Sure enough, in Shanghai, at the Yao Family home, Gan Guohui was warmly received, and the Shanghai Club also entertained him—after all, he was Ah Gan's younger brother.
But when it came to business—the choice of an agent—Yao Ming's parents said they needed more time to think it over, and after that they never took the initiative to contact him again.
Having gone in full of confidence, thinking he could win this easily, Gan Guohui immediately realized he'd underestimated the situation; for the sake of his work with the Glory Team, he hadn't properly handled his agency business for quite a while.
He'd shut his eyes and ears, done nowhere near enough intel work, and ended up running into a soft nail.
Gan Guohui immediately mobilized his resources to investigate, dining with the higher-ups of the Shanghai Club, and using his contacts in America to probe for information.
For an agent, intel is the most important thing; only by knowing yourself and knowing your opponent can you be invincible in a hundred battles.
Otherwise, by the time you get your project started, they've already signed, the deal's nailed to the board, and the food's gone stone cold.
Very soon, Gan Guohui learned that the agents on the American side, Bill Duffy and David Falk, were the two people who'd been in touch with the Yao Family the most, and he also found out about the Evergreen Company situation.
Among them, Bill Duffy had taken a shine to Yao Ming as early as 1999, and had gone to live in Shanghai for three or four months, training and living with Yao Ming, building a very good personal relationship with the Yao Family.
He'd also put serious effort into helping Yao Ming deal with his contract issue with Evergreen Company, arguing that the contract was invalid, that Evergreen Sports was just a shell company, founded for the sole purpose of leeching off Yao Ming.
On this front, Gan Guohui really couldn't compare, because in 1999 he himself was neck-deep in the investigation of his brother's espionage case, with no time at all to expand new clients, let alone travel to China to cultivate a relationship with Yao Ming.
Fortunately, at the basketball training camp in Eugene, Gan Guohui had interacted with members of the national team; the relationship was decent, so he wasn't a complete stranger.
Then there was David Falk, one of the most successful agents of the 1990s; Jordan, Ewing and other American superstars were his clients. The guy was extremely good at negotiating with teams to get the maximum benefits for his players.
Ewing's ultra-long, mega contract, and Jordan's huge deals all bore Falk's fingerprints; he was known for being tough and skillful in wrangling with teams.
In Gan Guohui's view, Falk probably wasn't Bill Duffy's real opponent in this particular race.
Because Falk's values and methods were too American, while the Yao Family was a typical traditional Chinese family; facing someone as sharp-edged and hardline as Falk, they were unlikely to feel much warmth.
Bill Duffy, on the other hand, was sincere enough, established contact with the Yao Family very early, and had helped Yao Ming a lot on many matters.
This kind of feeling built up over time is something traditional people value greatly, and it was also Bill Duffy's biggest bargaining chip.
Coming in late to the game, Gan Guohui might have richer resources and the biggest name, but showing up late doesn't mean you can grab everything; at best, you become a backup option.
Personally, Yao Ming inclined toward working with Bill Duffy, because they had a fairly deep relationship, and Yao Ming didn't want to turn Duffy down in order to work with Falk, whom he'd never even met.
But as Yao Ming's home club, the Shanghai Team preferred Falk, because Falk was famous, capable, and had established contact with the Shanghai Team early on.
If Yao Ming left the Shanghai Team, Shanghai would suffer a huge loss of talent; the original deal with Evergreen had been meant to reduce that loss.
At this point, Gan Guohui didn't rush into the complex whirlpool; he pulled out of Shanghai first and returned to Las Vegas, becoming a vice president at his brother's sports asset management company, throwing himself into the secret construction of the Glory Team while observing developments in Shanghai.
As the 2001 draft approached, Yao Ming published an open letter stating he would not choose David Falk, the agent favored by the Shanghai Team, which angered the Shanghai Team and led them to refuse to release him, causing Yao Ming to miss the 2001 draft.
Yao Ming himself was, of course, very disappointed. He watched as Wang Zhizhi was already playing his third season in the NBA, getting stronger and improving at a rapid pace, while he was still slogging it out in the CBA. He longed to make his mark, to put on his own No. 11 jersey in the NBA.
At this time, Gan Guohui extended a helping hand, saying he could help Yao Ming settle things with the Shanghai Team so that Yao Ming could enter the 2002 draft, and without paying a sky-high "development fee."
Over these years, Gan Guohui really had grown a lot, and he'd learned quite a bit from his brother.
