Rebirth of Hayes Cyclone

Chapter 105 [Alexander's plan]

The NBA trade deadline has arrived, and there have been no blockbuster deals in the league.Rockets would like to trade away John - Lucas III and Bob - Sura, but no one wants to change.

The regular season continued, the Rockets defeated the Heat, Eagles, and Magic, and achieved 15 consecutive victories in the regular season.Back at home, they lost to the Celtics 84 to 86.

Battier spent a lot of energy playing the Magic to block Turkoglu, and was blown away by the strong Paul Pierce the next day.The campaign Pierce scored 35 points, Shane Battier had only 4 points, 7 of 1 shots.Hayes also failed to take advantage of Al Jefferson.Jefferson is strong, versatile and one of the most underrated power forwards in the league.

Entering March, the Rockets lost to the Nuggets in an away game, and lost back to back to the Spurs at home, suffering a two-game losing streak.The Rockets' schedule is getting tighter and tighter. They have to play 3 games in March, and they are finally tired.

The Rockets' record of 51 wins and 8 losses still leads the league, but owner Alexander is not satisfied with the team's recent performance.

On this day, Alexander silently watched the team practice.

In the Toyota Center, the office, training hall and competition hall are set up very reasonably. As long as the boss stands on the balcony of the office, he can watch the players' training activities through the windows anytime and anywhere.

Every time the Rockets failed to attack the position, Alexander frowned slightly.He doesn't like the team's current style. Although the record is good, it is mainly defensive. There is almost no coordination in offense. It is a simple pick-and-roll, and then the star players pull out singles.After watching the All-Star Game, Alexander felt that the team's offense was extremely ugly, and he really wanted to solve this problem.

Alexander thinks the team's offense is ugly, and the problem lies with Jeff Van Gundy.Other teams also have slow big men, such as the Cavaliers and Mavericks, but the offense is much better. Alexander hopes that the Rockets can also play the Suns' offense.If there are basketball experts around, they will definitely persuade Alexander to maintain the status quo.It's useless to play well, winning is the key.But Alexander may not listen, he doesn't understand basketball at all.

Alexander started investing in stocks in New York.The Rockets' annual basketball-related income is 3000 million US dollars. Although it is one of the league's highest-paid teams, Alexander still feels that it is too little, which is insignificant compared with his income in the stock market.He has always hoped to use some methods to increase his income.

Therefore, Alexander's energy is in New York, and his home is also in New York, not in Houston.He came to Houston to watch the game, which is equivalent to a business trip. He usually does business in New York, and only travels to Houston when he has free time.He doesn't know how to make the team's record better, he just wants to make money and make the game better.This is why when the Pistons put Prince and Billups on the table later, he didn't want them, because they were not as famous as Tracy McGrady and they didn't look good.

Interlaced like a mountain.Alexander has never appreciated Van Gundy's basketball style. He prefers run and gun for the team's future, hoping that the Rockets' games will be on TV more.

Alexander warned Van Gundy last spring. "Your coaching style is hurting my business interests."

If it weren't for the absence of a good successor, he would have fired Van Gundy last year.Now that the team has achieved the best record in the league, Alexander doesn't think it is due to Van Gundy, it's just because the players are too strong, if they change coaches, they may play better.

Van Gundy is very likely to be elected as the best coach of the season, but Alexander is not interested in renewing his contract with Van Gundy, because Van Gundy's tactics affect his money. It is estimated that only he can think of such a thing.

Someone knocked on the office door.

Miss Secretary entered the office with a fat white man who was nearly two meters tall. This man was Daryl Morey who was going to replace Dawson as the manager after the season.

"Nice to meet you, boss," Morey said.

"Hello, Darryl." Alexander shook hands with Morey, sat on the sofa, and said slowly, "How about what I said last time?"

"Former coach Adelman of the Kings, I went to test his tone. If we dismiss Van Gundy, he is willing to come back to coach the Rockets." Morey smiled.For him, it seems easy to fire a coach who led the team to the best record in the league and hit the championship.He is willing to do things according to the boss's wishes.

Although Morey is 1.95 meters tall, Morey has never participated in a professional basketball game.His interest in numbers is far greater than any one sport.After Morey obtained an MBA degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he founded a sports information consulting company in Chicago that specializes in providing operational data analysis for various professional teams. In 2002, the Celtics asked him to serve as the team's vice president of business operations. Last year, Morey came to the Rockets.Experts believe that Morey does not understand basketball and is only good at "financial calculations", and it is not recommended that he take over Dawson's position.But Alexander appreciated his abilities.

Morey told Alexander about Adelman's resume.

Morey believes that if it weren't for Jordan's Bulls and O'Neal's Lakers, Adelman would likely lead the Blazers and Kings to win the championship.In Adelman's 14-year coaching career, he has never missed the playoffs.The most important thing is that his Princeton style of play is very beautiful, and he can also make each substitute play his own strengths, creating a group of bench gangsters.This is exactly what Van Gundy lacks.

