026: The Chosen Son of Destiny of the Iberian Peninsula (Please Keep Reading!)
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For many years, Nike faced very little competition. It had become the undisputed ruler of the athletic footwear industry.
It all began in 1984, when Nike recruited Sonny Vaccaro, who made a decision that went against every convention in the industry: “We need to pile all of the company’s marketing resources onto a single star player.”
So when Converse approached Michael Jordan, who was just preparing to enter the professional basketball world, with an offer of $100,000 a year, roughly what other top NBA stars were making, Sonny Vaccaro ended all suspense by putting a five-year, $2.5 million contract on the table.
No player had ever earned anything close to that much through a sneaker endorsement. The enormous disparity even aroused the jealousy of Isiah “The Smiling Assassin” Thomas, giving rise to a long series of grudges and stories between the two men.
Sonny Vaccaro’s strategy was a spectacular success. He turned a company that had once struggled to pay its employees into a force that swept across the entire sneaker market and made billions of dollars.
Yet in 1991, Nike suddenly severed its ties with Sonny. The reason remains a mystery to this day.
All people really know is that Nike chairman Phil Knight was an ambitious, authoritarian man. He believed Nike’s success depended on players and clever people, but never on any one particular player or any one particular clever person.
He often said, “You’d better work yourself to the bone for me. If I can’t stand you anymore, I’ll get rid of you.”
So when Sonny Vaccaro’s influence within Nike grew greater and greater, his split with Phil Knight was almost inevitable.
Even so, thanks to his enormous influence in the basketball world, Sonny Vaccaro remained a powerful figure. Though he no longer had Nike’s formidable backing behind him, the name “Sonny Vaccaro” was itself a potent weapon.
He decided to take on Phil Knight.
And so the Nike godfather, cast into exile, joined Adidas, which at the time held little of the North American market. Through the immense influence of the ABCD Camp he had founded, he discovered a boy named Kobe Bryant before Nike did and embarked on the second great gamble of his life after 1984.
He used the entire signing budget of Adidas North America to sign a child who had not even made it through adolescence.
It turned out that his extraordinary eye for talent had not faded, and neither had his strategy of “piling all of the company’s marketing resources onto a single star player.”
When Kobe tore through the Finals wearing Adidas sneakers, the German brand acquired the perfect marketing machine. Adidas soared, its market share rising sharply, and Phil Knight was driven into a frenzy.
Before long, Sonny signed another prodigious talent, Tracy McGrady, allowing Adidas to seize even more market share from Nike.
Phil Knight was furious. He had no idea how Sonny kept finding these boys before Nike did, so the dictator laid down an ironclad rule: he would never again allow the next super-star to fall into the hands of the German brand.
And he kept his word.
That summer, Sonny Vaccaro and Nike engaged in another fierce battle, this time over LeBron James.
At first, Sonny once again held the upper hand. He was skilled at dealing with high-school players, and his relationship with LBJ had begun as early as 2001.
Through his almost supernatural powers of persuasion, LeBron not only agreed to sign a contract, but also convinced his mother that this would become the most transformative partnership in the history of sports. If Li Hongzhang had taken Sonny with him to negotiate with the foreign powers, the Eight-Nation Alliance might have had to pay compensation on top of everything else.
But when the final decision was made, the amount written into Adidas’s contract was not the $100 million Sonny Vaccaro had previously negotiated. It was far less than that, under $60 million.
Sonny was stunned. He understood that Adidas had backed down at the last moment. To make matters worse, his mortal enemy Phil Knight ultimately signed LeBron for $90 million and, while he was at it, poached the free agent Kobe Bryant, reclaiming absolute control of the sneaker market.
(The claim that Kobe was abandoned by Adidas because of the Eagle County incident is pure fiction. Even before that incident, Kobe had already bought out his Adidas contract with $8 million of his own money because of irreconcilable conflicts with the company. So yes, Adidas lost two of the most influential players of the twenty-first century entirely through its own stupidity.)
In this bloody war over star players, Phil Knight had the last laugh.
The saying “The competition is full of idiots” only grows more valuable with time.
