One Year Left to Play

Chapter 623: Chapter 192: The Time Has Come! (2)

But he still complained, "We could obviously spend more time and energy on those players with promising futures and more opportunities."

"Just because we don’t need to worry about the futures and opportunities of others, we need to focus on the talented ones who lack opportunities... Actually Jermaine is quite pitiful, he went to the Blazers, but there are so many inside players there, he might not even get to play as a substitute."

"Yeah, my only worry is Jermaine; I thought the Warriors would choose him, but who knew they’d pick Todd Fler, are they blind?"

"Patience is all we need; Jermaine is only 17, and he won’t be 18 when the new season starts, he just needs to take money and learn from experience, Bob, it’s not that they’re blind, it’s just that you have a good eye."

Pelinka loves hearing this!

Zhang Hao always manages to seize the moment to give colleagues encouragement when needed, and Pelinka immediately went back to work with energy.

After switching careers to become an agent, Pelinka felt this was what his heart desired!

Watching Pelinka come and go in a hurry without leaving a cloud behind, Zhang Hao couldn’t help but sigh, "An excellent lawyer, outstanding negotiation skills, proactive work attitude... truly a reliable worker!"

Continuing with the filming, doing one thing seriously, everyone has hobbies, his hobby is watching tokusatsu films, becoming the lead in such a film, he would naturally be very committed.

An afternoon of shooting finished, it was time for boxed lunches.

The crew was very thoughtful, specially finding a Hunan chef to make authentic Xiang cuisine, Zhang Hao ate happily.

During meal time, the crew followed their habit, bringing a stack of newspapers to Zhang Hao’s resting room, Zhang Hao flipped through the papers while having dinner...

"It’s here! Wow... is this really happening? The media keeps brainwashing, really can fool people till they go crazy! Are Orlando people really this peculiar?"

According to the Orlando Sentinel’s published referendum results, initially, ninety-one percent of Orlando residents believe O’Neal isn’t worth a hundred million!

...

...

July 1st, the NBA free market opened.

Before the free market opened, at 6 PM on June 30th, after much delay, finally, due to multiple owners’ strong demands, NBA officials announced two clauses, one was about early renewal rule amendments, where when a player’s contract total length is at least 3 years, they could renew with the team in the 2nd year.

This is not important, what’s crucial is another clause, a one-time clause — the unlimited contract clause.

Unlimited contract clause: After the 1996 summer free market opens, each team can use this clause for the first contract they sign, this contract ignores salary cap, ignores bird rights, ignores salary terms, any salary can be given.

After this clause was announced last night, the entire basketball community exploded!

American Cable TV Station again exposed their boss’ shady dealings — Knicks owner tempted teams by increasing the number of broadcasts, paid a whopping amount of broadcasting fees, and finally pushed the birth of this clause.

It seems Knicks owner spent a fortune, but actually, broadcasting fees are split according to broadcast revenue, so broadcasting those non-popular games doesn’t make money, but few realize this.

Media, experts, fans are all furiously criticizing James Dolan’s brazen move.

Because after July 1st when the free market opened, the Knicks directly offered a one-year $30 million contract to the newly crowned two-time double MVP superstar Michael Jordan.

Bear in mind, the champion team Bulls just finished a season with a total salary of only $23.2 million.

Everyone thinks this time the league will suffer a huge loss, perhaps the entire league’s layout will be shattered by James Dolan’s financial offensive.

However, when the free market opened, aside from Knicks presenting an exaggeratedly outrageous contract, the entire free market fell silent, there wasn’t even minor signings happening...

...

Time flew by, arriving at July 3rd, bizarrely, after NBA free market became more open, it was the first time none of the first two signing days had any signings occur.

"Aix, should we strive for a hefty renewal contract?" Pelinka was eager.

Before Zhang Hao could respond, Henry Thomas shook his head saying, "It’s impossible, no team would agree to give others a contract like Jordan’s, no team would comply, it’s just playing along with Dolan."

"Why?" Pelinka was confused.

"Jordan got $30 million, other superstars want $25 million, how to give? Only Knicks can make so much money, losing money to keep superstars? Better not... oh, Lakers can make that much money too, but Lakers won’t give either, they’d rather give Aix a bigger contract in the future to compensate, they’d rather give salary under salary cap rules."

Zhang Hao added, "Bulls would give too, they also earn a lot."

After the finals ended, Forbes released the NBA team’s income and profit rankings, in all three rankings, Knicks were first, Lakers second, Bulls third.

Among them, Bulls profited $55.39 million.

"Aix do you think Bulls would match this contract?"

"Of course, without Jordan, they wouldn’t even earn $25 million, surely they’d keep Jordan, and this $55 million is just their team’s revenue, heard their owner has over 20 bars in Chicago, all making money thanks to Jordan’s popularity... but this has nothing to do with us, Henry didn’t you say other teams wouldn’t use this clause? Then we just watch Bulls’ fun."