Chapter 40: Let's get on the pirate ship together
The biggest beneficiaries of "Decision Season 1" are undoubtedly the Heat and the Big Three, but for agents, the biggest beneficiaries are actually those players who are a tier below the Big Three. Many teams made room for James, Bosh and Wade, but the Big Three formed a team, and other teams had no place to use their salary space, so they could only pay high salaries to the second-tier players. The second-tier is always better than having no one, but it generated a lot of premium contracts and junk contracts, which became one of the reasons for the lockout in 2011.
Zhang Hao saw the news about him, which was that it was his birthday and the Big Three of the Heat went together to celebrate his birthday.
Let’s meet them. Zhang Hao also understands the power of agents. The future Lakers will rely on James and James’ brother Rich Paul to make the slogan “Lakers Championship” come true.
That was 24 years later when the players had more control over themselves!
At this stage, although the David Falcao agency that once owned more than half of the players in the league has declined, the power of agents should not be underestimated.
Although Zhang Hao has his own ideas, he still has to meet him.
The lockout is over, and I estimate that I will have to go to Rutherford Town in half a month at most to deal with these matters to avoid trouble after returning to the team.
He also wants to go to the team for more professional training. The equipment in the NBA team's stadium must be the most advanced basketball stadium of this era, and the training facilities must be the most complete.
The most important thing is the training beyond shooting training, so that NBA teams can have more professional guidance.
It seems that the Nets don't have much possibility of making a big deal. Coleman has been sent away, and Kenny Anderson is left. They will definitely not send any more players away. After Zhang Hao accepted Pelinka's proposal for a meeting, he said: "Robert, please help me collect the information of the players the Nets currently have. Thank you..."
…
…
Looking at the middle-aged man in front of him who looked like an old American farmer, Zhang Hao could not believe that this honest-looking man had actually played all the teams around in the summer of 2010.
But after the meeting started, Zhang Hao knew why this agent was able to make those teams run around in circles. He felt that Henry Thomas spoke very "realistically". It might be his image and temperament that gave Henry Thomas an innate advantage in this regard, which is that he feels real. Whether it is really real or not is not important, at least listening to him speak feels very real.
"... I think your first goal in your rookie season should be to secure your position as a shooter without the ball. I believe your shooting ability and athleticism can earn you a certain amount of playing time on the Nets, but you have to be patient. The NBA is different from high school. It is difficult to have the same core position as in high school. However, I will help you communicate with the team and let them know your abilities. I will also help you in other ways. Alan Houston is also a player under our company. I can help you make an appointment with him to practice shooting together. He is very helpful..."
Henry Thomas is very honest. He speaks honestly and gives honest suggestions. He shows his character in every aspect.
However, Zhang Hao was very calm. Even though he didn't know how well Henry Thomas would be able to make all the teams run around in circles in the future, he was calm about these things for other reasons. On the one hand, he had several years of work experience and was not an ordinary 18-year-old high school graduate. On the other hand, he only had 300 days to live, so he had to deal with many things in his career more calmly.
After Henry Thomas finished talking about his advice and growth plan for the next year, Zhang Hao said, "Mr. Thomas, my rookie contract has already been signed, and I may not get another contract in the future. You must be very clear about the average career length of NBA players. Even if I am a lottery rookie, the average career length of lottery rookies is not particularly long. Aren't you afraid of working for me for nothing for a few years?"
"I'm afraid," Henry Thomas responded without hesitation, and then continued, "But I believe that salary is only a part of your income. I know you won't let others interfere with the cooperation with Starbucks, but I think your commercial value is underestimated. As long as you can make it, I believe that with the vast market in China and the Chinese market around the world, your endorsement income will definitely not be low. Although there are risks, I think you are worth my effort, Aix."
Henry Thomas' words made Zhang Hao's eyes light up.
After meeting so many agents, Henry Thomas is the first one who is so keen on the Chinese market!
Before Yao Ming entered the NBA and brought huge commercial benefits to Houston, NBA teams and agents did not pay much attention to the Chinese market.
These days, the comments about China that Zhang Hao sees in the news are very bad. Not to mention now, even more than 20 years later, there are very few good things said about China in American news.
When Zhang Hao met with the agents who wanted to sign him, it was obvious that they just wanted to sign him to try their luck and see if he could perform well and whether he could sign another contract three years later.
For those big-name agents, he has no value now that he has signed a rookie contract, but there are still many agents who are not doing well who want to sign him.
But no one mentioned "market value".
Zhang Hao knew that as long as he performed well, his market value would not be low and endorsement fees would come naturally, but none of the agents who came to the meeting mentioned this.
Without even this kind of vision, Zhang Hao found it hard to believe in their abilities.
Although his selection method eliminated a large number of people, and no agents came to him before Starbucks revealed the cooperation, he didn't care, because those who came to him were not doing well in the first place.
