Healthy basketball, starting from eating the old Lakers F4

Familiar formula, familiar taste.

After winning the championship again, Duen reviewed the process after winning the championship - the post-championship interview, the championship celebration banquet...

The good memories after winning the previous championships also came to mind one after another, which made Du En quite emotional.

By the afternoon of the next day, the Bulls and his team took a plane back to Chicago.

As soon as we got off the plane, there was a scene of empty streets. Chicago fans spontaneously took to the streets to grandly welcome the Bulls players to bring the championship trophy and honor back to Chicago.

This also allowed Du En and others to feel the lively atmosphere of the championship parade in advance.

However, there is still a week left before the official championship parade celebration.

During this week, Dunn did not go wild and enjoy his personal life, but continued to provide advice to Bulls general manager John Paxson.

After returning to Chicago, what Dunn cared about was not immediately enjoying the sense of accomplishment brought by the championship parade, but whether the Bulls could continue to remain competitive and continue to compete for the championship in the next few years.

What Doon cares about is when he can establish his second dynasty!

Although the Bulls have accumulated enough capital to win three consecutive championships, it is still unknown whether team management and operations will be held back.

For the team owner, the Bulls already have many championships, and whether they can successfully defend the championship in the next few years is no longer that important.

Whether they can make money and how much money they can make is what they focus on.

Therefore, in the next few years, the Bulls are likely to tinker on a small scale and spend a small amount of money to do big things.

In order to achieve his goals, Du En must communicate with his boss and management, understand their ideas, and then communicate and even negotiate with them to achieve win-win cooperation that benefits each other.

I have to say that after the Bulls won the championship again, everyone benefited.

Especially the rookies on the Bulls!

Evans, Curry, Harden, and Ibaka have already completed their third-year contracts and have the last year left on their rookie contracts. In the following summer, they can consider renewing their contracts with the team in advance and get the team's support. Commitments and security of new contracts.

Evans is already an All-Star. Even if the Bulls don't offer a maximum salary contract, he can still get a maximum salary from other teams.

As for Curry and Ibaka, they both performed well whether in the regular season, playoffs, or finals.

Even if he hasn't reached the All-Star level, at least he can be a starter on a strong team in the league.

Considering the bonus of championship rings, plus they are still very young and have a lot of untapped potential, even if they cannot get a maximum salary contract, they will definitely have a sub-maximum salary.

As for Harden, although the Bulls deliberately suppressed his contract, he did not get much playing time and failed to fully demonstrate his talent.

However, there is no shortage of executives with gambling talents in the league.

After all, Harden is the third overall pick. From the perspective of weakening the Bulls, other team management may also use poisonous contracts to poach Harden.

Therefore, in the next two years, the Bulls must seriously consider how much contract they should give Curry and others.

It is impossible to directly give four maximum salaries, but if you do not choose to renew the contract, or the money is less, then the rookies you have trained will run away.

In addition, next year is a contract year. If the Bulls do not give a contract this summer, next year they may randomly brush up data for the next contract regardless of the team's record.

As a team that aims to defend its title and create a dynasty, these are all issues that must be considered and prevented before they happen.

Of course, how to retain the rookies in the team and appease people's hearts, these issues can be left to the summer to solve, and they are not that urgent yet.

The next thing the Bulls need to pay most attention to is the upcoming draft.

The Bulls have regained the championship and have no time to develop rookies. It is impossible for Duan to make another trip to the draft.

But this does not mean that Du En does not pay attention to the next draft.

On the contrary, Duan knew that the next draft, which was rated as a weak draft year by the media, would produce some good players.

Considering that the Bulls don't have many draft picks in hand, and the team has already selected many superstar prospects, this time Doon wants to select some role players who are willing to do the dirty work.

Green, Middleton, and Crowder were all second-round picks. The Bulls traded down the mid-first-round draft picks to acquire three late-first-round draft picks, and could basically acquire all three of them.

However, if they win them all, the Bulls' 15-man roster will not be enough next season.

This also means that this summer, the Bulls may try to make deals with other teams and exchange small change for whole money to reduce the roster.

