Chapter 485 You can bully others, but you can’t bully Wang Yuanchao
Besides the fact that the Braves were the predecessor of the Clippers, they also had a great player, Bob McAdoo. Wang Yuanchao also started watching basketball in his previous life with Jordan, but this Bob was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2000.

All the players who can be selected into this Hall of Fame are powerful figures!

So it doesn’t matter if you don’t know the other party’s achievements, but he must be a very good player, right?
Moreover, the team's head coach is also a powerful figure.

So he asked his former brother-in-law Ron to visit his NBA team, the Buffalo Braves. If Ron had any players he was interested in, it was not impossible for him to buy them.

His idea was the same as Reagan's: for boys, playing ball is better than dancing.

Ron was preparing to apply for the Jeffrey Dance School in New York, and the Buffalo Braves were also in New York State, so he went with his ex-brother-in-law to visit and experience the atmosphere of the NBA team.

You can also attend the Woodstock Music Festival in late August. Hmm, it's a perfect trip.

Before this, Ron had never been to New York to participate in such activities. He suddenly felt like a bird out of a cage, and the air seemed especially sweet.

He felt that his brother-in-law was so good, but his sister didn't even know how to cherish him. It was really... He had to restrain his excitement.

The head coach of the Buffalo Braves, Jack Ramsey, is also a legendary coach. He led the Portland Trail Blazers to their only championship.

Jack Ramsey previously coached the 76ers, but later resigned due to the 76ers' defeat in the 71-72 season and then joined the Buffalo Braves.

After the first season of training and running-in, he successfully transformed the player lineup headed by Bob McAdoo. In the 1973-74 season, the Buffalo Braves became the biggest dark horse in the league.

The team made a gamble, trading young center Elmore Smith to the Lakers for standard small forward Jim McMillian, who had averaged at least 18 points per game in the previous two seasons.

This deal allowed head coach Ramsey to free up McAdoo to move to the center position. At the same time, the team added Garfield Hurd at the power forward position and got rookie Ernie DiGregorio at the point guard position.

In this season, the Buffalo Braves had an excellent record of 42 wins and 40 losses and made the playoffs for the first time in history.

Bob McAdoo won the annual scoring title with an average of 30.6 points per game, and his average of 15.1 rebounds per game ranked third in the league.

Ernie DiGregorio was the team's second best rookie with an average of 8.2 assists per game.

In the first round of the playoffs, they faced the powerful Boston Celtics. After the two teams won two games each in the first four games, the more experienced Celtics won the fifth and sixth games in a row and won the final victory.

1974-75赛季，布法罗勇敢者队在与伤病的抗争中蹒跚前进，球队最终以49胜33负的战绩结束常规赛并位列大西洋赛区第2名。在季后赛中继续前进，并在东区的半决赛中3-4的总比分负于子弹队。

1975-76赛季，布法罗勇敢者队继续累积着在进攻上的眩目数字。赛季结束后勇敢者队在全队得分、助攻和全队投篮命中率3项指标上都位列全联盟第2。布法罗勇敢者队以46胜36负进入季后赛，与费城76人队并列大西洋赛区第2名，并在首轮依靠第3场比赛中加时1分险胜涉陷过关，但在东区半决赛中勇敢者以2-4不敌凯尔特人队，遭到淘汰出局。

Buffalo's mortal enemy - the Boston Celtics!

Therefore, Wang Yuanchao, as the new boss, has to meet the head coach and the main players of the team to reassure them.

If Wang Yuanchao had not taken over, Ramsey would have been announced to be fired after the owner sold the team, and then went to the Portland Trail Blazers to coach them for a full ten years.

McAdoo will be sold to the New York Knicks by the new owner John Brown for $300 million. (According to the purchase contract, if John Brown sells any Braves players, the proceeds will belong to the old owner Paul Snyder, in exchange for a reduction in the amount John Brown paid to acquire the team. This transaction saved John Brown $50 million in the subsequent purchase of the remaining 200% of the Braves.)
Wang Yuanchao first met with the team's head coach Ramsey.

Who to meet first and who to meet later actually has a very subtle meaning.

In the eyes of the big boss Wang Yuanchao, he values ​​the head coach more. If nothing unexpected happens, the head coach will have more say than the team's general manager.

Ramsey was not flattered. First, he was capable and many teams were trying to recruit him, so he had no worries about food. Second, he did not have a good relationship with his former boss Paul Snyder and might be fired at any time. Third, he did not know the identity of the new boss, and Wang Yuanchao's status in the United States was not that prominent.

Wang Yuanchao expressed his intention to retain Ramsey and supported him in building the team in the direction of a championship-winning team.

