Chapter 718: Chen Yan Clause
Although his time in the CBA was brief, Chen Yan delivered many memorable performances for the fans, including a single game feat of 71 points.
71 points was the highest single game score in CBA history.
Fans were not surprised that Chen Yan could break this record.
On the contrary, they felt Chen Yan had still been a little too conservative in the CBA.
After all, he was the man who had scored more than 100 points in the NBA. Once he came to the CBA, should he not score at least 150 points?
Fans always thought of basketball games as simple, but Chen Yan's CBA teammates were far below his NBA teammates in skill.
Chen Yan almost had to create scoring opportunities for himself on every possession.
In addition, Chen Yan did hold back because he was worried about injuries.
Some domestic players were reckless and could easily cause injuries.
Moreover, those players all had 1 characteristic.
They were deferential toward foreign players and did not dare play dirty against them, but they showed strong jealousy toward Chen Yan, who was also Asian.
Some players even wanted to prove themselves by defeating Chen Yan on a CBA court.
Although Chen Yan had the system and could recover from injuries, recovery consumed honor points.
Chen Yan felt that would be a bit of a loss.
On December 2, the Players Union was reorganized.
Both sides began a new round of negotiations.
This time, only the final 50 minor issues remained unresolved, and the NBA restart seemed imminent.
There were 30 teams, which meant 30 owners, and their opinions were not completely unified.
As early as the 2nd year of the previous collective bargaining agreement, 8 owners had jointly written to Stern, asking him to coordinate the imbalance between large markets and small markets.
Fisher once sent an email to more than 400 players in the league at the time.
He said that recent meetings between labor and management had been fruitful, and the failure to reach an agreement was not due to disagreements between players and owners, but rather disagreements among the owners themselves.
The players proposed taking 52 percent of basketball related income, which some owners considered quite fair. Those owners were willing to make certain compromises, such as linking players future income to the NBA's revenue growth.
Owners willing to compromise included Jerry Buss of the Los Angeles Lakers and James Dolan of the New York Knicks.
The firm opponents included Robert Sarver of the Suns and Dan Gilbert of the Cavaliers.
What was quite surprising was that Michael Jordan, who logically should have understood players best, was actually a representative of the hardliners, speaking for 10 to 14 team owners.
He hoped that players would receive 50 percent or even 47 percent of basketball related income, stating in a media interview that the league's business model at the time was full of holes, and that owners wanted to share more revenue.
According to the league's arrangements, on December 7, the owners of all 30 teams would hold a general meeting in New York, where the NBA headquarters was located.
Both sides would again internally discuss the details of the new agreement.
Voting would take place from 1 PM on December 7 to 4 PM on December 8, a process that would last 27 hours.
In this meeting, if 15 or more team owners voted in favor, then management would accept the new agreement.
The same applied to the players side.
If they received a majority of yes votes, it meant labor would also accept the new agreement. Then the new collective bargaining agreement would be implemented, and the NBA could officially declare the lockout over.
Chen Yan did not attend the general meeting this time.
He had already cast his yes vote, as had many players playing overseas.
Entering December, many NBA stars temporarily playing in the CBA no longer had their hearts fully on basketball.
They were simply waiting to return to the league.
As expected, after the general meeting on December 7, the agreement was smoothly passed.
The new season would start on Christmas Day, with only 66 regular season games.
Although the season was shortened, it was not too severe.
The 1998 to 1999 NBA regular season had only 50 games.
A shortened season was actually very beneficial for certain aging but still capable and experienced teams.
In that shortened season, the New York Knicks, as an 8th seed, made it all the way to the NBA Finals.
This year's shortened season presented a great opportunity for teams with aging core players, such as the Los Angeles Lakers and San Antonio Spurs.
Agent Bill Duffy immediately called Chen Yan and told him that the Knicks had restarted contract negotiations with him.
The Knicks only had 1 request.
Finalize the signing as soon as possible.
Financially, it would definitely be a max contract.
