Another multiple-choice question was wrong. How did the Magic team force O Neal to run away in a fancy way back then?

Among the three labels of Penny Hardaway mentioned earlier, the one that fans have the worst impression of him is that it is widely circulated in the outside world. In order to be the boss of the team, Hardaway forced the Shark O'Neal away. So what was the actual situation back then? So what about Hardaway’s relationship with O’Neal?

Let's talk about the conclusion first, this is completely a rumor. Not only did Hardaway not force O'Neal away, he actually wanted O'Neal to stay in Orlando, because everyone, including Hardaway, knew that only with O'Neal can the team have hope of a championship - but the Magic's management team didn't know it.

Let's talk about the relationship between Hardaway and O'Neal. The relationship between these two is very good. In fact, O'Neal knew Hardaway before entering the NBA. In 1991, O'Neal starred in a movie called "The Hot Coach". His main teammate in the play was played by Penny Hardaway. Since then, the two have established a very good friendship.

In the 1993 draft, the 76ers who held the second pick did not choose Hardaway, but chose the big center Sean Bradley. O'Neal faced the media and said bluntly that the management of the 76ers was a bunch of stupid people. They would understand that missing Hardaway was an extremely important mistake. In addition, they would repair the bamboo pole-like person on the basketball court.

From then on, Sean Bradley's nickname of "Big Bamboo Pole" spread wildly. What's worse is that every time Bradley met O'Neal, he was repaired by the Sharks. O'Neal averaged 30+13 per game, shooting percentage 65%, while Bradley averaged only 6 points and 3 rebounds per game...

By the way, O'Neal really likes to nickname others. In addition to the Big Bamboo Pole, it seems that Pierce's "truth" and Iverson's "answer" were all given by O'Neal, and they are all very appropriate. O'Neal is really a talent.

After O'Neal and Hardaway retired, the two often appeared on TV shows together and had a very harmonious relationship.

Therefore, the reason why O'Neal ran away from Orlando was entirely because the Magic's management was committed to death. Their frequent S operations made O'Neal feel humiliated. After O'Neal left Magic, he criticized the Magic management repeatedly, but no one was ignorant of Hardaway.

So the question is, O'Neal's contract expired on July 1, 1995, and on July 20, O'Neal officially signed the contract handed over by the Lakers. For 20 days, what did the Magic Management do to force O'Neal to leave?

Finally, one word, money.

This matter starts with Hardaway's draft. There was no rookie contract in the NBA back then. It was all about oneself or an agent and the manager. This requires a balance between player strength, future potential, and big contracts after redeeming talents. Therefore, the contract period is usually two years. For example, the No. 1 pick Weber is 3.7 million for two years, and the starting salary is 1.6 million for two years, while the second pick is Sean Bradley is 6.2 million for two years, and the starting salary is 2.7 million for four years, and the starting salary is 2.03 million for four years.

The same is true for Hardaway, but because he did not hire a professional manager back then, he went to talk to the Magic management himself. During the negotiations, Hardaway showed his surging financial and negotiation talent to the fullest. At the negotiating table, the Magic management team forced him to retreat continuously. As a result, he had a two-year, 2.5 million yuan, and a starting salary of 1.24 million yuan...

However, Hardaway was in his rookie season, It showed superman's first-class strength, coupled with the strong publicity of the league, Hardaway became the idol of countless boys and girls, and it was also the guarantee of the team's box office. The Magic were very afraid that Hardaway would leave Orlando after the two-year short contract expired. Therefore, after Hardaway's rookie season ended, they immediately invalidated the ultra-low contract of 1.25 million yuan in the next year, and instead offered Hardaway a 9-year, 72 million yuan super contract with a starting salary of 4.31 million yuan.

How is this salary level at that time?

ranks sixth in the league, and the fourth place is O'Neal's third-year rookie contract, 4.8 million. After Hardaway got the big contract, O'Neal believed that the second-in-class team can get a contract of more than 70 million, and his price must be higher than this number, but he never expected that in the hearts of the Magic management, Hardaway is the boss. The rookie contract issued by the Magic in 92 was the largest rookie contract of the year, with a total of 17 million yuan for four years and 1996. The contract expired on June 30, 1996, but one year before the contract expired, O'Neal had already begun a tug-of-war with the Magic management.