If he wants to attract agents with commercial value, he must find a capable agent. If the agent is not capable enough, who knows how many pitfalls he might encounter. He doesn't have the time to deal with those things.
Others cannot understand his confidence, but he is so confident in this aspect.
On the other side, Henry Thomas saw that Zhang Hao's eyes had changed and there was a sense of seriousness instead of the pure courtesy before, and he knew that there was a chance!
"Aix, you can try to cooperate with me. I'll tell you something that hasn't been made public yet. Falcao is ready to dissolve the Falcao agency, but it will take time. He still has things to do. But he has informed me to set up his own studio. I'm making preparations and can work alone at any time..."
Henry Thomas is trying hard to sell himself. He knows this is an opportunity, an opportunity to tie himself to a player who may have unlimited commercial value in the future, just like David Falcao.
David Falcao became a billionaire thanks to Jordan and is preparing to retire. Henry Thomas also wants to be such an agent.
He is not good at salary negotiation, but he is good at using the way players sign contracts to influence the free agent market and try to get big contracts for players or to facilitate star team-ups. For example, he creates a big year for the free market, allowing multiple big-name stars' contracts to expire in the same summer, allowing a large number of teams to free up salary space. When the stars have a home, some teams naturally still have a lot of salary space and can only sign "spare tires". Stars who are not that good can often take the opportunity to get big contracts. The agent only needs to spread the word that a certain team has offered a bigger contract.
He was actually quite frustrated. He was a shrewd man in his 40s, but he couldn't do anything to Zhang Hao. He couldn't tempt Zhang Hao with benefits, as Zhang Hao seemed to have no interest in those things at all.
But despite the frustration, he felt excited!
After the news of Zhang Hao's cooperation with Starbucks was exposed, he received instructions from David Falcao to investigate the Chinese market and Zhang Hao.
As for the former, Henry Thomas found the Chinese market incredible after his investigation! The rapid development in China was something he had never understood before, and Zhang Hao's popularity in the sports circle in China was beyond his imagination.
What made him feel that this was an opportunity was actually the latter, that is, investigating Zhang Hao.
Outsiders are allowed to visit the basketball hall of Inglewood High School, but they did not affect Zhang Hao's training.
When Zhang Hao was training, there were people outside the training ground watching from time to time.
This is one of the ways Inglewood High School recruits students. Their students mainly come from the Greater Los Angeles metropolitan area. After Zhang Hao was selected as a high school student, he naturally became a well-known figure in the student community in Los Angeles and even California. His training here has become a living advertisement for the school's enrollment.
Henry Thomas pretended to be a parent of a student who came to inspect the school and went to watch. As a professional agent, he saw that apart from Zhang Hao's appearance and body shape, he did not look like an 18-year-old child at all.
He also used some tricks to learn the details of Zhang Hao's training from his sparring partner Jason Hart, and learned about Zhang Hao's terrifying improvement during his hard training...
Jason Hart is a potential stock in the eyes of his agent. He was well-known in California during junior high school. In Inglewood High School, a strong team in California high school basketball, he did not have many opportunities to perform in his freshman year. But after Zhang Hao and Pierce graduated, Jason Hart was the absolute core. It is inevitable that he will enter the NCAA in the future, and he has hope of entering the NBA.
But Jason Hart is far behind Zhang Hao.
Being selected at the age of 18, he must be talented.
After a more detailed investigation, Henry Thomas became more certain that Zhang Hao was talented. Scott Collins, the former head coach of the Inglewood High School basketball team, brought back a child from China, and he must have excellent talent. If his talent was average, it would be better to find a local high school student, which would not be so troublesome.
When Zhang Hao showed his athleticism in the McDonald's Slam Dunk Contest and his shooting talent in the Adidas training camp, he immediately had a draft pick in the late first round to early second round, which was not bad for a player who just graduated from high school! In the end, a team took Zhang Hao with the 9th pick, which was definitely a bet on talent.
With such talent and self-discipline, Zhang Hao has a higher chance of becoming a star! The biggest income for agents is the share of the players' salaries. Currently, there are more than 600 registered agents in the NBA, but only about 100 of them have NBA players under them. Among them, only less than 70 have an annual income of more than 10,000 US dollars. Many agents only earn enough to eat and have to do other part-time jobs. Many players signed by agents are not selected.
As the saying goes, those who are flooded will die of flooding, and those who are thirsty will die of thirst. Jordan's agent, David Falcao, does not receive much salary commission, but he takes more than 10 million US dollars from Jordan's sneaker revenue every year. Henry Thomas is also doing well, but his income last season was only about 200,000 US dollars. He is not poor, but he is not very wealthy either. He is already in his 40s. If he doesn't try his best, he will have to admit that he is mediocre.
