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

Chapter 96 Won the Best Six and Most Improved Award
(I have a lot of things to do today. After driving all day, I am tired and sleepy. There is only so much. It should be better tomorrow.)
"The Phoenix Suns eliminated the Utah Jazz 4-1 and successfully advanced to the Western Conference Finals."

"Jazz coach Sloan himself admitted that the real cause of defeat was Wang Chao."

"The league's season awards have been announced one after another. The Suns player Wang Chao won both the best sixth man and the most improved player awards! This is the first time in recent years since Magic player Darrell Armstrong was selected for both The player with this award, and this is the only one among all overseas players!"

After the divisional semifinals, under the arrangement of the league, the winners of the season awards began to be announced one after another.

The first to be announced is also the lowest value among the major awards, namely the Best Sixth Man and Most Improved Player awards.

Although the gold content is far less than the regular season MVP award later, it is still an honor, especially a double yolk egg, which is very helpful for Wang Chao's influence improvement, at least after the end of the season, he will have more bargaining chips when negotiating with the team up.

Wang Chao's selection of these two awards is well-deserved. Needless to say, the best sixth man, the average of 20.9 points per game in the regular season is nearly ten times behind Ricky Pierce's average of 89 points per game in the 90-23 season. The highest score every year, and the first best sixth man with an average of more than 20 points per game since then, this alone can leave all competitors far behind.

In Wang Chao’s impression, the next time a player with an average of 20+ points per game in the sixth man position will have to wait until the 17-18 season, Louis Williams, who averaged 22.6 points and 5.3 assists per game, will be ten years later something happened.

As for the most improved player award, it is more in line with Wang Chao.

In fact, Wang Chao's performance last season is enough to win this award. Wang Chao averaged 16.6 points per game in the regular season last season.

However, considering that Wang Chao did not have enough appearances at that time, he was not able to participate in any award selection.

This season is different. Wang Chao attended all 82 games and averaged 20.9 points, 3.7 rebounds and 1.2 assists per game.

There is one thing to say, even if you look at the whole league, you can't find a second player who has improved faster than Wang Chao, and after the two rounds of the playoffs, many careful fans discovered that Wang Chao is still there. Constantly improving and becoming stronger, especially in the second round against the Jazz's defensive leader Kirilenko, Wang Chao's realistic fake shooting action has deceived opponents several times, and his running without the ball seems to be more difficult than before. Sharper.

According to this speed of progress, I am afraid that Wang Chao will become a top superstar in the league in a few years, right?
……

After the Best Sixth Man and Most Improved Player awards were announced, in the next few days, the league announced the Best Rookie and Best Defensive Player one after another.

The best rookie was won by Brandon Roy of the Trail Blazers. In his rookie season, he averaged 16.8 points, 4.4 rebounds and 4 assists per game.

Although the personal statistics are quite satisfactory, among the rookies in the 06-07 season, he is already the most outstanding one, and from the perspective of Wang Chao, a traveler, Roy has grown up rapidly after his rookie season. Combined with the adjustment of the team structure by the Trail Blazers management, in the second grade, he could average 19.1 points, 4.8 rebounds and 5.8 assists per game. As the team leader, he led the Blazers to a 41% winning record of 41 wins and 50 losses.

In the third season, Roy's data improved again, reaching 22.6 points, 4.7 rebounds and 5.1 assists. The Blazers won 54 wins and entered the ranks of the league's top teams. Roy also began to have the nickname "Yellow Mamba".

Fans who are familiar with Roy know what happened later.

Heaven is jealous of talents. After Roy finished his rookie contract for four seasons, he suffered a serious injury just after he got a big contract extension. He had his meniscus removed, and then his state fell sharply. disappeared from people's sight.

It is a sigh that a rising superstar is ruined by injuries like this.

And a few years later, another even more unsatisfactory star appeared in the league, the youngest regular season MVP in history, Derrick Rose, a genius who was also ruined by injuries.

Of course, that's a story.

Defensive Player of the Year, won by Marcus Camby of the Denver Nuggets.

As for the MVP of the regular season, as the biggest and most watched award of the season, it was naturally placed at the end, and it was finally announced after the East and West finals were all over.

Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki, who led the team to 65 wins and averaged 24.6 points, 8.9 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game in the regular season, defeated the rival Suns Steve Nash with a very small lead in the number of votes and won the regular season for the first time in his career. MVP.

Nowitzki's award was both unexpected and reasonable.

Although Nash is not inferior to Nowitzki in terms of personal data performance and team victories, he is even better, but after all, he has won the regular season MVP for two consecutive years. If he is elected again this year, he will be the three consecutive MVPs.

Looking at the history of the league, only Larry Bird, Chamberlain and Bill Russell have won this honor. Other stars, even Jordan, the god of basketball, and Magic Johnson, the benchmark for point guards, have not. .

Although the alliance wants to launch top superstars, it doesn't want a situation where one family dominates. The situation where superstars gather and a hundred flowers blossom is what they want.

And let's not talk about the possible alliance conspiracy.

In the Mavericks, Nowitzki is the absolute main core and the best player in the whole team. Apart from him, the best players in the entire Mavericks are Josh Howard who averaged 18.9 points and Jason Turtle who averaged 16.7 points. inside.

On the other hand, for the Suns, although Nash is the engine and brain of the team and the key to the extreme reliance on run-and-gun tactics, the overall strength of the players cannot be ignored for the reason why the Suns were able to win 68 games.

斯塔德迈尔场均22分9.6篮板，王超20.9分3.7篮板，还有16分9.8篮板的马里昂，16.6分5助攻的巴博萨……

From this point of view, the contribution of the two to the victory of their respective teams is slightly better than that of Nowitzki.

Therefore, although Nash failed to win the regular season MVP three times in a row, which made many Suns fans feel very dissatisfied, but from the perspective of a neutral fan, it is not surprising that either of these two people won the regular season MVP, and they both deserve it. Last season's final prize.

……

The announcement of the MVP of the regular season also means that the East and West finals are all over.

In the West, the Suns eliminated the Jazz 4:1 and advanced to the Western Conference Finals early. In another matchup, the Spurs VS Mavericks, the classic battle between the bulls and horses was wonderful.

Escaping the curse of being black eight by the Warriors in the first round, the Mavericks still showed the combat effectiveness of a 65-win team in the regular season in the playoffs. Up to 7 games, the Mavericks were even worse in the tiebreaker, and were narrowly defeated by the Spurs 88:85, falling on the stage of the division semifinals.

The Spurs also made it to the Western Conference Finals with difficulty and completed their meeting with the Suns, avenging their 4:3 elimination by the Mavericks in the conference semifinals last season.

In this way, the Western Conference finals will be the Phoenix Suns vs. San Antonio Spurs, the strongest spear in the league will face the strongest shield, and the suspense and highlights will be full in an instant.

In the East, the Pistons defeated the Bulls 4:2, and the Cavaliers also eliminated the Nets 4:2, and the two sides met in the Eastern Conference Finals.

Without the defensive core Ben Wallace, the Pistons are much weaker than before. On the Cavaliers side, James' single-core leader reached the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time, and the momentum reached its peak for a while.

As a time traveler, Wang Chao certainly knows that this year, no matter whether the referee secretly assisted or James is really strong, the Cavaliers indeed defeated the Pistons by a score of 4:2 in the Eastern Conference Finals and reached the finals .

It's just that after the finals...

In the fourth season of James' career, he himself may have grown into the league's top superstar, but this Cavaliers team definitely cannot be called a strong team.

Whether it is the Suns or the Spurs in the West, whoever wins the Western Conference Finals and enters the Finals can basically celebrate winning the championship in advance.

As a player of the Suns, Wang Chao certainly hopes that the Suns will win the championship in the end!
Without him, the Spurs are definitely the strongest team this season, there is no doubt about it.

Duncan is at the peak of his career, and the combination of the GDP trio is perfect. Not only that, the Spurs lineup also has high-quality role players such as Michael Finley and Bruce Bowen, and even the most proud substitute of the Suns The lineup is not too bad.

Ginobili, a player who is strong enough to start, sits firmly on the bench and plays the same role as Wang Chao and Barbosa.

It is foreseeable that this duel is bound to be a fight between dragons and tigers.