O's O'Neal, who has been in the Magic for four years, has basically contributed 26+13 per game, has a shooting percentage of nearly 60%. He started All-Stars for four consecutive years, entered the All-Star team three times (one second team, two third teams), and won the first scoring champion with an average of 29.3 points per game in the third year of his career.

At that time, O'Neal was already a candidate for the No. 1 center in the league. From the perspective of immediate combat power, he was not even worthy of the God of Basketball Michael Jordan. For the Magic Management, there is no doubt that such a person should be left behind at any cost!

But the Magic Management didn't think so.

Many top brothers on the list believe that the Magic was a single choice question between Kobe or O'Neal after the Lakers OK group fell out, but in fact, the Magic was completely different from the Lakers later. The personal relationship between O'Neal and Hardaway did not break down. Moreover, O'Neal still hoped to stay in Orlando after playing the last game of the rookie in four years. So theoretically, as long as the Magic was willing to spend money, O'Neal would not leave, and the core team of Hardaway + O'Neal would be retained..

But the key problem is that Magic doesn't want to spend more money.

The Magic, as a new team that entered the NBA in 1989, had only been fighting in the league for seven years in 1996. Although there were superstars like Penny Hardaway, the fan base was still much weaker and much stronger than veteran strong opponents like the Knicks, Lakers, and Celtics. The team's profitability was not ideal, so the management naturally didn't want to spend more money.

For the Magic, there is another unfavorable factor in renewing O'Neal, that is, two years later, the NBA labor-management agreement signed in 1994 will expire. The labor-management agreement re-signed in 1994 doubled the value of NBA players. With the rapid development of NBA commercialization, it can be predicted that the offseason in 1998 will be another summer when the US dollar is flying all over the sky. Therefore, if the Magic want to keep O'Neal, they must pay more Mane. In the 1996-1997 season, the NBA's salary cap was 24.36 million, Hardaway occupied 6.66 million, Old Minister Nick Anderson and Denis Scott occupied 3.79 million and 3 million respectively, and Brian Shaw occupied 4 million. Not to mention others, these four people alone accounted for 17.45 million, and the remaining one was less than 7 million, which required more than a dozen people to share.

In addition to O'Neal, there is also a Hores Grant who wanted to renew his contract. In short, Magic's salary was very stressful back then. If you spend one more cent, you would have to pay the same multiple extra tax. Therefore, the performance of Magic's vice president John Gabrielle's slap souvenir began.

In the last year of O'Neal's rookie, Gabriel offered O'Neal a touching contract of 40 million in four years and 40 million in average salary and only 10 million in average salary. After being rejected, the quotation was increased to 80 million in seven years and 11.5 million in average salary, but was still rejected. The quotation continued to be increased to 54 million in four years and 13.5 million in average salary and 13.5 million in average quote, and said that this was his final quote!

Garybuel's several rounds of quotations made O'Neal feel a little annoyed, but before it was time to tear him apart, he made it clear that the price he expected was 115 million in 7 years, with an average salary of more than 16 million. Gabriel's head was round on the spot, and his eyes were big on one side...

O'Neal dared to ask for this price. First, labor-management negotiations were restarted in 1998, and big contracts were foreseeable. Second, in the process of the Magic and O'Neal's tug-of-war, Arenzo Mooning got 100 million in 7 years, and Zhu Wan Howard got 105 million in 7 years. O'Neal believed that he was not a little better than these two people, and asking for 115 million in 7 years is not an exaggeration.

Gabriel did not choose to follow up, but started his performance. In an interview with the media, he fiercely criticized O'Neal's various shortcomings. Compared with Mourning, O'Neal's defense and rebounding were very poor. Compared with Zhu Wan Howard, whether O'Neal has the ability to shoot? Anyway, he was all kinds of innuendo, saying that O'Neal was not worth a billion yuan contract.

What annoyed O'Neal the most was that Gabriel solemnly stated that Penny Hardaway is the future of the team, and next year is Hardaway's last year's contract, and they don't want to upset Hardaway.

