the rest, only noise

Chapter 1204 The summit is done

On the eve of the GM summit, Louis took Jim Buss to meet his old friends.

There are RC Buford, the representative of the Knicks, and James Dolan, who also came to gain insight;
Earl Monroe of Detroit;

John Nash of Orlando;

Kevin McHale of Minnesota;
Danny Ainge of Vancouver;

Lewis Shafier of Miami
Without compromising the interests of their respective teams, they can be consistent with Louis.

This is the benefit of networking.

Bass Jr. behaved quite decently, and did not do anything to embarrass Louis. On the contrary, Jr. Dolan, who came with RC, often made frowning remarks.

For example, when Dolan Jr. met the Heat's president, Lewis Shafier, he would be provocative.

Because the Heat are the main opponent of the Knicks in the Eastern Conference, the confrontation between the two sides is a matter of course.

Dolan Jr. believes that the Knicks' championship this year proves that the Heat just took advantage of the Knicks' transformation to win the championship last year. Moreover, the Knicks have ten championships in history, and the Heat only have one.

While Shafier had a smile on his face, he did not refute this.

"The Knicks have a lot of championships, but most of them were won under the rule of Coach Lu, right? Without Coach Lu, you are nothing special." Buss Jr.'s righteous speech won him a lot of goodwill.

Little Dolan snorted softly, "Then what happened after you signed Coach Lu? It's been two years and you still haven't received any grains?"

"Even for Coach Lu, he worked hard in New York for three or four years to achieve success. Now it's only his first year back. We are not in a hurry. Instead, New York. After losing Messiah and Benj, your championship window is about to close. And you still act like the Knicks are still in their prime. Don't you think it's funny?"

Little Dolan said angrily: "I don't have time to argue with you about this kind of thing. You just need to know that we are the championship this year, and no matter where Coach Lu is, his probability of success in New York is much higher than in Los Angeles. For a cursed team like yours, even if there is Coach Lu, so what? You have no chance of achieving greater success than New York!"

The two dudes bickered and bet each other inexplicably.

They are betting on who will win more championships in the future, the Lakers or the Knicks.

This is still difficult for the Lakers.

The last time they won the championship dates back to 1982, which was a full 14 years ago.

The Knicks, who won the tenth championship in team history this year, can also be said to be the best team in the league. On the other hand, the Blazers are aging obviously, and the Heat's inside giants have broken. There is a good chance to defend the championship in the new season.

Louis didn't stop little Bass, no matter how noisy he was, it was only between the two dandies, and no one would bother him with this matter.

The most important thing tonight is meeting old friends.

Angie seems to be preoccupied. As a fledgling, he did not do well in Vancouver. He has a lot of quick success and quick gains. The current team lacks basic competitiveness. If there is no accident in the new season, it will still not make it to the playoffs.

What makes him most nervous is that he gave the first round pick of next season to the Lakers early on.

In other words, if the new record is not good, it will be a wedding dress for the Lakers.

Compared with Angie, Shafier's troubles are more advanced.

After the Heat lost the Eastern Conference Finals, Shafier didn't even have time to be disappointed, because he had to choose between Manning and Sampson.

Choosing between a 36-year-old and a 30-year-old superstar should have been a matter of no hesitation, but Sampson's state has remained too good.

Shafier wanted all of them, but Manning had already stated that he would not coexist with Sampson.

Unable to make a choice, Shafier consulted Louis on this matter.

Louie said: "If I were to make a decision, I would keep Ralph without hesitation. Danny Manning is good, but he has a bad plan and is not reliable in key games. Ralph has proved in the finals that at the age of 36, he is still the best insider in the world. You only need to play around him, and Manning has never proved that he belongs to that level."

Shafier said helplessly, "However, Ralph is 36 years old this year. In a few years, the situation may be completely different."

Regarding the future and fate of the Heat, Louis only gave suggestions and decided to let Shafier do it himself.

His suggestion is to keep Sampson and trade Manning.

Assuming Sampson can maintain his state until he is 38 years old, then the Heat still have at least two years of championship window.

