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

Chapter 147 The Draft and Free Market Transactions

The trade between the Cavaliers and the Suns was carried out simultaneously on the day of the draft, and the 2009 NBA draft will also be recognized as the most successful draft in the future.

There are two regular season MVPs and six All-Star players in this draft.

Among them, Stephen Curry, the seventh overall pick, is the most outstanding. In the future, he will win two regular season MVPs and four NBA championships. He is the most successful active player in the league other than James.

It's a pity that this year's draft has nothing to do with the Magic.

Not to mention the first-round pick, the Magic even traded the second-round pick in 09 early.

And even if the Magic have a draft pick, because they have the first record in the regular season and won the playoffs this season, they will definitely only get the 30th pick in the first round, which is basically useless.

Therefore, in this draft, the Magic can only watch others play helplessly.

Of course, the Magic did not do nothing. During the draft, it is very common to use players or other bargaining chips to trade draft picks.

The management of the Magic team asked Wang Chao before the draft if he had any good suggestions and ideas for the team's current lineup.

The reason why the management will ask Wang Chao is that, on the one hand, Wang Chao's status in the Magic is becoming more and more important. Both leading the team to win the championship and FMVP have increased Wang Chao's influence.

On the other hand, Wang Chao made some suggestions for the Magic last year. Out of respect for Wang Chao and considering that the Magic really lacked the type of players Wang Chao mentioned, the Magic signed Germany. Rajic and Afflalo, and then in the 08-09 season, both of them showed a good level on the bench, and their potential was visible to the naked eye, especially Dragic, who was unable to play in Nelson due to injury. In the first game, Dragic replaced the starter, and his performance was remarkable.

Wang Chao's unique vision surprised the management and even the general manager of the Magic. Therefore, considering many aspects, they also wanted to listen to Wang Chao's suggestion.

The management is not ashamed to ask, and Wang Chao is naturally happy to provide suggestions.

As a time traveler, no one in this world is more suitable for the job of recruiting than him. He knows all the stars who can play worthy in the future, and even knows when they will explode.

Like Curry, the strongest player in 09, the first few years of his career were not very good. Due to injuries and the impact of the NBA game environment, although Curry performed well during his rookie contract, he has never been taken seriously. , Even the Warriors had the idea of ​​trading Curry many times. After the rookie contract period ended, the Warriors only offered Curry a 4-year 4400 million contract.

要知道那已经是2013年了，与库里同年的状元格里芬续约合同是5年9500万，而从雷霆转投火箭队的哈登也签了5年7850万美元。

This is mainly because Curry's injuries at the beginning of his career caused him to be disliked by all teams. In 11 years, the Warriors wanted to trade Curry, but the Bucks decisively refused.

"Are you kidding me? You want to exchange for our No. [-] pick with a weak and sick guy? You want to trade for your best player! We want Monta Ellis..."

Many years later, when the Bucks management thinks of this deal, whether they will regret it or cry bitterly is not clear to Wang Chao, but in the next four years, Curry will not be favored and not valued by the Warriors. objective facts.

In Wang Chao’s view, the rush to get the Magic to trade for Curry is not the most cost-effective choice, and Curry is not a high-quality immediate combat power. Let Curry work hard in the Warriors for a few years before making other considerations. .

Wang Chao himself is very happy to play with Curry. As a teammate, Curry is definitely the most perfect and ideal type.

Humble and gentle personality, not fighting or grabbing, as a point guard, he mainly plays off the ball, let Green be the ball holder, even in the face of Durant's struggle for power, he will not rush to get angry, more importantly, Ku Li has a three-point firepower that is not weaker than Wang Chao. If the two join forces, it will be an enhanced version of the Splash Brothers. The outside firepower can be called terrifying.

Of course, this is all for later. At least in the past two or three years, Wang Chao will not consider Curry.

Correspondingly, the rookies in 09 are actually not suitable for the Magic at this stage.