……

On May 5, the first game of the Western Conference Finals was played at the home court of the Phoenix Suns.

This battle of focus has received widespread attention. Not only the well-known local TV stations in the United States, such as TNT and ESPN, broadcast live commentary, but even China's CCTV Sports Channel also broadcast the game live.

Wang Chao got this news from Zhang Mingji, the head of Dayao Yao's team.

Originally in China, any games involving Wang Chao would not be broadcast live, but after the All-Star Weekend, Dayao used his domestic influence to do dredging work, which has gradually changed the domestic attitude towards Wang Chao.

More importantly, Wang Chao's momentum is getting bigger and bigger now. This is the Western Conference Finals, which has attracted a lot of attention. How could it be blocked?

Even if CCTV Sports does not broadcast live, Huaguo fans will try their best to watch the game in various ways.

In fact, a similar situation happened in last year's Western Conference finals and finals.

The real ratings are there, you can control me, but also who the audience likes to watch?

Therefore, even if Dayao didn't use his relationship, due to the pressure from all sides, CCTV Sports will probably broadcast the game live in the end, and since it is a live broadcast, it is impossible to avoid Wang Chao's camera through editing.

In other words, this will also be the first time that Wang Chao has officially appeared in CCTV Sports, the most official TV live broadcast in the country, since he was banned in China.

"Wang, if you can, you'd better show 200% of your strength in this game and play the most exciting and beautiful performance. The stronger your strength, the smoother our work will be!"

This is what Dayao told Wang Chao when he called Wang Chao before the game.

In fact, Dayao didn't need to say it, Wang Chao knew it himself.

It's just not just a matter of gaining popularity in China, in the NBA, he also needs to prove his strength with more outstanding and eye-catching performances, so as to obtain a maximum salary contract.

And the Spurs are definitely the strongest opponent the Suns have encountered this season. Whether they can win the championship depends on the series of the Western Conference Finals. Naturally, Wang Chao will go all out.

……

At Phoenix's home court, the fans put on their home-colored T-shirts early on. The entire stadium was completely covered with a sea of ​​white. The loud cheers resounded throughout the stadium, and the home atmosphere was full.

But the Spurs have seen big scenes. As the favorites to win the championship over the years, the Spurs can often go very far in the playoffs, facing many strong teams, including but not limited to the Suns, Mavericks, Pistons and The Lakers in the OK combination period and so on.

The chants of the opposing team's fans were not enough to affect them at all.

But when the Suns on the other side began to introduce the starting players, there were some fluctuations on the Spurs side.

Spurs coach Popovich sat on the bench, looking in the direction of the Suns with deep eyes.

"Is this what you'll do to me, Mike?"

Popovich glanced at D'Antoni, who was in a straight suit and calm, and thought to himself.

In the first game of the Western Conference Finals, the Suns made some changes in the starting lineup. The team's starting small forward changed from Dior to Wang Chao.

That's right, after a long regular season and the first two rounds of the playoffs, Chao Wang is back in the starting lineup.

The Spurs are different from other teams. As the Spurs averaged the lowest points per game in the league this season, only 90.1 points. Even if they won 68 wins in the regular season, they must not be underestimated as the Suns with the highest scoring average in the league.

Therefore, after some thinking, the head coach D'Antoni decided to put Wang Chao on the starting position to strengthen the offensive ability of the team's starting lineup.

Wang Chao's super deterrent and scoring ability outside the three-point line will make the Spurs play a defensive role and play a role in pulling space. Moreover, Wang Chao's scoring ability is also extremely strong, second only to Sri Lanka in the team. Tadmire's steady scoring.

As for the bench, with Barbosa and Diaw who came down from the starting lineup, at least he won't fall into a disadvantage when facing the Spurs' bench lineup led by Ginobili.

As a result, the starting five of the Suns became Nash, Bell, Wang Chao, Marion and Stoudemire.

The Spurs are Parker, Finley, Bowen, Robert Horry and Duncan.

The starting players of both sides stood in their positions, Stoudemire and Duncan came to the center circle to prepare for the jump ball, and the Western Conference Finals game is about to begin!
(End of this chapter)