With three points at the start, Nash begged for a maximum salary to renew his contract

Chapter 130 The Super Magic Combination Monopolizes All-Star Voting

After a fairly good Christmas, the Magic regained a wave of three-game winning streak in the last three games in December, defeating the Minnesota Timberwolves 12:118, Detroit Pistons 94:95, and Chicago Bulls 88:113.

随着12月的比赛全部结束，魔术队在12月的比赛中输掉了4场比赛，但即便如此也依旧以27胜5负战绩排在全联盟的首位。

The Cleveland Cavaliers ranked No. 25 with a record of 6 wins and 2 losses, and the Los Angeles Lakers in the West ranked third in the league with a record of 24 wins and 5 losses.

The above three teams belong to the same echelon, their records are relatively close, and their winning percentages are all above 80%. There is a high probability that they will win 60+ regular season games at the end of the regular season.

Under these three high-winning teams, there is the second echelon composed of the Celtics Big Three, Spurs, Rockets, Trail Blazers, Nuggets and other teams. The current winning rate is stable at around 65%. At the end of the game, all teams should have a record of 50 wins or more.

These teams constitute the general situation of the NBA in the 08-09 season, and the championship of this season will also be born among these teams.

The defending champion Los Angeles Lakers is of course the biggest favorite to win the championship, but the Magic led by Wang Chao Howard, the Cavaliers led by James, and the Big Three Celtics also have higher odds of winning the championship, which undoubtedly makes the 08-09 season playoffs Highly anticipated.

Before Christmas, the league has opened the first round of voting for the 2009 All-Star Weekend.

The two core players of the Magic, Wang Chao and Howard quickly occupied the top two votes immediately after the voting channel opened, and even firmly suppressed James, Kobe, Wade and other top stars.

This is not surprising at all. While the Magic has achieved the best record in recent years, Wang Chao and Howard, as the team's internal and external core, have very luxurious personal statistics.

王超靠着单场70分以及大量的高分表现，目前以场均34.4分的得分高居得分榜首位，并且摇摇领先得分榜No.2场均30.2分的韦德4分的差距。

With such a stable, efficient and excellent scoring efficiency, Wang Chao has officially entered the ranks of super scorers.

As for Howard, as the No. 2004 pick in the NBA in 20, his original popularity was even higher than that of Wang Chao. Although his scoring statistics are mediocre, and he has only averaged [-]+ points per game so far, Howard's value has never been greater. Not on the offensive end.

At present, his 14.2 rebounds and 3.1 blocks per game rank first in the league, and there is a big gap with other opponents. Not surprisingly, this season's rebounding and blocking kings are none other than Howard.

In the game, Howard's playing style is also very enjoyable. Whether it is the bloody and brutal dunks on the offensive end, or the various volleyball smashes on the defensive end, they are all eye-catching. Fans of the game fell in love with Howard.

At present, Howard's title as the No. 20 center in the league has been completely confirmed. Even if Dayao's double-double data of 10+[-] per game in the West is not much inferior to Howard's, whether it is in terms of future career prospects or the actual situation on the field From the performance point of view, it is obvious that Howard is more worthy of the title of the league's first center.

Because of this, Howard received a large number of votes in the league's first round of All-Star voting.

On January 1, in the first round of voting results announced by the league, Howard topped the list, Wang Chao ranked second with a very small gap, and James and Kobe ranked third and fourth respectively.

That's all for Howard. Wang Chao's ability to suppress No. 24 and No. 23, who can be called the league's top cards, really surprised many people.

It is undeniable that Wang Chao averaged 34 points per game, and 70 points in a single game is an excellent performance with extremely high fan-attracting ability, but in the United States and even the world, his number of fans is still far behind Kobe James.

Don't even think about it, behind Wang Chao's votes, there must be a commission brought by Huaguo's huge fan base.

In fact, not only Wang Chao, Dayao and Ah Lian also benefited from the fans of Huaguo.