The Magic team, which has already won the championship in the 08-09 season, naturally has the next goal to continue to defend the title. What they need is a strong enough immediate combat power, not a potential player that takes time to develop.

Wang Chao and Howard are 26 years old and 24 years old respectively. There is still a long period of growth and peak in the future, so there is no need to consider the issue of age at all.

To sum up, Wang Chao's final answer to the management is that it is better to stand still during the draft and wait for the changes.

……

The arrival of Wang Chao caused many butterfly effects.

But what surprised him was that the draft picks in the 09 draft, or some key draft picks, did not seem to be affected.

However, this is not particularly strange. After all, his arrival changed the structure of the strong teams more, and those weak teams that were at the bottom would not change much because of this, and even became worse because of it.

The Clippers with the second-to-last record in the league won the No. [-] pick as in the original history, followed by the Kings who were the last-to-last, the Grizzlies who tied for the second-to-last with the Clippers, and then the Thunder.

The Thunder, which originally held the No. [-] pick in the first round, dropped one place in the draft, but still selected Harden, who is also a combo guard. The Kings are more optimistic about the strong Tyreke Evans. The Grizzlies The team prefers to choose an inside player, so they chose Hashim Thabeet, the No. [-] pick that they have regretted for many years.

Curry was still selected by the Warriors with the seventh pick, behind Rubio, Jonny Flynn and other point guards, and before the draft, the Warriors almost used the seventh pick to compete with the Suns After reaching a deal agreement, the Suns hope to use Stoudemire to trade with the Warriors. Choosing Curry's seventh pick is included in the deal, and there are some other bargaining chips that match Stoudemire's value. Worth mentioning.

The Warriors were tempted at the time, but after some weighing, they rejected the deal in the last minute, because the Warriors still had some doubts about Stoudemire's health.

Trades that could change the future direction of the league were rejected, and the rest of the draft results were irrelevant.

The end of the draft is just the beginning for the NBA teams.

With the opening of the free market, all teams have begun to make trades and signings and other reinforcement work.

The first problem facing the Magic is the renewal of the main player Turkoglu.

As they expected, winning the championship with the Magic and playing the best performance of his career in the past two years made Teg Crew soaring. His agent directly offered the Magic a 4-year 5200 million contract.

This is really a big mouth for a lion.

Turkoglu has never been selected as an All-Star, nor has he won honors such as the best team, but he wants a contract with an average annual salary of 1300 million.

The management of the Magic team does not think that Turkoglu is worth the price, but they also want to keep Turkoglu. After all, the opponent is indeed one of the main players for the Magic to win the championship. He averaged 15.2 points, 5.3 rebounds and 5.1 assists in the regular season. During the playoffs, he also had 15.8 points, 4.5 rebounds and 4.8 assists, which is the third scoring point and ball support point in the Magic team.

Regarding Turkoglu's contract extension, the Magic conducted some discussions and finally provided Turkoglu with a five-year 5 million offer contract.

With an annual salary of 1000 million, this is already the maximum offer the Magic can afford.

Wang Chao does not quite approve of this offer. Turkoglu, who was born in 1979, is now over 09 years old, and Wang Chao, who knows his entire career, knows very well that in the next 10-[-] season, Turkoglu Lu's competitive state will start to decline.

In the original history, because the Magic refused to provide a contract that satisfied Turkoglu, the latter finally chose to join the Toronto Raptors, with a total contract amount of 5 million for 5300 years.

But Turkoglu, who joined the Raptors, has always been incompatible with the team's tactical system, and his average data per game has dropped to 11.3 points, 4.7 rebounds and 4.1 assists.

In just one season, Turkoglu was traded to the Suns.

But Turkoglu was also unsatisfactory in the Suns, so after playing 25 games for the Suns, Turkoglu was traded again, and this time he was traded back to the Magic.

Returning to the team he was most familiar with still failed to make Turkoglu regain the feeling of his peak period, and the famous Turkish magician gradually disappeared into the league.

