The Golden Age of Basketball

New York, Madison Square Garden, the cold winter night can not stop the enthusiasm of New York fans, the ancient Garden Square is full of seats.

As the largest city in the United States, New York is always more attractive in terms of sports, so it is different from Portland, where all major sports leagues have clubs.

Among them, the New York Yankees can be described as the "enemy of the world", thriving in the MLB major league, one team tops all other teams; and the New York Giants won the Super Bowl championship in the NFL in 1986, and they were in full swing in the mid-to-late 80s .

In contrast, the New York Knicks seemed powerless in front of the two big brothers. After the "King" Bernard King suffered a serious knee injury, the team entered the reconstruction period again in the mid-80s, and then they were in 1985. In the first lottery draw in [-], they got the No. [-] lottery in a conspiracy-filled TV live broadcast, and then they picked Patrick Ewing without any suspense, and officially began to rebuild around this super center.

Ewing won the Rookie of the Year with 20 points and 9 rebounds in his rookie season. In the second year, Bernard King returned, but he only played six games and was injured again. In the summer, he was traded.

The old king was traded, and the new king was officially enthroned. At the same time, players who assisted Ewing also came. In the 1987 draft, New York picked the mediocre point guard Mark at No. 18. -Jackson, who knew he won the best rookie of the season.

This summer, New York traded from the Chicago Bulls for Charles "Oak" Oakley, which equipped Ewing with a gold medalist who specializes in dirty work.

In addition to getting small forward John Newman from the Cavaliers, and the strong guard Grande Wilkins picked by New York in the second round in 1985, this team with an average age of 24 in the starting lineup gave New York fans a huge boost. hope.

You know, as one of the earliest teams in the NBA, the New York Knicks only won two championships in 1970 and 1972. They have not tasted a championship or even the finals for more than ten years.

Such a promising young team, of course, attracts fans to Madison Square Garden to buy tickets to watch the game, especially their opponent tonight is the Chicago Bulls led by Michael Jordan.

Of course, Knicks fans at this time don't know how much damage Jordan and the Bulls will cause them on this field in the future. Anyway, in this game, the Knicks have always maintained their suppression of the Bulls.

Although Jordan is still difficult to defend, the Bulls are also unable to stop the Knicks' sharp offense. Newman had a big explosion tonight. He made 15 of 12 shots and scored 35 points with a super high shooting percentage. In terms of position, No. 33 Scottie Pippen can only sit on the bench and watch because of injuries.

The Bulls did not suffer too much inside. Bill Cartwright, an old center who had accompanied and guided Ewing in New York, was used as a bargaining chip in exchange for Oakley in this summer's trade. He came to Chicago to assist Jordan. For the gradually growing Ewing, he really wasn't too afraid of him.

In one-on-one offensive and defensive matchups, Ewing did not take advantage of Cartwright, scoring 2 or [-] points less than Cartwright, but on the defensive end, Cartwright's role cannot be compared with Ewing.

Ewing grabbed 12 backcourt rebounds on the defensive end, 18 rebounds and sent 5 blocked shots, making the Knicks' three-second zone a no-fly zone.

The explosion of the perimeter and the defensive advantage of the interior allowed the Knicks to beat the visiting Chicago Bulls 126:117 amid the cheers of the fans. Although Michael Jordan scored 31 points and 9 assists, he was still unable to save the team. He could only lower his head and enter the player channel.

At this time, in the VIP box in Madison, a tall white man leisurely lit a cigar and watched the fans of the Knicks slowly leave the field, and another big drama came to an end.

At this time, he picked up the fixed phone in the VIP box, dialed a number, and said, "Let Patrick come out at night, I want to have a drink with him."

Then he hung up the phone and was about to dial another number, but after thinking about it, he hung up the phone anyway.

………………

New York, a grotesque metropolis, always has sleepless nights. For NBA players, the colorful nightlife in New York

is an important reason to attract them.

In the VIP box of a New York nightclub, thick wooden doors cut off the outside world, and the new king of Madison Square Garden is enjoying a good drink inside.

In fact, although this simple and talented boy from Jamaica is sought after by New Yorkers, he has to bear as much slander as he receives in New York. What's more, Ewing's taciturn character is really out of tune with New York.