Adidas’s near-betrayal left Sonny Vaccaro devastated. He apologized privately to LeBron and his mother, then submitted his resignation to Adidas.
In his resignation letter, he wrote: “We could have changed the era, but cowards do not deserve victory.”
Sonny was not a coward like Adidas. This short, stout Italian, known throughout the industry as “the godfather in sneakers,” swore that he would fight his mortal enemy Phil Knight to the bitter end.
He has now joined Reebok, hoping to rise again.
From 1984 to the present day, 2003, Nike, Adidas, and Reebok have fought countless battles. Through all of them, Sonny Vaccaro understood one unchanging truth of the sneaker market: “Piling all of a company’s marketing resources onto a single star player” was the fastest way for a brand to turn its fortunes around.
So after joining Reebok, he prepared to make the third great gamble of his life.
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He had to sign the next Michael Jordan before that future Michael Jordan became Michael Jordan.
This time, his sights were no longer set on the ABCD Camp, or even on North America.
He crossed the ocean and arrived on the Iberian Peninsula. He knew that the next child of destiny might be waiting for him in Madrid.
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Lin Qi’s Spanish League debut, in which he recorded 31 points, 13 rebounds, and 5 blocks, sent shock waves through the entire professional basketball world.
If a player coming from the NBA to Europe had put up those numbers, it would not have been surprising.
If an undrafted player who had played college basketball in the United States had posted those numbers in Europe, that would not have been surprising either.
But what if the player who did it was a seventeen-year-old boy who had never played professional basketball before?
Overnight, Lin Qi became a sensation in Madrid. More than a few girls pasted posters of Lin Qi over their David Beckham posters, drawing strength from them during their late-night gaming sessions.
Boys lined up outside the Real Madrid fan shop, and the number ten jersey sold out in an instant.
Even Sonny Vaccaro, who had seen everything, was left speechless. In the streets and alleyways of this football capital, teenagers wearing number ten basketball jerseys could be seen everywhere.
He decided to remain in Madrid for a while, because a European League game was coming up: Real Madrid versus CSKA Moscow, the champions of the Russian League.
He wanted to see up close how the boy played.
CSKA Moscow had enjoyed a brilliant European League campaign the previous season, advancing to the Final Four.
Although they had fallen short of the title, any team that reached the European League Final Four could be considered one of the continent’s great monsters that season.
The arena was packed. As Madrid’s newest super-star, Lin Qi possessed enormous drawing power at the box office.
His performance in the game was equally impressive.
Contrary to most people’s impression, this Russian team did not win through an ironclad, overpowering frontcourt. After all, there was only one Andrei Kirilenko.
CSKA Moscow’s strength lay in two quick, elusive scoring machines: American guard Marcus Brown and Russian national-team guard JR Holden.
The former had been selected to the European League First Team the previous season and had briefly played for both the Portland Trail Blazers and the Detroit Pistons.
The latter was actually American as well. After all, the Slavic peoples do not produce Black men. But because JR Holden possessed exceptional basketball ability and had played in the Russian League for many years, Russia passed a special decree granting him citizenship.
It was much like China granting Stephon Marbury special permission to join the national team during his Beijing years.
The result was deeply ironic: the Slavic eagle had to rely on two North American black aces to sweep across Europe.
Before the game, Marcus Brown faced the interview cameras with a vicious expression.
“Yes, I’ve heard the rumors. Lin Qi may be a top-three pick in the 2004 NBA Draft. But I also know something else: Real Madrid was the only team in the European League that failed to make the playoffs last season, and their opponent is the Russian League champion!
“People say he’s incredibly talented, but he’s still just a high-school student. You expect a high-school student to lead a team that missed the playoffs to victory over the Russian champions?”
After the game...
“Oh, you know, Lin Qi is an exceptionally good player. I said from the beginning that he wasn’t an ordinary high-school student. You can see that he’s the kind of guy destined for greatness,” Marcus Brown said after recalling the game. “You can imagine how brilliant his future will be. He was incredible!”
Marcus Brown’s specialty was apparently a severe case of split personality.
Then again, what else could he say after the Russian champions had ultimately lost by twelve points to Real Madrid, who had finished tenth in the Spanish League the previous season?