The only point of contention between the 2 sides was the duration.
The Knicks wanted to sign Chen Yan to a long term contract of 8 or 10 years.
Chen Yan only wanted to sign for 3 or 5 years.
Future changes were hard to predict, and he did not want to be tied down by a long term deal.
During negotiations, Chen Yan unexpectedly discovered a clause in the new agreement that seemed made for him.
The clause stipulated that a player who had been elected MVP during his rookie contract, or had been selected as an All Star starter twice in All Star voting, or had been selected to an All NBA Team twice, regardless of which team, would be eligible to receive a larger contract.
That player could directly sign a 30 percent max contract, instead of the old 25 percent.
Besides Chen Yan, only 1 other person met this condition.
Kevin Durant.
However, Durant had already renewed his contract with his team last season, so this clause only applied to Chen Yan.
Therefore, the outside world also referred to this clause as the Chen Yan Clause.
2 days later, Chen Yan and the Knicks reached a 5 year, 92 million dollar max contract.
Thanks to this special clause, he earned nearly 10 million dollars more than other max contract players.
What was even more infuriating was that Chen Yan's salary income was only a small fraction of his many sources of income.
Other stars income primarily came from salary and endorsements.
Chen Yan's income came from shoe royalties and stock shares.
On December 9, training camps and the trade market opened at the same time.
This year's start date had changed, so the timing for other phases naturally changed as well.
That included the preseason.
Not only was the timing different, but the number of games was also reduced.
This year, each team only needed to play 2 preseason games before starting the regular season.
Teams rushed to acquire new players.
The Knicks had previously signed Yi Jianlian and Beverley as free agents.
Now they were working on Crawford, DeAndre Jordan, and Chandler.
The Knicks main focus for the new season was strengthening their role players.
This was also Chen Yan's intention.
Bringing in a bunch of All Stars to win a championship was not Chen Yan's style.
He preferred to make opponents genuinely respect him rather than take shortcuts.
Yao Ming also found a new home.
He reached a verbal agreement with the Nets.
The Nets new Russian owner was very generous, offering Yao Ming a 5 year, 65 million dollar contract.
This was definitely considered a big contract in that era.
In the new season, the Nets would have Anthony, Deron Williams, Yao Ming, and Lopez.
On paper, it looked very impressive.
But the actual effect would only be known after they played.
After all, Anthony and Deron did not produce a 1 plus 1 greater than 2 effect last season.
After the stars successively returned to the NBA, the CBA returned to its usual routine.
Objectively speaking, this 1 month influx of stars did not truly promote the development of the CBA.
But it could not be denied that the stars had brought positive effects to the league.
The most direct point was increased visibility.
Many fans worldwide learned about the CBA, and even some ordinary people on American streets knew that the CBA was a basketball league from China.
The arrival of the stars also greatly stimulated the market.
Previously, CBA attendance was dismal, but during the past month, most games were packed. Many basketball fans constantly talked about the CBA, and those who used to only watch the NBA now had a certain understanding of their own country's basketball league.
But for Chen Yan, his purpose in coming to the CBA had only 1 meaning.
To give back to the fans.
He had too many loyal fans in China, too many fans who had silently supported him all along.
It was difficult for Chen Yan to give back to all these fans.
Although he often organized events, inviting basketball enthusiasts from impoverished families, or people with disabilities but strong wills, to watch NBA games live, that could only help a small portion of them.
Chen Yan's trip to play in the CBA fulfilled many fans wish to watch 1 of his games live.
Before leaving the CBA, Chen Yan accepted a media interview.
When the reporter asked whether Chen Yan would return to the CBA again, Chen Yan answered without hesitation.
"Definitely. I believe that day will come. Although my time playing in the CBA was very brief, I will not forget the enthusiasm of the fans here. Most importantly, these are the fans of our homeland, our own fans. We have an old Chinese saying, fallen leaves return to their roots. In a future year, I think I will return to the CBA and once again experience the cheers and shouts of the fans up close."
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