forward. He knew that those teams hated him very much. Generally, when something big happened, he didn't want to appear in the sight of those team managements, otherwise, there was a high probability that something bad would happen.
A few more days passed.
David Falcao was chatting with an official from the players' union. He heard from him that the league had chosen to make concessions and would not change the current salary terms for the time being. The players' union was also ready to make concessions and completely set the fixed salary for rookie contracts, on the condition that the number of years for rookie contracts must be limited. It won't be long before the NBA will resume operations in an orderly manner...
During the conversation, the people from the players' union actually talked about Zhang Hao, which surprised David Falcao.
"David, today's high school students are really too much. Garnett from your company signed a three-year, $12 million endorsement contract, and that high school student in China wants to cooperate with Starbucks to establish a branch in China..."
"Watt? Sean, what did you say?"
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The market for Zhang Hao's agent suddenly became hot.
The reason, of course, is that Starbucks wanted to take advantage of the popularity in China and leaked the news that it wanted to cooperate with Zhang Hao.
It takes at least two years for foreign catering brands to officially do business in China, from company registration, market surveys, headquarters construction, raw material testing, raw material logistics preparation, direct store site selection, employee recruitment and training, etc. In the early stages, they usually have to make continuous investments. Catering brands that don’t have the strength dare not enter the Chinese market at all. Even if they can see the market, they may be dragged down before they even start their business.
But Starbucks will not be dragged down. They are very good at financing. They need time, so after deciding to do it and convincing investors, they will take action.
Zhang Hao rejected many meeting requests from agents. At the beginning, he contacted three famous agents, but they all wanted to interfere in Starbucks' affairs, so he directly refused the meeting.
Coming at this time, the purpose is too obvious.
Zhang Hao finally gave up signing an agent and contacted the players' union for help in recruiting a lawyer.
When recruiting lawyers, we receive more interview calls than when recruiting agents. Lawyers can get as many business as possible because they are paid in cash.
The players' union recommended a young lawyer who had helped the union win several lawsuits. Zhang Hao had no grudges against the players' union in this regard, so he was just prepared to accept the recommendation of the players' union and give the union an interview.
Unexpectedly, the players' union recommended a name he was familiar with.
Robert Pelinka.
Zhang Hao really didn't know that Pelinka was a lawyer when he was young, but thinking back, when Pelinka was the general manager of the Lakers, that is, more than 20 years later, he was only in his 40s. When he became Kobe's agent, it seemed to be just a few years later, when he was less than 30 years old.
At the age of 23, he has become well-known in the legal profession and has been recommended by the players' union. He is indeed a talent. Zhang Hao chose Pelinka as his attorney.
As for Pelinka, things got messy the day after he signed the cooperation agreement with Zhang Hao. This high school student actually wanted to do business with Starbucks! And he was a partner! They had already sent someone to have a preliminary meeting!
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We are really going to cooperate with Starbucks...
When it comes to investing, many times you don't have the channels to invest just because you want to.
Zhang Hao thought that the other party was just saying it casually, or was just being polite because he helped take care of the other person's daughter. Maybe the other party had such an impulse at the time, but after calming down, he would pretend that nothing happened.
But if you think about it carefully, there seems to be nothing wrong with the other party's operation. It can only be said that it is very decisive. Just like when they found a representative among black basketball players, that is, O'Neal, to work with, Starbucks just wants to find a Chinese basketball player as a representative.
Maybe all he can get is a small portion of equity, which is useless. Maybe he can become a spokesperson, but it has to be free. If he doesn't make a name for himself, isn't popular enough, and can't bring any help, he will become a pseudo-partner who only gets a salary...
However, even if the final equity was only 1%, Zhang Hao felt that he had made a profit! And as a partner, it was impossible for him to only have 1%.
But Zhang Hao didn't know what to do. What he needed first was to avoid his own risks. What he wanted was to sell his shares when the stock price was high in the future, rather than investing together.
Zhang Hao felt that finding a lawyer was not enough. Unfortunately, he was not good at this and had no friends who knew this. So, he called his father...
On August 20, after Starbucks sent a formal invitation, seafood merchant Zhang Weiguo, with the help of Pelinka using Zhang Hao's identity as an NBA player, quickly obtained a visa and rushed to Los Angeles. He took away an agency letter from Zhang Hao and Zhang Hao's newly signed lawyer Pelinka, and went to negotiate with Starbucks.
Zhang Weiguo is very good at English. He was the first person to make money among the group of people importing seafood from Australia. He once suffered losses due to the language barrier, so he managed to learn English. By the way, he also taught his son Zhang Hao English.
Zhang Weiguo told Zhang Hao not to worry about this matter. He would go back and deal with it. After the initial contact, if the initial intention could be reached, he would return to China to continue the talks . The first goal was to avoid the risks that Zhang Hao would have to bear.
Zhang Hao was happy to have some free time and continued his classes. The only thing that upset him was that his father came and went to have a great chat with the lawyer without saying a few words to him, completely ignoring who brought him this opportunity.