Lin Qi struggled with his shooting that night, going zero for four from beyond the arc, while his mid-range efficiency was merely passable.
His shooting still depended heavily on touch and rhythm. He could not be expected to shoot like a marksman in every game.
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Although his shooting performance left something to be desired, Lin Qi still dominated the game with his terrifying ability to defend far beyond the paint.
That night, Lin Qi and Louis Bullock completely shut down Marcus Brown.
Louis Bullock applied relentless pressure, refusing to give Brown any chance to shoot from three-point range.
And whenever Marcus Brown chose to drive, Lin Qi, waving a pair of long arms, would appear in time to deal with him.
This defensive strategy naturally allowed the dark-skinned Slavic guard JR Holden to erupt. He scored 33 points that night.
But Marcus Brown’s sixteen shots produced only three makes, leaving him with eight points, and JR Holden was powerless to carry the team alone.
When Marcus Brown went home and climbed into bed, his mind was filled with Lin Qi.
Lin Qi finished with 23 points, 16 rebounds, and 6 blocks. Louis Bullock scored 25.
The European League debut was perfect once again.
At the end of the game, Louis Bullock pounded his chest in front of the cameras.
“Man, shutting down Marcus wasn’t difficult at all. Defense isn’t a weakness of mine anymore.”
From Marcus Brown to Louis Bullock, Americans always seemed adept at creating comedy during interviews on European courts.
Even Real Madrid captain Alberto Herreros could not stand listening to it. Standing on the shoulders of giants was supposed to help you see farther, not give you a platform for bragging!
Once all the work was finished, Lin Qi changed clothes and met his agent, Misko Raznatovic, in the players’ tunnel, along with the short, stout Italian.
Sonny Vaccaro warmly clasped Lin Qi’s hand with a palm that smelled of cigars. He was worried that Lin Qi, who had only recently begun making his way through European basketball, might not know who he was, and was about to introduce himself.
But Lin Qi interrupted him with a smile.
“We’ve all heard your story, Sonny.”
Sonny could see the confidence in Lin Qi’s eyes. It reminded him intensely of the young Flying Man who had just come out of North Carolina in 1984.
“In that case, let’s discuss this in my hotel room. I’ll go on ahead. I’m sure you and Mr. Misko need some privacy.”
With that, Sonny walked out of the players’ tunnel first, leaving Lin Qi and Misko behind.
Misko shrugged with a smile.
“Next, we’re going to negotiate a business deal. A deal where they pay you to wear their shoes.”
“That sounds like robbery.” Lin Qi’s moral sense vanished without a trace. He suddenly found himself in love with the idea of robbery.
“When I was young, my mother used to say that the money a lawyer could steal with a briefcase was more than a thousand masked robbers with guns could ever take. Later, I discovered she was wrong. Professional athletes are the real robbers. So yes, Lin Qi, we’re going to rob him blind!”
“How much are you planning to ask for?” Lin Qi wanted a general idea, so that Misko’s demand would not end up being wildly different from what he had in mind.
Misko opened his hand and waved it once in front of Lin Qi.
“Fifty million?”
“No, no, no.” Misko turned his palm over. “Two fifty millions. We’ll make him pay a hundred million!”
“Listen, kid. Your price has to be higher than LeBron James’s. Countless young players treat LBJ’s contract as the ceiling, but that is only our floor. This is your ticket to becoming a super-star, and your standing cannot be a level below LBJ’s. You may not receive all that money immediately. Negotiations like this can take a long time. But I guarantee that this is the price you will ultimately command.”
Misko did not merely intend to make Lin Qi the number-one overall pick.
He intended to make him a number-one pick on the level of Hakeem, Tim Duncan, and LeBron James.
The comparison between Lin Qi and LeBron James had already begun before Lin Qi entered the league.
(Thanks to all the generous readers who rewarded me, including Shu Fei Jie Bu Neng Du, Reader 20220416110602124, Qiye Xuelie, iz one, Tian Cangren, Duzuo Haibian Kan Richu, Juanxin Caihuasheng, Reader 20241220232826528, Please Call Me Wolf Young Master, Tianmaxingkong zxz, and many others. I bow in gratitude!)
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