This time, Duan took the initiative to find John Paxson, just to optimize Milicic and explore whether Evans could be used as a bargaining chip to complete a new round of reinforcement work.

Although Milicic has made great contributions to the Bulls' championship over the years, he is no longer the hero he used to be.

At least this year's championship, Milicic's contribution to the Bulls is not even ranked sixth.

As the Bulls' starting center and holding the team's second-highest contract, Milicic's performance is undoubtedly a premium.

Then consider Milicic's training attitude during last offseason and Milicic's competitive state this year.

This year's finals will most likely be Milicic's final peak.

A little research on Milicic's contract shows that it doesn't end for the next three years.

This also means that once Milicic's competitive status declines further, the current contract will be completely reduced to a junk contract.

If the Bulls don't want to watch Milicic become a more expensive burden on the Bulls' road to championship, they must trade him while his contract is at a high level.

In Duane's view, this year has indeed reached a critical time point for dealing with Milicic's contract.

To this end, Evans, who has one year left on his rookie contract and is an All-Star, is not hesitant.

Duan was originally worried that Evans would be brittle, but the Bulls have many players who can play, and most rookies rotate and compete for jobs.

The Bulls' scientific and reasonable rotation plan prevented Evans and Curry from suffering too many injuries and did not expose their glass attributes in their rookie years.

As for Curry, Duan should keep it for himself. Facts have proved that Curry is still very durable when he solves the sprained foot problem.

Then it would be a pity to throw away the remaining Evans.

Instead of worrying about it, it’s better to solve it in advance.

Anyway, the most lacking thing in the NBA is talented guards!

In the next few years, if you carefully select a first-round pick, you can get a guard with All-Star potential.

With a little training in a year or two, you can gain good immediate combat effectiveness. Why bother worrying about the last year of Evans' rookie contract?

Du En informed John Paxson of his thoughts, and the latter also said that he would not be idle this summer and would definitely complete the things Du En asked.

It is true that on the night of winning the championship on June 6, Jerry Reinsdorf had already explained that Duan was so strong that he could win the championship with a group of rookies, so there was no need to consider large-priced reinforcements. .

In the next few seasons, the Bulls will be fine if they stick to their fundamentals. Don't be extravagant, but try to reduce unnecessary expenses as much as possible to avoid the sequelae of the dynasty.

Jerry Reinsdorf's attitude is very obvious. He just wants to make money, make a little more money, instead of watching Duan pocket 20 million every year, making more than he, the team owner. .

However, Duen is the Bulls' cash cow after all, and Duen's status in the Bulls is superior to others!

Although John Paxson's career in the Bulls is general manager, in the final analysis he is just a part-time job.

He couldn't afford to offend his boss who paid him a salary, and he couldn't afford to offend Du En who helped him make money.

In today's NBA, the status of stars is getting higher and higher! Not to mention that Du En is the ruler of the alliance and the first person in the contemporary era!

If nothing else, just look at former Lakers general manager Mitch Kupchak!

In a sense, Kupchak was fired by Duen!

With the development of the Internet era, the influence of stars has become more and more important, and it has become common for team management to be gradually coerced by the will of stars.

Of course, all of Du En's previous ideas came to the Bulls management for discussion.

Everything Du En did was nothing out of the ordinary, so it didn't have any bad impact.

For John Paxson, Duan was more of a no-nonsense person and helped him lighten some of his work!

Besides, as long as you follow Du En's words, he can take the credit if you do something right, and Du En will take the blame if you do something wrong. Why not?

……

Time flew by quickly. After the Bulls' championship parade, Dunn returned to China to prepare for the London Olympics.

After Yao Ming retired due to injury, only Du En was able to play the leading role in the men's basketball team.

After all, the 08 gold medal team, like Yi Jianlian, Sun Yue, and Zhu Fangyu, came to the NBA to play for several years, but in the end they still failed to stay in the NBA like Du En and Yao Ming and play the role of Chinese players.

Instead, he switched from export to domestic sales, returned to the CBA to play, and then was assimilated and sunk.