Manning can be retained, and the Heat still have at least five years of championship window.

It's just that in Louie's view, Manning's championship window is far smaller than Sampson's.

But others would not see it that way, especially Shafier who was in the middle of the game. He did not have the guts to give up the 30-year-old Manning and retain the 36-year-old Sampson.

The next day, the NBA GM Summit was held in Washington as scheduled.

In this meeting, Stern brought his deputy Garcia Lynn.

Louis' incremental luxury tax and super luxury tax ideas were also expressed through Lynn's mouth.

This policy immediately caused a sensation at the meeting.

Discussions are endless.

Four teams have unequivocally opposed the policy.

They are the New York Knicks, Miami Heat, Portland Trail Blazers and Los Angeles Lakers.

It's no wonder that they are all teams willing to pay a lot of money to build a super team.

What used to cost twice as much to build a daunting team is now four or five times more expensive to operate.

However, teams without money account for the majority.

Even if the local tyrants oppose it, as long as the majority of teams agree with the policy, the implementation of the policy is inevitable.

In the end, with 22 votes in favor and 7 votes against, the incremental taxation and super luxury tax policies were passed.

However, this is only the first step, and the union still needs to obtain the consent of the trade union.

If both labor and management reach an agreement, then this new policy will take effect from next season, and the teams that have exceeded the salary cap for consecutive years will not immediately activate the super luxury tax.

The super luxury tax will only be triggered after three tax violations within four years after the new regulation takes effect, starting from next season.

But let alone the super luxury tax, even the "ordinary" incremental luxury tax is painful.

Since the 80s, the league has been dominated by superteams.

Whether it was the Lakers, Celtics, and 80ers in the early 76s, or the Lakers, Kai, Ni, Kai in the mid-to-late 80s, or the Ni, Kai, and Heat of the present.

They have all escaped the sanction of the salary cap and built a terrifying superteam with owners who are willing to invest.

Now, the luxury and super-luxury taxes will essentially check that momentum.

On the other hand, the league's restrictions on court violence have also become stricter.

The famous "no leave" rule was introduced at the summit.

Few teams originally supported this provision, and Louie showed his guiding ability in due course.

At a deadlock, Louis took the lead in supporting the new rule, bringing his allies along.

With Louie's support, this provision was also voted through.

After that, the aggressive alliance tried to shorten the three-point line and promote the legalization of zone defense, but these two policies did not get the support of Louis.

Shortening the three-point line has proved to be a failed adjustment in Louie's previous life, and it has no benefit except tossing players.

The legalization of the zone defense is a good policy, but Louis does not intend to make the pocket formation a thing of the past.

As we all know, the pocket formation promoted by Louis is actually a pseudo-zone defense.

This is Louis's first widely disseminated defensive concept.

Now, every team plays pocket formations.

Louis doesn't intend to let this matter become history, at least not now, who doesn't want to see everyone follow his style?
When Louis is no longer studying defense, others are still exploring along his footsteps. The satisfaction and pride are hard to describe in words.

The legalization of zone defense is the general trend, but the most important thing now is to disintegrate the rule of super teams. The introduction of the luxury tax has laid the foundation for this, and the next step is to see the effect.

The legalization of joint defense or something, at least wait until the new century.

Afterwards, the summit ended successfully.

Although only the two policies of luxury tax and "not leaving the table" were passed at the meeting, it was a great success for the league.

The only ones who were unhappy were representatives of a few rich teams.

It stands to reason that Louis should also be unhappy, because he represents the Lakers.

But he really didn't feel it at all.

Because the rebuilding of the Lakers has almost been carried out, the main players are basically in place, and when he has adjusted the team well, it is time to start to produce results.

When the rookie bonus of these players is over, the contract between Louis and the Lakers is almost over.

Let’s not talk about whether to keep the Lakers or not at that time. Let the Bass family struggle with the pressure to renew the contract with the maximum salary per capita and the unbearable luxury tax.

After all, you have to pay a price for what you want to own. The world is fair.

(End of this chapter)