Currently, the NBA salary market is on the verge of exploding. Henry Thomas is extremely optimistic about Zhang Hao's prospects. Coupled with Zhang Hao's potential in commercial value... it's worth a try!
After listening to Henry Thomas's self-promotion, Zhang Hao pondered for a while, came up with an idea, and responded: "Mr. Thomas, you have a good vision, and I really want to cooperate with you.
But I want to change it. If you want to open your own agency, why don’t we open an agency together…”
"????"
Henry Thomas was very excited to hear the first half of Zhang Hao's words, but the second half was completely beyond his expectations.
This freshman was going to cooperate with him, but not to become a player under him, but to cooperate in opening an agency!
"Mr. Thomas, what direction do you think the NBA will go in?
I think players will have more and more say, and there is still a big difference between athletes and people in the entertainment industry. Do you think so too?
In the past, players might rely on their agents to recommend which team to play for, and the agents would then promote the players to sponsors.
But now, you should have noticed that it is the sponsors who come to the players to offer endorsement contracts. Times have changed.
I think the smartest thing for agents to do is to work with players. When others haven't done this yet, can we try it first? We can try to gain a greater voice in the future..."
Henry Thomas returned to his residence, thinking about what Zhang Hao had said to him, and felt that this rookie with only a high school education and a freshman was more difficult to deal with than he had imagined... Who was promoting himself? Originally, he went to Zhang Hao to promote himself as an agent, but in the end, he was promoted instead.
"Were we also fooled in Starbucks?"
Henry Thomas began to imagine the scene of being fooled by Starbucks...
He analyzed that his character is down-to-earth and has vision; then Zhang Hao's character should be calm, logical, eloquent, and confident!
The more he thought about it, the more he felt that what Zhang Hao said made sense. He had never thought of such a possibility before the situation where players would be involved in the work of agents.
But with this idea in mind, he looked back at the development of the NBA over the past decade or so and it is indeed moving in this direction. Although it is still far from that situation, analyzing from the laws of development, it is indeed the case.
He had to slow down, otherwise he might call and agree on impulse. He had to calm down and called his boss David Falcao to have a good discussion with him...
On the other side, Zhang Hao and Pelinka came to a restaurant for lunch.
Looking at Zhang Hao eating the watery vegetable soup, bland chicken and duck meat, I wondered how Zhang Hao managed to swallow all that.
"Maybe the reason I didn't make it to the NBA is because I don't have the self-discipline of Axelsen..."
Pelinka thought about how he was also one of the top 10 high school students in Illinois, but quickly fell behind in college. After graduating from college two years ago, he successfully became a lawyer.
In addition to Zhang Hao's efforts as a player, what surprised Pelinka even more was that Zhang Hao did not look like an 18-year-old boy off the court.
Just when Pelinka was thinking about the scene where Zhang Hao almost fooled Henry Thomas, he heard the voice of the boy sitting opposite him: "Robert, I heard that you were also a high school basketball star?"
Hearing this, Pelinka smiled bitterly and said, "I can't compare with you. I am only in the top 10 in Illinois at best, but you are the top AAA-level talented high school student, and dozens of Division I universities are lining up for you to choose from."
The queue was probably something that happened after the Adidas training camp... Zhang Hao didn't talk about this aspect. People's memories are always so strange. Many people have completely forgotten that he had no chance to get into college before... Although at that time, not many people knew that no school was willing to give him a basketball scholarship...
"Robert, I think you still love basketball, right? Since you can't become a professional player, why not try another way?
I think you are overqualified as a lawyer. You are so interested in the NBA and know so much about it. I think those professional agents are not as familiar with and understand NBA rules and regulations as you are. How about we cooperate and start a brokerage company together?
If we don’t go crazy, we will soon grow old, and life is always as short as a summer flower…”
Shit! They tricked me!
But I have to say that Pelinka was moved...
Young people always find it easy to rekindle their dreams.
But now Pelinka has something to say - brother, my lawyer fees haven't been paid yet!
…
…
"On September 2, 1995, I, Robert Pelinka, 24 years old, was tricked into joining an 18-year-old college freshman NBA rookie..."
The next morning, after Pelinka got up, he wrote yesterday's diary, which contained only this sentence.
He didn’t keep a diary before, and now, he’s not a serious person.
Get to work! Register a brokerage firm!
But first he had to contact Henry Thomas. Pelinka was very keen to sense the unusualness of this not-so-famous agent. Since he wanted to open an agency, he had to poach this old veteran.
For a person who is honest, as long as he remains honest during the cooperation, whether he is pretending or real, it is real to his partners.
What worries Pelinka is that this task is very difficult. He really can't imagine what qualifications he, a 24-year-old young lawyer, and Zhang Hao, an 18-year-old rookie who has never played an NBA game, have to dig Henry Thomas.
If they told others about this mission, they would think that these two young people were too arrogant.