Because of timing, Gan Guohui entered the game late. He didn't rush, and he didn't use his brother's resources to overwhelm people with sheer force.
Instead, he chose to sit on the wall and watch, see how the people already in the game played their hands, and let a complicated situation simplify itself a bit.
Originally it was a three-way struggle—Gan Guohui, Bill Duffy, David Falk—with the Shanghai Team, Evergreen Company, and even the Basketball Association lurking behind the scenes. As a latecomer he had no idea where to start.
Nor did Gan Guohui want to borrow his big brother's phone and call straight into the ocean; he still wanted to play by the rules.
So he waited—waited for the first head-to-head clash, for David Falk to be knocked out of the game, leaving just Bill Duffy and the Shanghai Team facing off, at which point things became much clearer.
Bill Duffy had Yao Ming's trust, but he didn't have the ability to settle things with the Shanghai Team. That was when Gan Guohui could step in sideways.
He would play fox borrowing tiger's might: his brother's reputation and resources were his best entry chips.
That December, Gan Guohui resigned as vice president of the Glory Team and refocused on player representation.
He preferred being a player agent; like Gan Guoyang, he inherited part of Larry Flesher's legacy and resources, and his goal was to become a sports agent with global reach, discovering top basketball talent around the world.
After resigning, Gan Guohui immediately headed to Shanghai, took the initiative to approach the Yao Family, and offered to represent them in negotiations with the Shanghai Team.
At the time, the Shanghai Team's condition was that Yao Ming could enter the NBA draft, provided he paid the team 30 million US Dollar.
The Yao Family had already been driven to the brink; when Gan Guohui showed up at this point, it wasn't just a warm welcome—he was a life-saving straw.
Once he understood the situation, Gan Guohui immediately proposed a negotiation strategy. Having gone through multiple labor talks and franchise-building negotiations with his brother, he had become very experienced, and his tactics owed more than a little to his brother.
After analyzing the landscape, he said the first thing to do was to kick out Shanghai Team vice president Li Mingyao, who was at odds with Yao Ming, from these negotiations.
Because over the past few years, the relationship between Li Mingyao and the Yao Family had gone beyond a simple negotiating counterpart; it was now laced with obvious personal grudges, which was why the terms were so harsh.
With an opponent you've already accumulated personal enmity with, if you can get rid of him, you get rid of him; if you can't, you replace him; if you can't replace him, you outlast him. It's basically one of those few options.
As for moving people with reason and emotion—forget it. Dealing with the person is far more useful than dealing with the problem.
With this line of thinking, things suddenly became much easier, because Li Mingyao was only a vice president in charge of business; he wasn't the real boss behind the Shanghai Team, so in theory he didn't have to be in charge of this matter—there were people above him.
Finding people higher up—that was a job Gan Guohui knew well. His brother used to handle things by casually picking up the phone to call a president, emphasizing simplicity, efficiency, and vertical management.
Gan Guohui didn't have that kind of clout, but he did get in touch with top leaders in Shanghai.
Every year in the past, Gan Guoyang would come to Shanghai for basketball events, and Gan Guohui would tag along; he was familiar with mid- and high-level officials, and his words still carried some weight.
Since Yao Ming was a symbol of Shanghai sports, his entering the NBA draft and playing in the NBA would be a great thing for Shanghai sports and for the city itself.
This kind of "lending the slope so someone can climb down," doing an easy favor while earning reputation and benefits, is something anyone would be happy to do.
So there were no obstacles at all. Originally, the Shanghai Team's negotiator, Li Mingyao, was kicked off the table, and new leaders came in to renegotiate the buyout price, bringing the number down to an internationally accepted and reasonable range.
Thus, what had been expected to drag on endlessly reached a milestone result on January 5, 2002—Yao Ming was allowed to enter the 2002 draft.
At the same time, Yao Ming would still have to play out the 2001–2002 CBA season for the Shanghai Team; his goal was to win the 2002 CBA championship so that he could head to the NBA with no regrets.
Gan Guohui naturally became Yao Ming's agent on the American side, and Bill Duffy was not fired because of this; Gan Guohui agreed for Duffy to be part of Yao Ming's agency team, with everyone working together to serve Yao Ming's future NBA career.
Bill Duffy couldn't help but admire Gan Guohui's patient, steady play. He asked him, "Are you planning to take Yao Ming to Las Vegas?"
Gan Guohui said, "As an agent, I'll only take Yao Ming to the place that suits him best."