Even without considering the season when Turkoglu joined the Raptors and couldn't integrate into the team's tactical system, Turkoglu's peak period still only stayed in the two seasons of 07-08 and 08-09.

Keeping Turkoglu with a 5-year annual salary of tens of millions will not be of any substantial help to the strength of the Magic. A little cost-effective, exceeding this price will only cause a drag on the team.

In the face of the 5-year 5000 million offer offered by the Magic, Turkoglu also chose to refuse without hesitation.

After winning the championship, Turkoglu's worth is much higher than that of the same period in the original history, and many teams are very interested in this all-around power forward.

In just 3 days after the opening of the free market, more than three teams have offered offers for Turkoglu.

They are Toronto Raptors, Los Angeles Clippers and Charlotte Bobcats.

Of these three teams, the Raptors offered the highest offer, 5 million for 6000 years, with an average of 1200 million per year.

Seeing the Raptors' offer, the Magic management panicked for a while.

They still hope that Turkoglu, who won the championship, can stay with the team, even for the Magic's defense next season.

The Magic began to hold emergency meetings to discuss whether to match the Raptors' offer.

Head coach Stan Van Gundy, team core Wang Chao and Howard all participated in the meeting, and the management also hoped to hear their thoughts.

Van Gundy's position is naturally that he hopes that the team can keep Turkoglu. After all, there are not many high-quality players who can replace Turkoglu in the free market. As for whether to spend money or not, it is the team management. Even if the magic team needs to pay more than [-] million yuan in luxury taxes next year, as long as they can defend the championship, it will be a success for him as a head coach.

Howard didn't say anything. He didn't care whether Turkoglu could stay or not. Anyway, the real core of the Magic team is him and Wang Chao. Except for the two of them, no one is irreplaceable. At this time, his mind is full All he wanted was to go to that nightclub tonight and spend a good night with some beautiful girls.

Wang Chao, on the other hand, expressed it directly.

"Although we are teammates, I have to express my attitude. Renewing Turkoglu with an annual salary of 1200 million or more is definitely a bad contract. If it is this price, I think he can be given up. The 1200 million is split into two mid-level contracts, and two good players are signed in the free market, so that the effect of strengthening the team is better."

After Wang Chao finished speaking, the conference room fell into a brief silence. Even Howard, who was wandering in the sky, couldn't help but look at Wang Chao.

"Cough cough..."

The general manager of the Magic coughed lightly. "Wang, since that's the case, which players do you want to play with next season?"

Wang Chao thought for a while and said, "The Blazers power forward Channing Frye's contract has expired, and the Blazers have no idea of ​​renewing his contract. This is a player with excellent three-point long-range shooting ability. With a height of 2 meters, he is very suitable for the current 11-star tactical system of the Magic, and he is very cheap now, and he can be won with an annual salary of about 1 million to 200 million."

Channing Frye?

Almost everyone present had question marks in their heads when they heard Wang Chao's words.

Of course they knew about the player who was selected with the eighth pick in the first round in 05, but the four years of Frye's rookie contract were not that good. Frye's best season performance came from his rookie season, averaging Can contribute 12.3 points and 5.8 rebounds.

But in the next few years, Frye's performance was like Wang Xiaoer's New Year's Eve, which was not as good as every year. Especially this season, he averaged only 4.2 points and 2.2 rebounds per game in the Trail Blazers. Can this be called excellent?

Of course, as a player, Wang Chao’s suggestion is just for reference. As he said, Channing Frye can get it for two to three million yuan, which is irrelevant to the team. If Wang Chao likes Frye, even if the opponent’s strength In general, so what if he was signed to play with the prince?
After adjusting his mood, the general manager of the Magic team said the most important thing.

"Everyone should have heard that the New Jersey Nets want to overthrow and rebuild, so they hope to trade Vince Carter, and in order to get rid of Carter's big contract, they ask for very few chips."

The general manager's words made the eyes of many people in the room brighten up.

Could it be that they have a chance to get Vince Carter?

(End of this chapter)