As soon as Gabriel said this, O'Neal was completely disappointed with the magic.

Gabriel said this, and in the multiple-choice questions between O'Neal and Hardaway, they firmly believed that Hardaway was the boss of the team and the future. At the beginning of last season, O'Neal missed 21 games at the beginning of the season due to injury. Hardaway led the team alone to an excellent record of 17 wins and 4 losses, which proves Hardaway's ability.

The most important point is that the commercial value of a big player is not as good as that of an outside player. This is almost the iron rule of the NBA. Even with such a powerful O'Neal, the sneakers signed by the second-tier Reebok, and the one signed by Hardaway is Nike!

At the critical moment, the Magic's follower newspaper "Orlando Sentinel" also began to add fuel to the fire. They launched a poll - whether O'Neal is worth a 7-year contract of 115 million yuan, but 91.3% of fans thought it was not worth it. This became the last straw that broke O'Neal's return to the Magic. At that time, O'Neal was still playing the Olympics in Atlanta, and Barkley and Pippen were not interested in watching the fun. They made fun of O'Neal several times - you have to abandon you.

Hardaway had already felt the signs that seemed a little wrong. He urged Gabriel to renew O'Neal as soon as possible to maintain the stability of the team's lineup, but Gabriel was unmoved and his self-confidence was overwhelmed - at that time, the NBA's salary cap was only a little over 20 million. O'Neal's parent team Magic could renew O'Neal's contract with O'Neal, but other teams could not. If other teams wanted to sign O'Neal, they would almost have to vacate the players of the team!

At this moment, Lakers general manager Jerry West quietly began to contact O'Neal. He called O'Neal's manager Leonard Amoto - give me two days to see what I can do. Amoto is a native of Los Angeles and his home is in Los Angeles. It is not ruled out that he is also an old acquaintance with West. When O'Neal was selected by the Magic, Amoto suggested that the Magic trade O'Neal to the Lakers, but the Magic did not agree.

In fact, West had already turned his attention to the off-season in 1996. Of course, the goal was not yet determined at that time, but the salary space had begun to be vacated. After the season, Magic Johnson chose to retire and vacated 2.5 million. On the 96 draft night, West gave Divac to the Hornets in exchange for rookie Kobe. This operation gave the Lakers a salary space of 3.7 million..

West cleared his salary space almost every minute in the past two days. He had to make at least more than 10 million in salary space. For this reason, West gave up the point guard Anthony Pierre, who had trained for four years and performed well, saving 1.33 million in this move. George Lynch, who was a third-grade rookie and played well, was also given up, which saved another 2.09 million.

Old point guard Dart Sreeter was sent to the Rockets for a second round pick, saving another 2.4 million. Substitute forward Derek Slotter, who played well last season, was also given up, saving 1 million. Substitute center Elden Campbell's contract extension was also suspended, with 2.4 million temporarily...

When West was crazily clearing his salary space in the past two days, Gabriel felt that the sign was not right. He hurriedly found O'Neal, who had just finished the Atlanta Olympics, and wanted him to sign the 7-year, 109 million contract he proposed, but it was obvious that this was impossible. West took O'Neal to Los Angeles with a 7-year, $120 million super contract.

In this way, Penny Hardaway lost one of his most important teammates. It was clearly the blame for the management, but Hardaway took it. In order to make up for O'Neal's position, Gabriel signed Warriors center Ronnie Secali for 12 million in three years and renewed Hores Grant for 29 million in two years. In fact, the salaries of these two people are very close to O'Neal's salary, but the Magic are just unwilling to give the money to O'Neal.

After O'Neal left, Hardaway seemed to have been drained of all his luck, and frequent injuries began to come to the door. The talented star of the past was lost in just a few years...

Due to the content of this chapter, we will talk about the next chapter that every day at 8 o'clock, Fireworks will continue to output high-quality original content to everyone. I feel that Fireworks is well written, and I hope to get a small praise for encouragement. The recognition of the top brother on the list is the driving force for Fireworks Xiaojun to update every day! Fireworks, I’m here to thank you for your brothers on the list!