After the confession failed, I went to the NBA to play and lose weight

Chapter 189 All-Star Preheating

Before the All-Star break, the Magic's five games were at home, and they were played every other day. This arrangement is not bad.

It can be considered that there are too many back-to-back and tight schedules ahead, and there must be some relief appropriately. Even if the league intends to target it, it is impossible to arrange it so clearly.

What's more, because of Howard's existence, the Magic is actually a team that is relatively valued by the league. Who told them to be in the East.

The chaos in the west, of course, the east also needs more strong teams to match it, and the two sides are more evenly matched to make it look better.

Otherwise, it is always said that the West is strong and the East is weak, making the Western Conference Finals seem to have more gold content than the Finals.

至少去年的总决赛就是如此，马刺在西部首轮4:1绅士横扫掘金，第二轮4：2相对艰难地战胜了太阳，西决又是4:1绅士横扫了爵士队。

As a result, the only one that has not experienced a defeat is the finals, which was directly swept 4:0. As the "chosen son" and the best rookie in 03, the team led by James is not even as good as the Nuggets led by Anthony in 03. Performance.

So how weak should those eastern opponents who were also defeated by the Cavaliers be?

Of course, it is impossible to quantify such a simple basketball game. It is the result of various factors, and there are still factors of restraint. Otherwise, there will be no dark horses. But the fact is that the league naturally wants to create an Eastern Conference Very strong situation.

This season, with the rise of the Celtics and Magic, even if the Cavaliers and Wizards are a little bit broken, the viewability is not weaker than that of the West. Everyone is looking forward to the playoffs in the East, and the Celtics and Magic , now they are all favorites for the championship.

Generally speaking, because the schedule in the middle and late stages is relatively simple, the overall difficulty of the Magic's schedule can only be regarded as the mid-range of this season.

Of course, it is definitely incomparable with those who enjoy the welfare schedule, such as the Cavaliers.

Moreover, the five teams that played against each other during this period were all blessed with the aura of superstars, and their traffic at home and abroad was good, so they received a lot of attention.

At the time of the All-Stars, this kind of game is obviously suitable for Li Chengming to add points to the All-Stars.

The Mavericks have Nuo Tianwang, the Nets have Carter and Kidd, and the Lakers have Kobe. These can be regarded as "old" superstars in their prime.

The next thing to face is the "03 Duo", the Cavaliers and Nuggets led by James and Anthony. Of course, the Nuggets also have a popular super giant Iverson, but he already feels a bit misnamed.

Now that they have lost the Mavericks, won the Nets and won the Lakers, and then face the Cavaliers and Nuggets, the Magic naturally hope to strive for a two-game winning streak, preferably a four-game winning streak to end this journey.

But against the Cavaliers, Li Chengming had something to say.

In addition to winning this game, he also hopes to strive for his own data to be better than James. He can't score rebounds and assists, but he can score higher than him.

Of course, he didn't say this idea, otherwise the coach and teammates would have to ask him why he was so angry with James.

That's not true, he and James didn't feel any personal grievances, they just wanted to overwhelm each other.

What's more, only in this way can the outside world be impressed and attract more fans' attention.

It's like defeating the Lakers in the game, playing against Kobe in regular time for a key goal, and completing the lore in overtime. This battle has increased the number of fans on Li Chengming's social account by [-], and it is still increasing.

After all, there are so many Kobe fans now, it is not an exaggeration to say that he is currently the most watched star in the NBA.

Whether it's because of Li Chengming's liking, or to black him, the data is there, anyway, black fans are fans.

At present, the number of Li Chengming's fans is also a few million. If a fraction of these people vote for him as an All-Star, it will not be a big problem for him to start next season.

As a matter of course, before this game, the media will also be hyped up, and then a little backtracking on the "grievances" between Li Chengming and James will naturally find the topic.

Only then did someone realize that Li Chengming had been in the NBA for less than a season, and he had had various conflicts with superstars, stars, and rising stars such as Garnett, Pierce, James, Kobe, and Durant.

Of course, the conflict between Kobe and Durant is imaginary here, especially Durant, the two did not face each other a few times on the court, but their relationship in private is quite harmonious.

