http://www.nba.com/rockets/community/Leslie_Alexander_Biography-307773-822.html Actually it's not that random. Even in his own bio on the rockets website he mentions FMD. It seems like a lot of Les' wealth comes from China these days yet he is trading Yao. It shows he has a lot of balls.
...I'm guessing he is trading Yao because he knows Yao will never play another NBA game again or the whole trade talk is just a way to feel out how other teams value to guess how much they should offer Yao. Billionaire businessmen don't just turn their backs on their "in" to a lucrative capital stream.
He doesn't know that. Yao doesn't even know that. What he probably knows is Yao is willing to resign for MLE money if he does come back. And that Yao would be acceptable to a trade for the betterment of the team.
really? i dont think it does. Creating partnerships was something Yao help established but now those partnerships have been made and contracts signed and if the business relationship is mutually beneficial i doubt these chinese companies would break contracts just because Yao was traded. Money is Money wherever it is. Besides if Yao is traded I am sure he'll have nothing but amazing things to say about Les and the Rockets org. If Les treated the chinese companies proper than I see no reason why they wouldnt continue their relationship with him. Its not like as soon as he got all these deals with them he kicked Yao out. He has been paying Yao millions of dollars during rehab for a good portion of the last 4-5 seasons Yao has "played" I know the chinese hold loyalty very high but i believe that the people Les deals with are the same type of business men that are all around the world. The only loyalty they have is $
What I find interesting is what would have happened to the Rockets in 2008 when the majority of Les' wealth went up in smoke when his stock lost 90% of its value if Yao and his Chinese $ wasn't here. Maybe similiar to the Texas Rangers.
I guess I'm out of line when I think pulling a thread from three years ago to state something that isn't even on topic with the original thread is random. I actually remember this thread and discussing it at work. But what does the fact that Les owns FMD have to do with trading Yao?
Forbes reported that Les was worth around 1.2 billion. Robbie pointed out Les owned 18.2 million shares of FMD from looking at bloomberg. Looking at the stock price before the crash and the price after the crash shows Les lost most of his wealth in 2008. Yet he didn't sell the Rockets or cut payroll to the bones because of the $ he made from Yao and China. Many Rockets fans thought Les would never trade Yao because of this connection. Just a couple of days ago it was reported on yahoo sports that Les is looking to trade Yao so maybe this is not so random
I guess I see where you're going with this. The connection has been made with China. We have the endorsements. I think Yao sitting on our bench hurt is fairly similar to him being on another team. Or not here at all. I think the relationship with China is something Les has created through Yao. But Les now owns it. Does Les even own any anymore? He's not listed on the major shareholders list, but I don't see any insider transactions within the past 2 years either.
Interesting bump...I do think it's relevant since Les is willing to trade his cash cow. I would think that he wouldn't be willing to do it unless there was some sort of gentleman's agreement that Yao would return to the Rockets. Sugar what did you search for to find this?
I made a bet with a friend after this thread. I said Les would never consider trading Yao because he basically saved his tail in 2008. Also I remember clutch wrote something about a shoe ipo deal Les got because of Yao and that Les would never trade Yao. My friend reminded me of the bet today and forwarded this link to me and now I owe him a cool $50