But it's just arrogance, because they are all young people, and that's how young people do business, isn't it?
To them, digging up Henry Thomas was pure empty-handed trickery…
However, this feeling of getting something for nothing made Pelinka very excited! If they failed, they would not lose anything. If they succeeded, they would have a very good foundation. Henry Thomas, who had been in the agent industry for more than ten years, had a network of contacts that the two young people could not compare to.
If the plan to poach Henry Thomas fails, then Pelinka will not register an agency for the time being. He and Zhang Hao have agreed that he will become Zhang Hao's agent and work for a powerful agency to learn how to be an agent, accumulate experience, and build connections...
There is a radical route, but if the radical route fails, there is also a safe route. Pelinka thinks Zhang Hao's arrangement is very good.
But he always felt that something was wrong, as if he had forgotten something. He really wanted to say it yesterday, but as they were chatting, he was distracted by Zhang Hao and forgot everything.
But now that Pelinka has the opportunity to do a basketball-related job again, he can't care so much. Just like Zhang Hao said - if we don't go crazy, we will get old.
In the evening, Pelinka, who was ready for the talks, met with Henry Thomas again for dinner.
"That rookie actually meant it!"
When Henry Thomas received the call from Pelinka, he still found it unbelievable. He thought that the guy just had a sudden idea on a whim, but he didn't expect that he would really do it.
After hearing Pelinka explain his imperfect plan to build their own company, Henry Thomas already knew what the other party wanted to talk about when he received the call. He felt that the other party was really brave... but it seemed that the other party would not lose anything even if he failed. He felt that it was really good to be young.
Without agreeing or refusing, Henry Thomas asked, "Robert, do you think we can succeed? I've been in the industry for so many years and have a certain amount of capital to spend. Axelrod is a player and he always earns more than us and is invincible, but what about you? As far as I know, you have only graduated from college for two years, right? Although you have a certain reputation in the professional sports lawyer community, I don't think you have much savings."
This knife was so fierce! Pelinka felt like his heart was hit hard.
But Henry Thomas said it honestly, Pelinka is the weakest one.
However, Pelinka had thought about this issue last night and responded: "I have my advantages. I am younger than you and Henry. I can do many things without having to consider my face. I can make mistakes. I am worth my bet, not because of his cooperation with Starbucks, but because he understands me and knows what I want to pursue. Although we have not known each other for a long time, I know what is special about him.
And we have you, an experienced agent with a wide network of contacts.”
Henry Thomas nodded with a smile: "This is indeed a very promising combination..."
Praise or ridicule? Pelinka didn't hear it this time.
"I have several players under me now. If we set up an agency, according to convention, I need to invest at least a quarter of my income. Robert, if you resign from the law firm, you should have no income, right? Axe is working with Starbucks. I don't know when he wants to get the money, and he probably won't invest it in the company we set up. His rookie contract has already been signed... Where can we get the money?"
Henry Thomas raised a very realistic issue, and it is the most realistic issue.
But at this point, Pelinka felt that there was a chance, and responded: "The agency's expenses shouldn't be too much, right? I calculated that you should have to pay 50,000 yuan at present. I really don't have money, but I think I am a good lawyer. One of the biggest expenses of the agency is the lawyer's fee. We don't have to think about it, leave everything to me. And most importantly, your 50,000 yuan is not the bulk of the start-up capital!
As per custom, Axel is going to invest the commission that his agent gets from his rookie contract into the company, not only now, but also if he signs a new contract in the future. Also, if we can help him get an endorsement contract, he will take a commission as per custom, except that his portion of the commission will be company income.
His goal is not to set up a brokerage firm to reduce his expenses, maybe he is more ambitious than you and me...
But we are going to set up our agency, provided, as you said, David Falcao allows you to go out on your own."
Henry Thomas was indeed surprised. Last night, he discussed with David Falcao the topic that Zhang Hao said "players will be the masters of the future". He did not expect that Zhang Hao would take the initiative to offer to take a commission according to convention.
After David Falcao's company went into decline in recent years, he planned to make one last fortune and then retire. Henry Thomas, as David Falcao's close friend and early partner, learned of this news in advance and originally intended to use it as a bargaining chip to promote himself to Zhang Hao. Nowadays, any agent who cuts off relations with David Falcao is quite popular with players, but he didn't expect that Zhang Hao didn't care about this at all.
Since he was going to do it anyway, Henry Thomas thought about it and decided that working on his own, with a free lawyer and an NBA player willing to provide start-up capital, wouldn't that be much better than working on his own?
After making up his mind, Henry Thomas said to Pelinka: "I think you need to prepare the registration information and partnership contract for the agency as soon as possible..."
At this moment, Pelinka felt that the way Henry Thomas looked at him was exactly the same as the way Zhang Hao looked at him. He felt as if he had lost something again...