Li Chengming also has Durant's contact information. The two chat occasionally. In his opinion, that guy is a big boy. To be honest, he has no bad intentions. On the contrary, he is a bit boring. One night he asked him Have you ever dated a female star?

Of course, Li Chengming immediately thought of a certain night...

Naturally, TNT would not miss this excitement. When they were doing the show, they even connected with Li Chengming on purpose, and they had exchanged contact information before.

Barkley didn't think it was a big deal to watch the excitement. He came up and said, "Lee, we were all discussing whether you can dunk LeBron again this time, or be dunked back by him..."

Kenny Smith's voice cut in immediately: "Before you answer this question, I need to clarify that this is only what Charles wanted to ask, and neither of us said that."

"Hey, you guys are too insidious, now it's all on my head, right?"

Before Li Chengming could answer, there was a commotion over there.

After a while, Hardaway, who is still today's special guest, returned to the topic: "Hey, let's listen to Li's answer first."

Li Chengming said helplessly: "I didn't think about this question before you asked."

"So what happened earlier? For example, after you just dunked him, did you ever think about dunking him again, or would you be dunked back by him?" Barkley reminded: "Don't lie, my side With a lie detector."

Li Chengming was surprised and said, "Can the lie detector detect it through the phone?"

In fact, he knew in his heart that it was impossible, and when he heard the laughter over there, he was even more sure that Barkley was drawing a tiger's egg.

Barkley also laughed for a while before saying, "Um, of course I can't. I mean, I'm a human lie detector. If you're telling a lie, I can tell, so don't try to lie to me."

This is really talking nonsense with your eyes open, and Zhangkou will come.

Li Chengming rolled his eyes and said, "We'll find out when we watch the game tomorrow..."

"So...?"

"My answer is to watch the game, because now I can't give an answer."

"Haha, okay..." Barkley barely let go of the topic, but Kenny Smith asked again: "Li, do you think you will be selected as an All-Star this year?"

Li Chengming knew that this was actually an opportunity for the other party to canvass for him.

Of course, the fan voting has ended at this time, so it is to solicit votes from the coaches-in fact, the coach's voting may have also ended, but it has not been announced for the time being.

According to the current record, Van Gundy will undoubtedly become the head coach of the East Star team this season, but he cannot vote for Li Chengming, so it still depends on the choice of other coaches.

In fact, the head coaches don't care about the All-Stars. Instead, they hope to take this opportunity to give the core players in the team more opportunities to rest.

However, there are advantages and disadvantages. Being selected as an All-Star can easily stimulate the fighting spirit of the players. There are many examples of some players who exploded after the All-Star.

Of course, there are also those who are not selected but are stimulated to explode, that is another situation.

As the time draws closer, the topic of the All-Stars has become more and more popular recently. For example, the game between the Magic and the Lakers did not last for two days before it was diluted.

Of course, Li Chengming knew that he didn't need to evade, and he even wanted to speak up. Even if he couldn't be selected for the main match this time, according to Mike's analysis, creating a name for himself as an "All-Star Bead" would also be beneficial for the next time. selected.

So right away he said, "Without a doubt, I think my performance is good enough to be an All-Star, and I think Dwight, me, Rashad, Shedo, are all eligible for the All-Star right now.

"We've got the best record in the league, we've worked together, we've sacrificed, and I think the Magic deserve four All-Stars if possible."

This is not entirely polite. If it is true that Lewis’s performance is a little bit low, and he has scored once, then he did not make it this time. Then Turkoglu’s performance this season is definitely worthy of entering the All-Star for the first time. of.

Even if it weren't for the existence of Li Chengming, the current record of the Magic might be worse, but they should be able to rank in the top four or even the top three, and Turkoglu is definitely the best performance in the past half season except Howard of.

Now because of Li Chengming's outstanding performance from time to time, Turkoglu is only slightly inferior to him, but in terms of function, he is not bad at all as the core of the organization.

Kenny Smith agreed with this, saying: "I think it makes sense. Although your idea is very unrealistic, I like your ambition."

