December 2nd, 10 AM, Ti Warner Arena eting room.
Jeanie Buss had been back ho and asleep for less than an hour when she received a call from the team’s operations manager. Though initially annoyed to be disturbed, upon hearing what the matter was, she imdiately perked up, collected data, analyzed information, and thought it through...
Then quickly called all the team managent personnel needed to make a joint decision to the training facility for a eting.
Once everyone was gathered, Jeanie Buss concisely announced the eting agenda: "I received an invitation from Starbucks, they are interested in sponsoring us."
Jim Buss responded, "Jeanie, shouldn’t you decide this matter? The boss has given all the power to you."
Besides Miss Jeanie Buss, all five of the Lakers’ young masters and mistresses arrived at the arena.
Joey Buss is coordinating with the NBA to establish a new league NBDL, Johnny Buss is preparing to establish the Los Angeles Sparks, Jim Buss is Jeanie Buss’s competitor, and young master Josh Buss is an intern in the team’s operations departnt.
Jeanie Buss is in charge of the Lakers and the business developnt of the "First Ticket" sports channel, jointly created by the Lakers and Ti Warner Cable Sports to specifically broadcast Lakers gas. She holds the highest managent authority in the team other than Jerry Buss.
The competition between Jeanie Buss and Jim Buss within the team has long been made public; no one was surprised by Jim Buss’s aggressive and sarcastic tone.
Jeanie Buss was used to it and replied, "But they have conditions."
"Conditions..." Logo Man chid in, "I rember Aix is a partner at Starbucks, the conditions should be related to him."
After glancing at Logo Man, Jeanie Buss quickly softened her gaze and responded, "Correct, they’ve proposed a condition requiring both Jerry and Del’s consent, with Del’s opinion being the most important. If you disagree, we can refuse Starbucks’ sponsorship."
Del Harris, who had been irritable since the night before, was startled—What’s going on with ?
Not speaking of what the conditions are, Del Harris couldn’t fathom how the decision of whether to accept the sponsorship actually fell to him, the coach, who is the lowest-ranked in the room?
Everyone was surprised, initially thinking Jeanie Buss had called them here for so trouble the beloved eldest daughter needs help handling.
It seed quite troubleso indeed, but not for them; they watched their team’s coach with a look of amusent.
Del Harris, bracing himself, said, "If there’s anything I need to do, I’ll strive to cooperate with the team."
Jeanie Buss said, "Starbucks proposed two conditions. If we agree, we can proceed to negotiate with them. The first condition is the sponsorship period; they will only provide sponsorship if Aix is on our team. If Jerry trades Aix away, the sponsorship ends."
Jerry West nodded and replied, "That condition is fine. The reason they’re willing to sponsor us is probably because we have traded Aix back. What’s the second condition then..."
With that said, Jerry West glanced at the hapless Del Harris.
Jeanie Buss continued, "The second condition is that Aix must start and have guaranteed playing ti."
...
...
Watching the scowling Del Harris testing Zhang Hao on technical aspects at the training ground, Kupchek couldn’t help but laugh and said to Logo Man beside him, "Do you think Aix will be targeted by Del? Del really likes Vlade."
"I like centers like Vlade too, but what can be done? Even if the Brooklyn Nets are blind, they wouldn’t want Cedric, and Eddie alone can’t be traded for a rookie like Aix who scores over 15 points each ga."
"The hardest part is that Del hasn’t even interacted with Aix yet, doesn’t know how good Aix is, but was forced by the eldest daughter to give Aix a starting role and stable playing ti, he’s probably got the worst impression of Aix by now..."
"Jeanie is indeed assertive, but she’s very capable."
"We expected Del to be unhappy when we decided to let Vlade go; we just didn’t anticipate a newly arrived Aix would imdiately have a big company sponsor backing him. Jerry, do you think this is a good thing?"
"Perhaps, at least we won’t need to discuss Aix’s playing ti with Del as Jeanie has settled it for us. With Jason Williams coming, his rebounding is decent; this matching salary add-on can supplent our interior depth."
"I prefer Kenny Anderson."
"But what can be done? The Brooklyn Nets aren’t truly foolish. If we want to trade both Kenny Anderson and Aix together, we’d have to send out all our starters... The Brooklyn Nets might not even agree, they don’t need so many players that can win gas."
"Such a sha, a top point guard who can make it into the All-Star starters at 23, we missed that bargain..."
"Yeah, such a sha, it’s unbelievable the Brooklyn Nets would actually trade away not only one but all their past years’ dual-core talents. I didn’t expect Duncan to be so attractive to the Brooklyn Nets, but anyway, our target is Aix."
...
Was Jeanie Buss really negotiating? It was more like an announcent!
Can he, a coach, take the bla for offending a sponsor?
Del Harris had no choice but to agree; at least this way, he could save face.
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