Dayao's votes in the first round ranked sixth in the league, topping the list among Western centers, and the gap with Kobe Bryant, James Wade and others is not that big.

Although the UAE did not get so many votes, it can still rank sixth among Eastern players and fourth among forwards, second only to Wang Chao, James, Garnett, and Pierce, Bosh, and Teddy. Coglu, Marion and others got higher votes.

If it is said that the number of votes won by Wang Chao and Dayao can be directly proportional to the strength shown by the two in the competition, then it would be somewhat embarrassing for the Arab League to rank in such a high position.

In the 08-09 season, the Arab League did not change his NBA career because of his Olympic gold medal winning experience. He was still packaged and traded by the Bucks to the New Jersey Nets.

The Nets are still willing to give the Arab League, which did not perform well in the first season, a chance. Therefore, in the regular season, the Arab League made their first appearances, but their performance on the court was not satisfactory. Compared with last season, the average data There is hardly any improvement, it is still around 8+5, and the shooting percentage has further dropped to below 40%.

This kind of performance undoubtedly disappointed the management of the Nets. They originally hoped that the Arab League could play like Dayao and Wang Chao, and form an inside double with the future inside core Brook Lopez who just joined the league. Tower combination, but now it seems that this possibility is unlikely.

And for a player with an average of 8+5 per game, the All-Star votes are actually higher than Pierce, Bosh, Carter and other well-known stars in the league. This is somewhat ironic, and the league is particularly nervous. The number of votes soared all the way and was finally selected as the All-Star starter. Isn't this going to be a big joke of the NBA All-Stars?
Also thanks to Wang Chao, James and Garnett at the forward position, the possibility of UAE becoming the All-Star starter is not high.

It is worth mentioning that the news that Wang Chao was invited to participate in the All-Star Three-Point Contest was announced early by the league officials.

Wang Chao has won the three-point contest championship for three consecutive years before, and has almost absolute dominance in this field. As he announced his participation in the three-point contest early, many players with good abilities in the three-point field have started Back off, no one wants to be someone else's background board, since you know you can't win, you might as well not participate in it to humiliate yourself.

Some well-known stars who were more active in the previous three-point contests, such as Dirk Nowitzki, who participated in four consecutive three-point contests, did not continue to participate in the three-point contest, while Nash, Hamilton, Peja Others also did not participate.

The league officials did not expect that the situation would turn out like this. Except for Wang Chao, the six contestants in the final three-point contest were not well-known.

Mike Bibby, Daequan Cook, Jason Kapono, Roger Mason and Danny Granger.

Among these people, Granger is the most famous one, but he is also a rising star player this season. So far in the regular season, he has averaged 26 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists per game, ranking No.7 in the league scoring list. The performance of this season has successfully entered the ranks of the All-Stars and won the Most Improved Player Award in the 08-09 season.

Just looking at this list alone, Wang Chao's three-point contest championship is basically a [-]-[-]. As long as he doesn't have any major problems, none of these participating players will be his opponent.

And Wang Chao's teammate Howard also announced his participation in the dunk contest.

Howard, who played Superman in the 08 All-Star Game and won the slam dunk king, did not have the same dominance as Wang Chao did in the three-point contest in the slam dunk contest. Because of this dunk contest, Nate Robinson He will also participate, and Wang Chao, who is a time traveler, knows that Robinson will COS Superman's nemesis Kryptonite, leaping over Howard to complete the dunk and win the dunk contest championship.

Of course, the All-Star Weekend itself is an occasion for entertainment. Even Howard, who was used as the background board, didn't say anything at the time, but looked very happy. Like the champion of the three-point contest, it is directly linked to the system task, and he is just playing.

……

For the fans of the league, the voting situation of the All-Star and the determination of the candidates for other events are just after-dinner conversation. What everyone pays more attention to is the progress of the regular season schedule.

After the time entered January, the Magic team's record became stable again. In the few games in early January, the Magic team successfully won all of them, but lost an away game to the San Antonio Spurs on January 1.