In terms of people, Van Gundy is also doing very poorly.Van Gundy did not want to have a good relationship with Dawson, the veteran of the management team. For the new Morey, he was a little dismissive and rarely communicated.In this regard, Adelman is much more tactful than him. In the Kings and Trail Blazers, his handling of this relationship is commendable. This time he met with Morey, Adelman was also very low-key.

"Adelman is very good, but what about Van Gundy? If he plays well, we don't renew his contract, isn't it good?" Alexander asked.He didn't really feel "not so good" when he said that.Just trying to find a way to resolve this matter.

Morey was still very relaxed, smiling and said: "We can spend a little money, hire someone to write articles, and create some public opinion. For example, Van Gundy himself doesn't want to do it, and he feels too stressed and tired. We proposed to renew his contract, but he I refused, and we can even make up news that the core players of the team are dissatisfied with his tactics, so they changed. Fans have seen this kind of news too much, and they will naturally think it is true. As long as they think Adelman is the most suitable Rockets coach, fans don't care about Van Gundy, who doesn't want to watch a good game?"

"Then what if Hayes is leaving? He has a good relationship with Van Gundy. Renewing Hayes' contract is a big problem. He refused to renew his contract in advance. He must want to play data and want to get a maximum salary after the season. If we renew his contract with the maximum salary, we will have to pay a lot of luxury taxes, even if we win the championship, the team's income may also decrease." Alexander said.

Morey also calculated the account very clearly, saying: "From the perspective of statistics and influence, Hayes may be worthy of the maximum salary, but we have Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. If we want to keep him with a high salary, Can only give up a few quality players in the summer, such as Fisher, and maybe Hyde, Lucas III and Sulla, to free up salary. This is troublesome because we have no available guards. And since this happened, it was difficult for us to make new deals in the summer, and it was difficult to sign rookies. Ordinary contracts can’t impress Hayes. We can spend 5 million to 4500 million to renew his contract for five years at most, which can’t be higher. Even so, our The total salary will also reach around 4700 million."

"7000 million, can this avoid the luxury tax?" Alexander asked knowingly, frowning.

"The salary cap will be around 6500 million. As long as Hayes stays, the luxury tax cannot be avoided, unless one of Yao Ming and McGrady is sent away before the trade deadline to replace the player whose contract expires this summer." Morey said.There's simply no way the Rockets could do that.Yao Ming can't go, McGrady is now ranked first in the regular season MVP list.Trading MVPs?That must be crazy.

"Exchange Yao Ming and McGrady to sign Hayes, how is this possible?" Alexander shook his head and said, "I don't care what method you use, the salary must be controlled within the luxury tax. Hayes signed as much as possible, with his Popularity If the contract is not renewed, the fans will be unhappy. It's better to be lower than the 4500 million you said. If he wants a maximum salary, let him go. The newcomers David Lee and Millsap are also good, we don't It takes so many insiders."
Yao Ming's current playing time is only 31 minutes with a salary of 1240 million yuan. Generally, the superstars who sign the maximum salary play more than 35 minutes. In Alexander's view, this is simply effortless.At this time, he didn't want Yao Ming to bring him anything at all. In September 2006, "Forbes" announced "The 9 Richest People List" Alexander was among them. 400 times.Alexander went from the poorest owner in the NBA to the 12th in the NBA's richest owner list.

Some people may say that looking at the growth of the Rockets' net assets, Alexander did not earn much from Yao Ming, at most it was a little bit of broadcasting rights and advertising fees.It would be strange if ordinary Chinese people could understand how Americans make money.

Yao Ming joined the Rockets, and what Alexander got was a business opportunity to develop the Chinese market.Many Chinese companies are willing to cooperate with him, and he has gained huge benefits.Why do people trust to cooperate with him?Because he is Alexander!He is famous!How did he get his fame and popularity?Be the rocket boss.

If the Americans take hundreds of millions of dollars and say to the Chinese: "I will exchange some money for you for 100 billion." The Chinese will definitely not agree.But in another way, many people feel that they have made a profit.Yao Ming earned hundreds of millions in the United States, but brought countless billions to the United States, which is a way for the United States to make money.

In short, Alexander felt in his heart that it was wrong to renew Hayes' contract with a high salary, and it was also wrong to find a replacement for Yao Ming with a high salary. With his capitalist thinking, the most important thing is always to make money.

This is the boss of the Rockets, a mercenary.Chinese fans all support the Rockets and Yao Ming. If they knew what Alexander was thinking, maybe many people would want to pull him out and shoot him for 10 minutes.

Jeff Van Gundy once thought about putting pressure on Alexander on the issue of Hayes' contract extension, saying "He goes, I won't stay." He didn't expect that the person Alexander most wanted to clean up was him.

(End of this chapter)