NBA: James wants to team up with me

In the final analysis, labor and management themselves are rivals on different levels.

Although the league's shutdown has a great economic impact on both sides, even the poorest among the league's 30 team owners are billionaires, and they can fully bear the financial losses caused by the shutdown, even if it hurts.

But the players on the labor side are different. The league's top superstars like Wang Chong, James, and Kobe can certainly bear it, but more than 80% of the league's more than 400 players are ordinary role players with an annual salary of one million. , the income of these players is only enough to support their families. Once the NBA is suspended, there are no jobs, and the source of income is cut off, many people will even have difficulty in living. What ability do they have to bargain with the employer?
In this case, even if the players' union still wants to resist, conditions no longer allow it. When the players cannot reach a unified concept, concessions become inevitable.

On November 2011, 11, labor and management sat together again. After 26 hours of negotiations, they finally reached a unified labor agreement, and the league lockout officially ended.

This news made all NBA players breathe a sigh of relief and rushed back to prepare for the new season.

In the past, by the end of November, the NBA's first completed month's schedule had ended, and each team had played at least 11 regular season games.

But now the league has just ended its shutdown, and there are still many things that need to be prepared for the new season. No matter how efficient it is, it will probably take about a month to start the regular season. It is certain that the 2011-12 season will be a shrink. The season, number of games and schedule will be compressed.

There is no doubt that the games in the shortened season are much more difficult than the normal regular season. It is a great test for the physical reserves and recovery ability of the team's players. It is especially unfriendly to teams with mostly veteran players. Therefore, various league players Every team wants to gather players as early as possible to seize the time to train and prepare for the shortened season.

At the same time, the free market opened in early December, and teams can finally start signing and trading activities.

Wang Chong left for Chicago from Los Angeles and officially ended his honeymoon vacation in early December.

The Bulls summoned all members of the team. Excluding those role players who only signed one-year short-term contracts, there are a total of 9 players who have officially reported, namely guards: Stephen Curry, Chauncey Billups, Danny... Green, Marcus Thornton and first-year rookie Isaiah Thomas.

Forwards: Wang Chong, Kevin Garnett, Jimmy Butler.

Center: Marc Gasol.

O'Neal had officially announced his retirement before the league was suspended. Winning the sixth championship in his career with the Bulls made O'Neal's career complete. Although in terms of personal honors, he is not as good as Jordan or even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Russell in the same position. There is a big difference, but at least in terms of the number of championships, O'Neal, who has six championships, definitely has a place in the top ten or even the top five in history.

Of course, the sixth championship as a substitute role player actually does not add much to his history, but even five championships are enough, especially the three consecutive championships and four FMVP trophies during the Lakers' tenure. Making O'Neal the most dominant center in league history.

McGrady, another player who won the championship with the Bulls in his arms, did not choose to retire.

When he joined the Bulls, he wanted to gain some popularity by relying on the Bulls to win the championship, and try to see if he could perform well again and continue to play in the NBA. After all, McGrady was only 2011 years old even in the 12-32 season. The outside players are far from old.

But it is a pity that although he won the championship as he wished with the Bulls, he played very little time both during the regular season and in the playoffs. He averaged less than 10 minutes per game and his data was only about 4 points and 2 rebounds. Completely reduced to a pure bench player.

The one-year veteran's minimum salary contract has ended, and the Bulls have no plans to renew the contract with Tracy McGrady. The latter is ready to test the free market, but there are very few interested teams.

The Bulls need to assemble a roster of at least 12 players before the start of the new season, so they also need to seek players to join in the free market.

Since the team's salary currently exceeds the salary cap, with the exception of a mid-level exception worth around 500 million, the rest of the Bulls' players can only choose players with veteran minimum salaries, and it is difficult to select capable players.

Wang Chong has paid special attention to players in the free market before. Unfortunately, the free market in 2011 was relatively cost-effective. There were only a few high-quality and cheap players, and there were even very few big-name players. The only ones who were slightly better were Tai. Players such as Chandler, Jamal Crawford, Nene and DeAndre Jordan.

Among these players, the one Wang Chong is most interested in is small forward Sean Battier.

Shane Battier originally chose to join the Heat in the 2011-12 season, and in the subsequent three seasons he played for the Heat, he won two championships with the team.

Although he mainly serves as a substitute for the Heat, he is a very important player for the Heat. With his defensive skills and IQ, he has largely helped the Heat establish a counterattack and fast-break tactical system.

The Bulls actually have no shortage of players at the forward position, but in line with the idea that as long as the Heat lose Battier, their strength will drop a lot, Wang Chong still asked the team to offer a contract to Battier.

But what Wang Chong didn't expect was that Battier actually rejected the Bulls' offer and chose the Heat.

"This guy is really a smart guy."

Both sides can only offer mid-level contracts. In theory, the Bulls, who have won four consecutive championships, should be more attractive than the Heat. After all, who doesn't like winning and championships?

But Shane didn't think so.

It is possible to win the championship by going to the Bulls, but the Heat are the team that needs him more. Battier will definitely have playing time in the Heat, and the Heat do not have a top defender like Garnett. As for his defensive ability, He is more dependent on him, and his tactical status in the team will never be lowered. These are things that the Bulls cannot guarantee for him.

Considering this alone, the Heat are more suitable for him than the Bulls.

After failing to intercept Battier, Wang Chong didn't have much interest in other players in the free market, so he left it to the general manager to play freely.

His main focus began to be on training before the start of the season.

Since he had been on his honeymoon vacation as a newlywed, Wang Chong had basically not trained much, but this was actually not a big problem for him.

