The NBA started with helping Iverson win the championship

Chapter 383
After the three lottery picks in the hands of the Pacers have been selected, there are still three draft picks left.

There is actually not much room for these three picks to choose from.

For the last first-round pick, Li Xun directly selected Anfernee Simmons.

This teenager is normally selected by the Trail Blazers. When the Trail Blazers reached the fourth year of their rookie contract, they were considered to have really made it through. They averaged 17+ points per game with a fairly good efficiency.

It's not that this little Simmons really has to wait for the fourth season to rise, but that the Trail Blazers team has this kind of virtue.

They just don't seem to like to give newcomers too many opportunities. For example, Xiao Ao in the 90s of the last century was also delayed for several years in the Blazers.

Of course, sometimes suppressing newcomers is not necessarily a bad thing.

For example, this little Simmons, if he was given a chance earlier, he couldn't catch it and became a marginal player directly.

Seeing that Li Xun chose another combo guard with a height of 193 cm, Bird was taken aback.

This is not going to work, the Pacers may not have any insiders to use in the new season.

There are two second-round picks left, and the picks are not bad.

Li Xun first chose a Duncan Robinson. Looking at the name, he thought it was the illegitimate son of the Spurs Twin Towers.

It's a pity not to be a super insider.

But Duncan Robinson is an outside line and a three-point shooter.

Under normal circumstances, he was the undrafted pick in this draft, and he was picked up by the Heat, and he soared into the sky in the Heat's second season.

He was even able to hit an average of 45% of the terrifying three-pointers per game.

This is a pretty pure three-pointer, so pure that it couldn't be more pure.

He averaged 9.4 shots per game, 8.4 of which were three-pointers. One can imagine how obsessed this guy is with three-pointers.

"Li, there is one draft pick left, why don't you leave it to me."

"Why don't you leave it to me."

Bird also wanted to try his skills, but he was worried about Li Xun's last pick, so he chose another outside line.

Li Xun nodded. The last pick was the 39th pick, and he didn't have any favorite players.

Valuable Jalen Brunson and Devonte' Graham have already been drafted away.

Speaking of which, for the 18th draft, although Li Xun also knows which players are good, he also knows the general order in which these players will be selected.

But he is not very familiar with most of the players, and he is a bit face blind.

It's just that these players are all too similar.

Generally, they are not tall, about 193 centimeters, and they can shoot three-pointers and play combo guards.

Among the players in this class, players who meet this characteristic must account for at least more than half.

So in Li Xun's view, it doesn't matter who he chooses. Anyway, the players with the highest value have already been taken down by him.

After three or four hours of drafting, Li Xun's legs were numb.

If it weren't for his first draft with the Pacers, he might have left the venue after the first round.

Just when he was about to leave the venue, Li Xun heard someone calling his name.

Li Xun turned his head and saw a skinny black man looking at him nervously.

Li Xun searched the memory in his mind, and he found that he didn't seem to know this black man at all.

"Lee, this is Lloyd Pierce, the new Hawks coach."

"You must have seen me before, but you may not have a deep impression of me."

Li Xun nodded, and he was a little impressed by what he said.

He seems to have been an assistant coach in some teams such as the Cavaliers, but he is not the chief assistant coach. He has almost no sense of presence on the sidelines. It is no wonder that Li Xun has no impression of him.

"What's the matter, Coach Pierce."

Li Xun asked curiously.

"I found that you Pacers got a lot of point guards, do you want to make a deal with our Eagles?"

"We can take Doncic out and trade your Tre Young."

"Of course, this is just the main body of the transaction. We can discuss the specific details again."

Pierce looked at him tremblingly and said, wondering if he was afraid of Li Xun.

He is a coach who has almost no sense of presence, and he is soft-spoken. If he really offends Li Xun, the end will be absolutely unbearable.

Li Xun's face was startled, is there such a good thing?
Blowing Yang is indeed very strong, but at least in Li Xun's mind, Dongcic's force is still higher.

Now that the Eagles are willing to take out Doncic, this is also an opportunity for Li Xun.

In this draft, he did take too many point guards.