In addition to treatment, this is also power. The building of this team will follow the head coach's ideas!
Ramsay was not very happy about this. Instead, he frowned and said:

"Boss, thank you for your support. But with all due respect, it's going to be difficult for Buffalo to win the championship right now.

You see, Buffalo is a small basketball market, not a big basketball market like New York or Philadelphia, and the team couldn’t even sell 5000 season tickets!
Not only is our appeal to top players inherently insufficient, but the players we train ourselves also yearn for big cities, making it difficult to retain them.

In this case, you either have to rely on recruiting new people or recruiting people with higher salaries. The former relies more on luck, and I don’t quite understand the cost-effectiveness of the latter. ”

The new boss is direct, and Ramsay is not shy about what he says.

The Buffalo market just won’t do!
Otherwise the original owner wouldn't be so determined to sell it!
Although he did not agree with some of the team's general manager's actions, the boss had already authorized him, and he could not say anything bad about the general manager.

So I told the truth.

In short, Buffalo is inherently flawed.

To put it another way, even if the big investment won the championship, he didn't understand why the boss would make such a big investment and lose money. These days, the team's income does not come from TV broadcasts, but mainly from ticket sales.

That’s why there is the saying that big cities have big markets, and small cities have small markets.

Although Wang Yuanchao was not short of money, he appreciated Ramsey's fair point.

He also keenly sensed the hidden meaning in Ramsey's words - "The players we train ourselves also yearn for big cities, and it is difficult to retain them stably."

The only valuable player for the Buffalo Braves right now is none other than McAdoo.

"You mean, McAdoo?"

Ramsay nodded and said:
"McAdoo has expressed his desire to live in a big city more than once. Although I can still keep him, it will probably only last for one or two seasons. It was already a bit difficult to discuss a contract extension before.

If the boss wants to build a championship-winning roster, it will take at least one or two seasons to get the team in shape, right? "

When the players are ready to leave, the small-market teams will have to pay a higher price to retain their players. Otherwise, it is better to sell them early while they are still valuable and make some money.

Wang Yuanchao said:

"I also plan to move the team to a big city. I have some businesses in Los Angeles, MGM Films, Orange Films, they are all my businesses."

When Ramsay heard this, he thought, wow, the new boss is worth quite a lot!

The investment of a film company in one movie is much more valuable than the entire Buffalo Braves team.

The boss does have the confidence to build the team for the championship.

"Los Angeles is the largest city in the United States besides New York."

Wang Yuanchao said:

"So I think Los Angeles can definitely accommodate another team besides the Lakers."

Ramsay nodded and said:

"However, if you want to move to Los Angeles, I personally suggest that it is better to act early than late. Not to mention that the ABA has just been integrated into the NBA, and now is the off-season, it is really the most appropriate time.

And the first year can also be used as a running-in year.

However, we were ordered by the court not to move out of Buffalo until at least next season."

Although Ramsey stayed in Buffalo for four years, he had no regrets when it came to leaving.

Wang Yuanchao thinks this is the truth. It will be easier to deal with the league reorganization. After all, when a team changes cities, it changes divisions, and the owners of each NBA team need to vote.

The current NBA commissioner is Larry O'Brien, and the NBA championship trophy is named after him.

He is a Democrat and once served as Kennedy's Postal Secretary. Wang Yuanchao has always had a good relationship with the Democratic Party. The Woodstock Music Festival is the best proof of their relationship, isn't it?
The NBA president came forward, and Wang Yuanchao's status was not just in Los Angeles, he also had businesses in New York. He was truly a media tycoon.

His strength far exceeds that of these NBA bosses.

I think everyone will still give it some face and vote in favor, right?
As for the court ruling, which required the Braves not to move out for five years, Snyder even coordinated not to move out next season - that's really not a big deal.

In fact, if you want to leave, you can also say that the other party has breached the agreement on the Memorial Hall (Stadium)!

Wang Yuanchao's legal team sorted out the matter in great detail.

The Braves set their home games at the Memorial Auditorium, which can accommodate about 10,000 people. But many weekends, the Braves could not play games at their home stadium.

Memorial Hall has always been the home of the Canisius College basketball team, which has the right to use the stadium on Saturdays. This college team is very popular in Buffalo. Former Canisius player and Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello once said: "Saturday night is Buffalo night, and the stadium is always full."

When the Braves joined the NBA, the Buffalo Sabres also joined the NHL as an expansion team. The owners of the Sabres are the Knox brothers, who are from a prominent family in Buffalo. They are not only wealthy, but also have good relations with the political world.

Before Snyder officially acquired the Braves, the Knox brothers quickly reached an agreement with Memorial Auditorium that the Sabres could freely choose the date of use without interfering with Canisius College.

Therefore, the local court in Buffalo can bully Snyder, but cannot bully Wang Yuanchao.

(End of this chapter)