Everyone knows that you can't play good chess with a bad chess basket.

Yao Ming retired due to injury, which caused the strength of the men's basketball team to decline a lot.

Yi Jianlian and others were supposed to have entered their peak period after being trained and tempered by the NBA, but they retreated instead of improving when they returned to the CBA.

The overall strength of the men's basketball team has declined significantly, but the performance of the men's basketball team cannot plummet.

After all, winning the gold medal four years ago was criticized by many foreigners because of the home field advantage.

If the men's basketball team cannot even break through the group stage at this year's Olympics, it will undoubtedly be ridiculed by the crowd.

Du En felt that he had to get to the quarterfinals no matter what. If he was lucky, he would try to win a medal again. It was too much to think about, but there was still a little hope for a bronze medal.

To work towards this goal, Duen must return to China as soon as possible to reunite the competitiveness and fighting spirit of the men's basketball team.

Therefore, the Bulls no longer participate in or care about matters on the Bulls' side.

Fortunately, John Paxson has been working with the Bulls for so many years and his ability to do things is still very good.

In the next draft, the Bulls used the 24th, 27th, and 29th picks in the first round to take Middleton, Green and Crowder.

By the beginning of July, the offseason has officially arrived.

John Paxson cut through the trouble quickly and completed maximum salary extensions with Curry and Ibaka.

As for Evans, John Paxson was already planning to trade him, so he was naturally not in a hurry to renew his contract.

As for the remaining Harden, John Paxson took the initiative to negotiate with Harden's agent and made a seemingly reasonable offer.

However, Harden's agent did not accept it. Instead, he made it clear that he would have to get the same contract as Curry before agreeing to renew the contract.

This also led to the contract renewal work not going smoothly.

Obviously, the Bulls did not give Harden more playing time and ball rights, and Harden and his agent saw through the Bulls' intention to lower the price.

In addition, Harden, as the third overall pick, had far less opportunities with the Bulls than fellow guards Curry and Evans. This also made Harden feel aggrieved and wanted to get something like Curry in the next contract. of attention.

Perhaps Harden has already begun to think about leaving and does not want to stay in this sad place of Chicago.

John Paxson doesn't care much about Harden's mood. The worst he can do is make a qualifying offer next year and let Harden test the free market. Anyway, by then the Bulls, as the parent team, can consider whether to match the contract.

In the blink of an eye, it was mid-July, and the Bulls took action again, hoping to trade Milicic and Evans for Howard.

However, the Magic management was a little impulsive and did not accept the Bulls' trading plan.

Some media analysts said that the Magic management had already broken up with Howard and did not want Howard to win the championship immediately after leaving the Magic.

In order to make life difficult for Howard, and also to avoid strengthening the strength of their competitors in the Eastern Conference, the Magic management intends to trade Howard to the Western Conference.

As a result, the Magic's good friends, the Lakers, took the initiative to come to the door.

After some negotiations, the Lakers once again won the Magic's No. 1 pick, and the Bulls became the matchmaker between the two.

However, the east is not bright and the west is bright.

There are no big fish in the free market this year, but the Bulls are still very attractive to veterans who want to win the championship.

Ray Allen, whose contract expired, took the initiative to approach John Paxson and was even willing to take the veteran's minimum salary for a championship ring.

Although Ray Allen is not in the Bulls' plans, no team can refuse a veteran who still has gas in the tank and averaged 14.6 points per game last season.

Not to mention, Ray Allen's physical fitness has declined, but his shooting level has not.

The Bulls' tactical style of play is inherently suitable for players like Ray Allen who have outstanding shooting ability and are good at playing without the ball.

Anyway, it was only more than two million a year. John Paxson was so proud that he signed a contract with Ray Allen early.

As for optimizing Milicic, I'm not that anxious. The offseason is still long. At worst, after the regular season starts, the Bulls can slowly find other teams to make deals.

Even if Milicic really has a garbage contract next season, the Bulls can send Milicic away at most if they spend more draft picks. (End of chapter)