When he thought about this, Zhang Hao felt depressed, but when he didn't think about it, it seemed that the cooperation with Starbucks had no effect on him at all.
As time went by, Zhang Hao did what he was supposed to do. He studied hard in class and had agreed with the school that he could take a long vacation at any time after the NBA resumed operations. He must study hard to learn sports medicine, which would be very helpful for him if he wanted to become a coach in the future, and it would also help him to understand his own physical condition.
In his spare time, he just practices normally. Although his mid-range shooting has stagnated, it is always good to keep training. He knows how to practice speeding up his shooting speed and speeding up shooting after receiving the ball. It just takes time to practice slowly.
Turnaround jump shot has also become one of the main items in his training.
He has his own clear development direction, and the first step is to expand his technology around mid-range shots.
The first thing to do is not to expand the shooting area, but to use the existing mid-range shot and existing athletic ability to strengthen catch-and-shoot and tactical practice. This can only be done after officially returning to the team, so for now, we should continue to practice training to speed up our shooting speed. Even if it is improved by 0.1 seconds, it is good.
As time went by, Zhang Hao was immersed in shooting training and tactical learning.
Finally, on September 1, NBA owners and the players' union reached an agreement in the first negotiation of the new month, and the NBA lockout ended!
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"The longest rookie contract is no more than 5 years. I remember that the first-round picks will have a fixed 4-year contract in the future? And there are no player or team options. It seems that the first-round contracts in the future will still be subject to change. It seems that they will not be determined until the next labor agreement.
Rookie contracts fix salaries based on draft position and salary cap, and can increase by up to 10 percent. This is the same rule as last year, except that it has been officially confirmed to remain unchanged until the 97-98 season.
The flexible salary cap continues..."
Zhang Hao looked at the changes to the NBA labor agreement that Pelinka had sorted out. As reported by the American Cable TV Station, the core framework cannot be changed, and only adjustments have been made to the details. If the core framework is changed, both sides will definitely want to strive for terms that are beneficial to their side. Once a war breaks out, it will definitely take a year or two to reach an agreement.
It's just a fake lockout for both sides to protest. The only loss is the unprofitable summer league. There are almost no other losses. The free market is just shortened.
The NBA's resumption of operations statement announced the opening time of the free market. At 12 a.m. tonight, signings, trades, and other activities can begin.
In the afternoon, Zhang Hao received a call informing him that he could use the Continental Airlines Arena for training at any time. All trainers and staff had returned to their posts. The latest return date was September 27, and the training camp would start on October 1.
However, the head coach told him that he didn't need to rush back and could train and study at school first.
Zhang Hao knew what head coach Butch Baird meant. Perhaps he could become a bargaining chip in a trade. Although the probability was low, in the NBA, any player could become one of the bargaining chips in a trade. If other teams really gave him a bargaining chip that could not be refused, the Nets would definitely make a trade.
After all, he is just a high school rookie.
In that case, he was not in a hurry to go to Rutherford Town.
The next day, the weekend, Zhang Hao did not go to the Inglewood High School gym for training like he did on previous weekends. Instead, he went to a cafe with his lawyer Robert Pelinka to meet with an agent.
Since he had the possibility of cooperating with Starbucks to establish a branch in China and would become a partner once the cooperation began, even though he had stopped recruiting an agent, many people still contacted him, and Pelinka helped answer the calls.
Most of the meeting requests were rejected. Zhang Hao knew that many agents came for a piece of the pie, and God knows what decisions they will make that are unfavorable to him. Dad has already returned to China, and the head of Starbucks in China has also gone to China. Zhang Hao handed this matter over to Dad. Compared with others, Dad is more trustworthy, and Dad knows the current domestic business market and rules best. After all, he is one of the earliest seafood merchants and a member of the imported catering industry.
And as for the agent... let's wait and see. Pelinka is quite useful. Although he is a lawyer, Zhang Hao found that Pelinka really has the ability to be an agent. With his current income, even if the lawyer's fees are more expensive, the money spent in a year will not be particularly much.
It’s better to have no agent than to have the wrong one. It would be terrible if he encounters the same pitfall as those two No. 21s.
However, this time the agent, Pelinka, said it would be best not to refuse a meeting, as it was too hasty to reject Charles Banks' request for a meeting.
Because both of them are big-name agents under the Falcao Agency, which was once a giant in the sports industry.
Although Falcao's agency's NBA business is currently declining, it is still bigger than a horse. The company has signed many players in football, ice hockey, and baseball. There are more than a hundred players in the four largest leagues in North America, and most of the players earn over one million US dollars. The annual income of the entire agency is more than 6 million US dollars.
Zhang Hao also had an impression of the agent who requested the meeting this time, the creator of the infamous "Decision Season 1" in the future - Henry Thomas. 15 years later, this agent would be regarded as a thorn in the eyes of the management of the 29 teams in the league, the new generation of David Falcao, and eventually leave the NBA.