Wang Chong, who just celebrated his 7th birthday in July, is still at the peak of his career, and his ability values ​​are completely digitized by the system. Unless he suffers an injury or does not train for a long time, his ability values ​​will not be there. A particularly obvious decline. Furthermore, the points accumulated throughout last season are still stored in the system, ready for Wang Chong to activate the bonus effects of the training module at any time.

After the total number of activated badges reached 30, Wang Chong did not intend to activate the badges in a short period of time, but instead wanted to increase his ability values ​​first.

2011-12赛季将在12月中旬开启，从16日到23日是季前赛，12月25日，也就是圣诞节当天常规赛正式开启。

In other words, each team in the league still has half a month to train before the start of the preseason.

Wang Chong's plan is to include the pre-season games. In the past month, he will spend all his points on the training module to improve his abilities.

This time, Wang Chong's main goal of strengthening is physical fitness. Considering the intensity of the competition in the shortened 11-12 season, it will definitely not be a problem to make his body stronger.

After formulating a complete training plan for himself, Wang Chong also did not forget to take care of other players in the team, especially Curry and Billups who would have suffered serious injuries in the original 11-12 season.

Although he didn't know whether the two of them would suffer serious injuries as before in this time and space that he had changed a lot, but just in case, he still tended to ask the assistant coach to arrange the lightest training for them. Train to avoid increasing the burden on your body.

However, this kind of thing is a blessing, not a curse, but a curse that cannot be avoided.

It is inevitable that Curry will need surgery for his sprained ankle. Even if it doesn't happen this season, it will happen sooner or later in the next few years. Taking this into consideration, Wang Chong is now even a little hesitant to interfere too much. After all, no one can predict the outcome of the butterfly effect. What if, because of his excessive intervention, Curry not only fails to rise from the ashes after the injury, but instead becomes like Rose and never recovers and fails to win any more games?
As for Billups, the situation is not much better than that of Curry. Curry is destined to have this obstacle, while Billups is simply because of his age, and people's physiques really cannot be confused.

The 39-year-old James can still fly like an animal, but the 35-year-old Billups' body can no longer adapt to the high-intensity NBA competition.

Starting from the 11-12 season, for three consecutive seasons, Billups only played about 20 games each season, which is to the extent that he will get injured after playing a little bit. In this state, he is destined to be unable to continue to be the main force of the team. .

On the other hand, Garnett, as an inside player who needs more physical confrontation, is in better physical condition than Billups. He was still able to perform well in the 11-12 season, but his condition began to decline significantly in the following years.

In any case, in the 11-12 season, the Bulls' situation will most likely not be particularly good, and it will be extremely difficult to defend the title.
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While the teams began training, the free market also began to surge.

Although there are no big fish among the free agents whose contracts expire, it does not mean that no team wants to make big moves.

The first to take action was the New York Knicks.

The Knicks spent 4 years and 5800 million to poach the opponent's blue-collar center Tyson from the Dallas Mavericks. Chandler.

Although Chandler is not a superstar player, for the Knicks, who have Anthony, Stoudemire and Rose, full of offensive firepower, but seriously lacking in defensive ability, it seems like manna after a long drought.

With Tyson Chandler, the Knicks basically don't need to worry about defense in the new season. The Big Three can fully display their offensive talents. The Knicks' strength in the new season will undoubtedly be even higher.

But this is just an appetizer.

On December 12, a deal involving the Charlotte Hornets' core player Chris Paul was announced and immediately aroused violent reactions.

In this deal, the Los Angeles Lakers sent away main players Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom, and acquired Chris Paul from the Hornets. The Hornets can get Odom and the Rockets' Kevin Martin and Louis S. Cora, Dragic and the 2012 first-round pick, as the third party, the Rockets got Pau Gasol.

But for the Lakers, this deal is not over yet. After completing the deal, the Lakers immediately packaged center Andrew Bynum and point guard Jason Kidd, plus first-round picks for the next two years. Acquired Warcraft Howard from the Magic.

At this point, the Lakers sent out most of their main players except Kobe, and successively exchanged Paul and Howard to form the Super Big Three, which shocked the entire league.

The first person to be shocked by the news was Wang Chong.

He never dreamed that this outrageous deal that once made Lakers fans regretful would actually be completed!
Yes, in the original 2011-12 season, the Lakers almost got Paul and Howard at the same time.

However, when the deal was reached and was about to be officially implemented, it was stopped by NBA President David Stern.

Of course, even the league president is not qualified to forcibly prevent transactions between teams, but the Hornets are in a special situation. Since the team has no owner, it is under the official custody of the league. After learning about this transaction, the rest of the league When all 28 team owners objected, Stern stopped the deal in the name of the Hornets' interim owner.

The Lakers' deal was halted for many reasons. The first was that the value of the deal to the Lakers was too high, not just because they got top star Chris Paul, but the Lakers also gave him away. Gasol and Odom have been traded away, and the subsequent contract terms of these two people are still very long. After the deal is completed, the Lakers can save more than 3 million US dollars in salary in the next three seasons.

At the same time, getting Paul without paying any draft picks will also help the Lakers continue to pursue Howard through trades.

The last time this kind of transaction was almost cheating was when the Lakers traded for Gasol in 08. It was also a trade. When the Lakers traded for Gasol from the Grizzlies, they paid the same amount of chips as the Celtics. Getting the chips Garnett paid is simply not on the same level.

If not, Spurs head coach Popovich wouldn't compare the deal to "robbery."

But what Wang Chong never expected was that this deal was actually realized now!
Obviously the Hornets are still in conservatorship as in their original history. How could Stern and other team owners in the league allow such cheating to happen?
But after calming down and thinking about it carefully, Wang Chong probably guessed why.

The answer is simple, because of Wang Chong and his Bulls. (End of chapter)