July 1, 1998, 0:01 in the morning.
David Stern sent a notice to NBA teams across the United States.
The major shutdown has officially begun.
According to the collective bargaining agreement, from this moment on, all public communication channels between the management and coaching staff of all teams were cut off. Anyone who dared to make a phone call or send a fax to an active player in private would be severely punished if discovered by the league. The entire basketball world fell completely silent overnight.
And the trigger for this storm...
These are the sky-high contracts signed over the years.
Juwan Howard, 7 years, $105 million. Alonzo Mourning, 7 years, $105 million. Shaquille O'Neal O'Neal received 7 years, $121 million in Los Angeles, and Kevin Garnett's agent is publicly demanding 6 years, $126 million.
Player salaries were Rockets, each one more outrageous than the last. The owners, seeing these figures that could bankrupt the teams at any moment, were finally on their guard.
In March 1998, the union's owners voted overwhelmingly 27 to 2 to force the restart of labor negotiations. They had to put the brakes on this runaway contract market.
Of all the numbers, the one that's being targeted and criticized by all the league's owners is the name that the media has used as a prime example of greed...
Kevin Garnett.
$126 million.
However, the contract was never signed.
From beginning to end, this was just a smokescreen offer from his agent Eric Fleisher...
They never even entered the substantive negotiation stage.
The story begins in the summer after Garnett finished his sophomore year and was eligible for a contract extension.
At the time, Garnett had only one year left on his rookie contract, and Fleisher's exorbitant demands gradually increased to $126 million over six years.
Fleisher was a shrewd agent. He knew Garnett's commercial value and how to use the media to inflate his player's worth. Every now and then, he would tip reporters off on the golf course or at private dinners. " Kevin is worth this much. If Boston isn't willing to pay, he'll become a free agent next summer, and plenty of teams will be lining up to throw money at him."
He considered this contract, which had not yet been signed, as a landmark achievement in his career.
But he conveniently forgot that sitting on the other side of the negotiating table was Chris Paul Gaston, the former owner of the Celtics...
That notoriously stingy capitalist in Boston.
Gaston was reluctant to part with the money. He thought it was insane to offer the biggest contract in sports history to a young player who had only played for two years and had never even reached the NBA Finals.
In the actual course of history, the reason Fleisher dared to demand such a high price from the team was because the Minnesota Timberwolves were a small market at the time. The entire Minnesota arena relied on Garnett alone to sell tickets and maintain ticket sales. To make matters worse, Tom Gugliotta, the Minnesota Timberwolves ' other star white center at the time, was also a player signed under Fleisher's management.
Fleisher's stance was clear: if he didn't offer Garnett $126 million, he would get rid of both of them the following summer when their big contract expired. He would turn Minnesota into a ghost town overnight, unable to sell a single ticket.
The Minnesota Timberwolves owner was terrified and had no choice but to sign.
But what is the size of the Boston Celtics? They are one of the most prestigious and established super teams in the United States.
Besides Garnett, there's Gary Payton in his prime, top-tier perimeter player Eddie Jones, and the newly drafted first-round superstar.
Boston's box office is never short of selling points; arena tickets are sold out well in advance by die-hard fans.
The Minnesota Timberwolves will die without Minnesota. But without you, Kevin Garnett, the Boston Celtics will still be a dominant playoff team in the Eastern Conference.
At the time, although Lin Qi held the title of President of Basketball Operations, the team's ultimate financial power was in Gaston's hands. Lin Qi repeatedly grappled between Fleisher's exorbitant demands and Gaston's stinginess, but was always stuck between these two extremes and unable to sign the contract.
Thus, Garnett's astronomical contract remained stuck in mid-air, neither here nor there.
Fleisher wasn't in a hurry at all. He even thought it would be better if they couldn't reach an agreement; as long as they dragged it out until Garnett's contract expired next summer, the market would be more enthusiastic and offer even more outrageous deals.
"If Kevin becomes a free agent next year," Fleisher said privately to a colleague in a New York bar, "He'll definitely get more than $126 million."
He thought he had victory in the bag.
But he never expected that his repeated exorbitant demands wouldn't open Gaston's wallet; instead, they would cause complete panic among the small-market team owners throughout the league.
A young player who has only played for two years and hasn't even made All-NBA Team has an agent asking for $126 million. What would happen if this precedent were set? Every slightly talented young star in the league would have their agent use Garnett's figure to challenge their owner. The entire NBA salary structure would completely collapse within three days.
" Garnett's offer was what made all the team owners decide to band together and overturn the table," one team owner said in a later interview. "That number made us realize we couldn't concede any further."
The shutdown was thus forced out. Bosses were determined to build a wage wall specifically for these young talents in the new labor agreement.
Fleisher was still waiting for the shutdown to end so that the $126 million could be smoothly pocketed.
He had no idea that he had single-handedly squandered the huge sum of money that was already in his hands.
As soon as the shutdown began, everyone heard rumors.
The new draft labor agreement reveals its most crucial, rigid provision: [a cap on individual salaries].
From then on, whether you're a superstar or a second-year rookie, the maximum annual salary you can receive is strictly limited. Player salaries are divided into three tiers based on years of experience: those with 0 to 6 years of experience can only receive a maximum of 25% of the team's salary cap; those with 7 to 9 years can receive 30%; and those with 10 or more years can receive 35%.
This restriction was extremely precise, strangling Garnett, a rookie who had just completed three years of playing time.
Rumors quickly spread from the New York headquarters. Under the new hard salary cap and proportional capping rules, Garnett's "$126 million" contract, which Fleisher had been hyping for a whole year but had yet to materialize, became a pipe dream that could never be signed.
Given Garnett's current playing experience, applying the new maximum salary formula, the highest contract he can sign is at most 6 years for $71 million.
This number is astronomical for ordinary people.
For Garnett, this was a whopping $55 million less than the contract Fleisher had so loudly proclaimed.
Because Fleisher stubbornly refused to budge and insisted on taking a big gamble, Garnett unknowingly lost nearly half the value of a major contract.
This number was like a resounding slap in the face to Garnett, completely waking him up from his arrogance fueled by media hype.