It's not that he has a soft spot for point guards, but that there is really no better candidate.

The idea of ​​the Eagles is very simple. Since Chuan Yang was selected by Li Xun with a high overall pick, his strength must not be inferior.

Now propose a deal with the Pacers to see Li Xun's attitude.

If Li Xun is unwilling, it means that Dongcic's potential is not good, at least he is definitely not as good as Chuan Yang.

If Li Xun is willing, they are not at a loss, because the Eagles are short of a point guard right now.

In addition, because Doncic has a higher pick, they also wondered if they could get some more sweetness from the Pacers.

Li Xun didn't speak, and glanced at Bird beside him.

It's not easy for him to express his opinion on this kind of thing, he really wants to agree immediately.

But if he expresses an attitude that is too eager for Doncic, it may make the lion on the eagle's side open his mouth.

"What does this guy mean?"

"I'm standing right in front of you, you want to trade with the Pacers, just ignore me as the general manager?"

Bird is also the best of the best, and it's not the first day he has known Li Xun. Before Li Xun came to the Pacers, the two had dealt with each other a lot.

Just by looking at Li Xun's eyes, he knew that Dongcic must be the same.

"I'm sorry, Mr Bird, I'm really sorry."

"I'm a little too nervous, you know, the coercion of a player like Li Xun is too great."

"I really should discuss this kind of thing with Mr. Bird first."

Of course, Pierce couldn't afford to offend Bird, and immediately laughed at Bird.

Only then did Bird snort, accepting Pierce's apology.

"Let's talk about the transaction, and don't bother Li Xun."

"He came to the Pacers to play, not to be our general manager. It is impossible for him to worry about everything."

After all, Bird took Pierce directly to the corner to discuss the details of the transaction.

Of course, Pierce definitely can't make a decision on this kind of thing, and it still has to be decided by the Eagles management in the end.

The next morning, Li Xun received a call from Byrd.

The deal is done.

The Hawks sent Doncic plus Vince Carter and Miles Plumlee, and then there is a draft pick protected by the Hawks' top five picks in the first round next year.

Trae Young and Thaddeus Young were taken away from the Pacers.

This deal is acceptable to both parties.

The Eagles can get rid of Plumlee's junk contract, and then they can reap a fairly stable immediate combat power like Thaddeus Young.

Although the Pacers have swallowed junk contracts, if they don't sign junk contracts to fill the salary space this season, they may not be able to reach the poor line.

So they can swallow this contract completely.

Li Xun didn't expect that he would become teammates with Old Carter after going around.

Carter can be regarded as an addition to this deal, and now Carter has almost no transaction value.

In this way, if the Pacers do not sign top players next, the lineup will basically be settled.

Li Xun, Oladipo, Doncic, Brother Sun, Michael Porter Jr., Duncan Robinson, Anfernee Simmons, Carter Sr. and Turner.

A total of nine people, this is the Pacers' core lineup for the new season.

In fact, the old Carter is not the core now, so there are only eight core players.

Generally, a team has eight rotation players, which is almost enough.

Compared with the lineup that Li Xun built in the previous ten years, this lineup is quite different.

Too little inside, too much outside.

Obviously Li Xun has his own ideas.

He is going to try the five little tactics of the Pacers.

Because of the existence of Li Xun's super inside barrier, the Pacers now have an innate advantage in beating the dead five.

If these players have reached their peak, Li Xun is very confident of winning the championship.

It's a pity that there are still too many new melon eggs. It's hard to say whether they can win the championship this year.

Bird also discovered this problem, and took a special time to discuss with Li Xun which players should be recruited from the free market.

This year should be regarded as the most famous year of free agents in NBA history.

The strength may not be the strongest, but the reputation must be the greatest.

James, Durant, Wade, Paul, Pickle, Rondo, Jokic, Thomas Jr., LaVine, Capela, Jordan Jr., Cousins ​​and others.

The current Pacers lineup, even including Plumlee's tens of millions of junk contracts, actually still has a lot of salary space.

Li Xun still has the last year of his contract, which is about 3000 million.