The other party called this ambition, which made Li Chengming a little helpless, but he didn't make any excuses.

But Barkley smiled again: "I want to correct you, Lee, I have no problem with you, Dwight, and Hedo. Everyone knows the role of the three of you in this Magic team. But Rashad, with all due respect , Judging from the [-] million yuan contract, his performance is really not qualified.

"Of course, he still has half a season left and a few years left in his contract to prove it, but for this half of the season, I really feel like some fans are saying that he should spend half of his contract for you."

As an older generation of players, there is no doubt that they are somewhat envious and jealous of the big contracts signed by players in the new era.

Fortunately, Barkley said that he is very popular as a commentator and has made a lot of money in this industry, but he still has a hard time about it.

When Garnett signed a big contract before, they made a lot of arguments about it, thinking that Garnett's big contract blocked the final possibility of the Timberwolves' reinforcements, and also let him bid farewell to the hope of the championship. .

1997年10月森林狼和加内特签下了一份6年总价值1.26亿的超级合同，更加恐怖的是这份合同比森林狼老板两年前买下球队的总金额还要高出4000万美元。

Although procedurally speaking, there is nothing wrong with him signing this contract, but obviously, it is easy to give people the feeling that he wants money.

In particular, he is not like Jordan who ruled the roost in an era. There are many people who are better than him at the same time. This contract gives people the feeling that they ask for money and give money at the same time, but there seems to be no upward momentum. The Timberwolves are willing to sign him, but they just want to keep a star to sell tickets.

It was this kind of random asking price and bidding that directly led to the suspension of the NBA in the second year, which led to the emergence of the luxury tax clause. The contracts of the stars were limited to a certain range. There will be another big contract like Garnett's one-man-one-team contract.

Of course, with the development of the times, the contracts in the new era are still getting bigger and bigger. Even if inflation is taken into account, contracts of tens of millions or hundreds of millions are still very bluffing.

If stars like O'Neal and Duncan can bring championships and many glory to the team, there is nothing to say about getting such a big contract. It's okay for the finals, but what kind of guy is Lewis?
Because he got such a big contract, whether he is hating the rich, feeling unbalanced or expecting too much, anyway, the outside public opinion is a bit harsh on Lewis now.

If it weren't for the magic team's superb record this season, Lewis would probably be scolded even more severely.

Of course, if it weren't for the sudden emergence of Li Chengming, the general manager, Austin Smith, should have come out to help him share some of the scolding.

Barkley, who is outspoken about this topic, can say that he doesn't care if he annoys anyone anyway, but Li Chengming can't take it.

Even if it's true, you can't go around saying it.

I mourned for Lewis in my heart, and then thought that he got the money anyway, and my current contract is only a few hundred thousand, so what is the life?
Suddenly I feel a little out of balance...

Well, he gets the blame, I get the praise, and we all have a bright future.

"So, let's predict the result of tomorrow's game. Who do you think will win between you and the Cavaliers? What kind of statistics do you expect yourself to get?" In the end, Hardaway brought the topic back.

Li Chengming said without hesitation: "Of course we won. As for the statistics, I will definitely not say that I don't want to get good statistics. At least one of them must be able to beat LeBron..."

"Huh?" Everyone was shocked. It's not that Li Chengming's words are unrealistic. After all, he didn't say that he must be better than James. He just thinks that he really knows what the audience likes to watch and listen to.

In this way, isn't the smell of gunpowder coming before the game?

At that time, find someone to go to James's side to make a fuss. No matter what his expression is, there is room for them to play.

Although Li Chengming has dealt with these media a lot now, he obviously still doesn't know the sinister nature of this person.

However, this does not actually have much impact on him personally. At most, it will provoke the resentment of some James fans, who will feel that he is rubbing their idol's heat.

Even from another point of view, this is a good thing for him, because the heat can indeed catch on, and if he can win this contest, it will be easier to impress.

After finishing this connection, Li Chengming practiced for a while, took a shower and went to bed.

The next day he will go to the arena to train and prepare for the next game. He has to keep up his spirits, because Van Gundy is likely to change his lineup.

(End of this chapter)