In the team, although Ewing is the ironclad core, but in the locker room, his right to speak may not be as good as the second-year rookie Mark Jackson, not to mention the arrival of Charles Oakley this summer, this tough guy With a bandit spirit.

Therefore, sometimes Ewing needs to go to such a nightclub to relax himself, isolate himself from the pressure of the outside world, and have a chat with the elder sitting opposite him, and have a heart-to-heart talk.

That was his agent, David Falk, and Ewing did what he said.

Four years have passed since 1984. David Falk has gradually grown from a small agent to a tycoon in the agent world. He has more and more stars under him, and he has more and more resources. Rich.

With the increase in the number of players in his hand, he often travels around various cities to meet and chat with these players, maintain a good relationship, and understand the needs and ideas of these young people.

This is the secret of Falk's success. He is willing to understand the needs of players, analyze the characteristics of players, and then formulate suitable business strategies for them.

For example, the "air-jordan" brand, driven by the efforts of Jordan, Falk and Nike, has already occupied a huge market share. Every year, a new sneaker will trigger panic buying in the market.

Ewing sitting in front of Falk is different. Falk cannot manage Ewing like Jordan. In his words, Jordan is the "air force" and Ewing is the "infantry". No good results can be obtained by training infantry in this way.

Therefore, Falk did not sign Ewing with Nike, but chose Adidas, and instead of letting Adidas quickly formulate and launch a brand for Ewing, he played a trick and asked Adidas to provide Ewing with a pair of no brands. white sneakers.

In this way, Ewing played on the court wearing this pair of unbranded sneakers for a whole season, which aroused speculation about the brand of Ewing's sneakers and fully mobilized the public's curiosity.

In the end, when Ewing announced his sneaker brand, he got a good response from the market. Otherwise, with Ewing's dull personality and simple center style of play, it would be really not so easy to rely on personal performance to open up the commercial market. .

Falke looked at Ewing and thought about his classic business operation. He couldn't help being a little proud. Now the most promising new stars in the NBA are basically under his banner. The future NBA agent market will be It's David Falk's world.

"You performed very well today. I think you will get a good chance in this year's All-Star Game. Try to perform well." Falk has already started to worry about the Ewing All-Star Game, which seems a bit too early, because this Or the Knicks' third game.

However, Ewing's performance in the All-Stars has not been very good. He missed his rookie season due to injury, was not selected in the second year, was selected in the third year, and his performance was mediocre. He really has no acting talent.

"I will try my best." Ewing said flatly, his way of speaking and tone of voice did not look like a superstar at all, and this is where Falk often criticized him.

Later, Ewing continued: "My performance was not good enough. Yesterday Gan scored 44 points and had 21 rebounds. The New York newspapers always compare me with him. I feel pressure."

In front of Falk, Ewing always appears very frank, which is why Falk is willing to cooperate with Ewing, so that Falk can manipulate him more freely.

But hearing that name, Falk still twitched in his heart. He scratched his head, thinking of what words he should use to comfort and encourage Ewing.

But after thinking for a while, Falk didn't know what to say, because he couldn't lift his head up in front of that person, so how could he teach Ewing to hold his head high?

Among all the players under Falk, Jordan has the greatest commercial value and is also the most difficult to manage. He always has his own ideas, which can be seen from his small friction with the management.

But Gan Guoyang is not in the category of "difficult to manage", because he is not under the management of Falk at all now, and his business activities will still be handled by Falk, but Falk only has the right to suggest and implement obligations, but Gan Guoyang's decision cannot be influenced.

In several business decisions, Gan Guoyang used his strategic vision to prove that he was right. Falk, you can only listen to me, such as the Coca-Cola advertisement in 1985, such as investing in the movie "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", such as It is requested that the "skyscraper" brand be separated from the nike brand and become an independent department.

All of this was written by Gan Guoyang, and Falke just followed the rules and got paid according to his salary.

In fact, beside Gan Guoyang, Falk is the purest agent, doing some business work that a broker should do. In front of Gan Guoyang, Falk will never feel the feeling of strategizing.

"Let's not talk about this person anymore. You have your own characteristics...Well, be yourself, I believe you will always get what you deal with." Falk shook his head, and finally he could only talk to Ewing dryly. Said a few words like chicken soup for the soul.

Ewing nodded and didn't speak. The atmosphere in the box suddenly became much duller. Both of them seemed to be able to feel the huge shadow from the west coast hanging over their heads.