Oladipo's contract is only 2100 million.

Turner is still just a rookie, and his contract for next season is 340 million.

The junior brother's contract is 500 million.

All other newcomers and fringe people plus the old Carter's contract add up to about 1500 million.

Including Plumlee's contract, that is about 8500 million.

According to the current salary of roughly 1.1 million U.S. dollars for league teams, the Pacers can spare at least 2500 million.

That's enough to sign a superstar who's willing to take a pay cut to win a title.

After all, Li Xun is only 3000 million. No matter how big-name players come to Li Xun, getting 2500 million is not considered a loss.

Some of those free agents are restricted free agents, such as Jokic, he can't leave the Knicks, so don't think about it.

"Lee, how about we sign Cousins ​​or Jordan?"

"That way our inside lines don't seem so empty."

Bird suggested.

Li Xun shook his head, "If you sign them, you must have a long-term contract. We don't need to lock up our salary space."

"Then contact James or Durant?"

"I can guarantee that even if they are only given 2000 million, they will definitely be willing to come to the Pacers to play for three years."

Byrd said with great certainty.

If you come to the Pacers, you can at least win three consecutive championships as the second master. Neither James nor Durant will definitely want to miss this opportunity.

Although the salary is much less, it can be made up from other aspects.

To this day, they still haven't won any championships. If they continue until they retire, it will definitely seriously affect their historical status.

If the postman Malone can win three championships, then it's really hard to say if Duncan is the number one power forward in history.

Li Xun continued to shake his head.

"How about this, let's wait and see."

"Because there are too many young people in our team, it is actually good to sign some veterans, such as Wade and Rondo."

"After signing, you can save a lot of trainer fees."

Bird smiled bitterly, saving the cost of the trainer?Thanks to Li Xun for being able to figure it out.

But since Li Xun has spoken, he can only follow through.

Anyway, as long as Li Xun is happy, the championship will come sooner or later.

A week after the draft, the Knicks and the Pacers announced a deal. The Pacers gave a second-round pick for next year and traded Li Xun from the Knicks.

The fans are already familiar with it, the No.1 in history was replaced by a second-round pick.

Although they already knew that this day would come, the Knicks fans were still very sad.

During the three years that Li Xun was here, it was definitely the happiest time in their fan career.

It's a pity that time flies so fast, three years passed in the blink of an eye.

Now Knicks fans can only hope that their management can do less evil, and don't act rashly on the lineup created by Li Xun.

The door to the trading market has been opened.

Originally, the 2018 Men's Basketball World Cup was going to be played, but because of the fear of crashing the Men's Football World Cup, the men's basketball team postponed it by itself.

Postponed to 2019.

Li Xun can only sit on the Pacers this offseason.

In August, the Pacers officially announced a news that they signed Wade with a one-year $200 million contract.

It seems that Wade is still looking forward to winning a championship at the end of his career.

At the beginning of his career, he won the championship with O'Neal, but after so many years, he has never won a championship again.

Seeing that his career was about to end, Wade simply chose to join the Pacers and became Li Xun's teammate.

At this age, there is no need to be ashamed or not.

After signing Wade, Rondo followed suit.

He won the championship with Li Xun in the Knicks last season and tasted the sweetness. It happened that the contract offered by the Pacers was not bad, so he simply came to hug Li Xun's thigh again.

The first time he hugged Li Xun's thigh, he was still a little unnatural.

This second time was much more natural. At the signing meeting, Li Xun stayed with Li Xun for three rounds, and he kept praising Li Xun as the greatest player he had ever seen.

It is really rare to get such an evaluation from Rondo.

This thorn is not so easy to praise.

After signing these two veterans, Bird came here with a stroke of genius.

Howard had just been sold to the Nets by the Hornets, and then signed a buyout agreement with the Nets.

Then he was signed by Bird with a two-year contract of 2 million.

This is consistent with Howard's contract under normal circumstances, except that after Howard was bought out by the Nets under normal circumstances, he joined the Wizards with a two-year 2 million contract.

In this way, the Pacers directly signed three veterans during the offseason.

(End of this chapter)