在这场比赛中，邓肯全场得到31分15篮板5助攻3封盖，表现压制了 22分14篮板2封盖的霍华德。

At the same time, the other two players in GDP, Parker with 24 points and 5 assists, Ginobili with 18 points, 4 rebounds and 6 assists, all played very well, so even if Bowen was ruthlessly beaten by Wang Chao again, the Spurs still won at home. The next game, get back a city.

Then on January 1, the Magic challenged the Los Angeles Lakers away. This time, the team successfully avenged the last time in Orlando, winning the game 16:109.

In this game, Kobe's touch was obviously not as good as in the last match. He only made 26 of 10 shots, and his shooting percentage was 38.5%. not perfect.

On the other hand, Wang Chao continued his efficient and stable performance in this game as before, scoring 54 points, 31 rebounds and 6 assists with a 6% shooting rate.

It is worth mentioning that in this game, the two "magicians" staged a direct confrontation again, and it was Odom who had the last laugh. He scored 17 points, 9 rebounds and 3 assists in the game, and his shooting percentage also reached 54%.

On the other hand, Turkoglu was once again suppressed by his opponent, shooting only 28.6% from the field, scoring 13 points, 5 rebounds and 3 assists.

Turkoglu's two defeats to Odom proved that although the two have similar technical characteristics and styles, there are still differences in physical fitness. Although Odom is not good at physical fitness, as a black athlete, each All aspects of physical function are more outstanding than Turkoglu, who is similar in height and weight to him.

But neither Turkoglu nor Odom are the key factors for their respective teams to win. Their performance can indeed make the team more competitive, but it is not absolutely necessary.

The reason for the Magic is that in addition to Turkoglu, Wang Chao can also occasionally play the position of point forward. The eyesight of open players can fully shoulder the burden of the Magic's offense with the ball in certain periods of time.

As for Odom of the Lakers, since he will serve as the team's best sixth man, it can also explain his status in the Lakers. However, no matter which team it is, as the team's sixth player, it is impossible to serve as the first or even second core, and it is only possible to serve as the third core if it is dead.

Whether it's Odom of the Lakers, Ginobili of the Spurs, or Terry of the Mavericks.

Closer to home, after defeating the Lakers, the Magic team defeated the Nuggets, Eagles, Heat and other powerful enemies in the next game, only losing one game each to the Celtics and Cavaliers.

Throughout the game in January, the Magic lost a total of 1 games and achieved a record of 3 wins and 10 losses. The total record also came to 3 wins and 37 losses, continuing to maintain a super high winning percentage of 8%.

As time entered the end of January, the final results of the All-Star voting were officially announced.

Magic center Dwight Howard was elected as the All-Star vote leader in 315 with a total of 09 million votes, and Wang Chao ranked second in the All-Star vote with a slight gap of 311 million votes. Both of them participated as All-Star starters All-Star Game.

In addition to Wang Chao and Howard, the other three starters in the Eastern Conference are James, who received 294 million votes as a forward, Wade, who received 270 million votes, and Iverson, who received 180 million votes among the guards.

What needs to be mentioned is that Iverson was traded to the Pistons by the Nuggets at the beginning of this season. The sharp drop from 26.4 points last season to 17 points, coupled with the sluggish football market in the Motor City, has caused the number of Iverson fans to drop sharply.

The Green Army's power forward Garnett is also unlucky enough, because Wang Chao and James are two guys with 300 million votes, so Garnett, who obviously won 206 million votes, can only miss the start of the All-Star.

What made him even more speechless was that, as a Huaguo player, the United Arab Emirates averaged only 8+5 per game, and finally won 190 million All-Star votes, ranking fourth among Eastern forwards, and almost knocked out Garnett. flipped.

Compared with the East, the situation of the All-Star voting in the West is not so introverted.

The five players selected as the All-Star starters are not much different from last year. Kobe, Duncan, and Dayao Yu were selected as the starters steadily. The other two players selected as the starters were Chris Paul and Stoudemire.

(End of this chapter)