Sorry for the harsh headline, but I’m having a hard time coming up with any other conclusion. While I haven’t checked the Harvard core curriculum lately, it must surely be light on math, psychology and logic, and completely devoid of Marketing 101. How else to explain the self-destructive actions of its most famous basketball alum, Jeremy Lin, who has taken the global phenomenon known as Linsanity and doused it with kerosene.
After last night’s decision by the New York Knicks to let him walk to the Houston Rockets, almost all of the analysis has focused on Knicks owner Jim Dolan. He faced a vexing dilemma, given the back-loaded contract offer from the Houston Rockets that would have forced the Knicks to effectively pay $50 million for Lin’s services three years hence. (My friend Howard Beck of the New York Times provides a useful primer here.) How do you weigh Lin’s basketball and marketing potential against a very small sample set (he’s started all of 25 games in his career) and also against not just what he would be paid, but the larger ramifications of his contract down the line? Given that the adjectives[..]ociated with Dolan, backed up a dysfunctional track record, generally include illogical, vindictive, paranoid and dumb (and because I’m a lifelong Knicks fan, I’m being kind), he’s predictably being ripped apart.
In the end, though, I’m more fascinated by the choices Lin made. Dolan will be rich and reviled no matter what he does. Lin may have signed a big contract, but he also just provided the folks at Harvard Business School with a brilliant case study how to cost yourself millions of dollars and scads of influence when you’re not looking at the big picture.
To review, the point guard’s scrub-to-star rise in February – Linsanity! — has arguably been the best sports story of the year, played out on one of the biggest stages, Madison Square Garden. But the NBA’s complicated labor rules forced Lin to shop around his services in order to maximize his next contract with the Knicks. At first, he did so brilliantly, according to numerous reports, originally getting Houston to offer him roughly $5 million for his first two years of his contract (the maximum anyone was allowed), and then a $9 million balloon in the third year, with a team option for a fourth.
Various Knicks sources, including their coach, playing poker as deftly as a late-night drunk at Circus Circus, announced that they would match it, and that was presumably that. A global marketing machine would remain in the global marketing capital, as had been his goal all along, Lin just told Sports Illustrated.
And this where Lin flunked miserably. After the clumsy Knicks showed their hand, Lin and Houston agreed to add another $5 million to his guaranteed salary in third year – a true poison pill, since that extra $5 million would cost the Knicks an extra $20 million or so, courtesy of the NBA’s punitive new luxury tax, atop the effective $30 million bite they had already internalized.
I get why Houston did it. But why did Lin, as an equal party to the new offer, go along? I can only offer two theories:
Financial Certainty: With the revised offer, Lin guaranteed himself an extra $5 million in his pocket, three years from now. That’s serious scratch for a man who had been sleeping on his brother’s couch earlier this year. And given legitimate worries that he was way overperforming during his magical 25 game coming out, taking the sure thing now makes some sense.
But why structure it in a way so punitive to New York? If it was all about certainty, Lin could have instead tried to guarantee that fourth year (or even a fifth year). At $9 million per, that’s way more downside protection, yet spreading it out in a way that didn’t push the Knicks toward the fiscal cliff.
As for the upside, forcing the Knicks to even consider ending his tenure in New York is the truest definition of Linsanity. If Lin is even 80% as good as he showed in flashes last season, fronting a very good, very hyped Knicks team had the potential to bring him tens of millions in endorsements. But as Steve Herz, who cuts celebrity endorsement deals as president of IF Management previously told my colleague Tom Van Riper: “Lin leading the Charlotte Bobcats back to respectability wouldn’t be that interesting. It’s not something that Coca-Cola is going to play $10 million for.”
Insert “Houston Rockets” into that sentence, and you get Lin’s new reality. Rather than the golden boy on an obsessed-over team in the world’s media capital, he’s now an above-average player on a below-average team in a low-profile city.
第四,休士頓火箭向林書豪招手,林書豪到休士頓火箭He did not sign the contract and flight back to New York .at this time , New York still said whatever any team offer to him it will match. Lin still prefers New York.
想想看如果你的老闆說你表現很好.但是又請另一個人和你工作職位一樣,然後你工作上司又說你的薪水太高,而別家公司又想高薪請你那你會怎麼做?
我認為紐約球隊老闆小氣又想拿亞洲市場.作者: burgessking 時間: 2012-7-26 11:00 AM
Carmelo Anthony卡梅羅•安東尼薪水如下
No Player Pos Ht Wt Age Exp College 2011 Salary
7 Anthony, Carmelo
F/SF 6-8 230 28 9 Syracuse $18,518,574
20 Bibby, Mike
PG 6-2 195 34 14 Arizona $1,352,181
29 Camby, Marcus
C 6-11 235 38 16 Massachusetts $11,227,250
6 Chandler, Tyson
C 7-1 240 29 11 None $14,750,000
38 Davis, Baron
PG 6-3 215 33 13 UCLA $1,325,181
85 Felton, Raymond
G/PG 6-1 205 28 7 North Carolina $7,560,000
10 Kidd, Jason
PG 6-4 210 39 18 California $9,621,000
5 Novak, Steve
F/SF 6-10 240 29 6 Marquette $992,680
16
Shumpert, Iman
G/SG 6-5 220 22 1 Georgia Tech $1,563,120
21
Stoudemire, Amar'e
FC/PF 6-10 260 29 10 None $18,217,705
1 Thomas, Kurt
FC/PF 6-9 230 39 17 TCU $1,352,181作者: colourbeast 時間: 2012-7-29 11:49 AM
There are so much uncertainty in this business, mind you it's a business not just playing basketball in the NBA.
Yes by going to Houston, Lin will surely lose some of the marketing opportunities that NY has to offer. However Lin is the product here, Houston have established a big market in Asia (Yao's previous tenure in Houston). Imagine all the business and marketing connections already established. Mind you Lin's pretty big in Asia not just the big apple.
Furthermore J.R.Smith mention, hell if the Knicks matched the offer, this will create tension in the locker room as Lin didn't gain the respect of earning this much. No proof he can play at this elite level.
Lin being from Harvard is smart enough to know what's there. There was one offer on table, obviously the right choice is to sign. If Knicks match great if not there will be business opportunities in Houston and Asia anyway. This will be Lin's team now in Houston, until further signing. So money, play time, and business is on the table, right choice is to sign.作者: ondogdog123 時間: 2012-9-30 09:02 PM