Healing Basketball

Chapter 402 402. The Prodigal Son Turns Back
The fans who once supported him left one by one.

The alumni who regarded him as proud put his signed jersey at the bottom of the box.

No one regards him as an idol anymore, no one discusses how good he is.

The news related to him is only violation of law and discipline.

Once upon a time, he didn't expect such a scene before him, and he didn't even think that he would stand up again one day. In the 02-03 season, he averaged 6.9 points and 3.5 assists per game, and he himself was desperate for himself...

He never felt the slightest bit of remorse at the worst of times.

But when he survived the worst stage, forged ahead in the dark, found a path that belonged to him again, and achieved a little achievement, he began to reflect on the past instead.

In the past, Little Flying Squirrel really wanted to finish this passage quickly and leave the airport early, but today, he hopes to walk a little slower, a little slower...

When we arrived at the parking lot, we said goodbye to each other and prepared to go home. We didn't talk much, and we saw each other every day.

When Little Flying Squirrel and the warden said goodbye, they wanted to say a thousand words, but all the words merged into one sentence, "see you tomorrow".

……

Although the 55 points of the Little Flying Squirrel were scored by a team like the Hornets, which is almost undefended, it contains gold. Anyway, it can pick out the performance of the thorny Trail Blazers players. Of course, the media must praise it. , The news kept emphasizing '55 points against the bottom one in the Western Conference'.

But the heat can't stop it!In Portland, it has played a role in attracting old fans to return.

Basketball enthusiasm is running high throughout the Portland metropolitan area!

The old Portland fans watched the news and watched the performance of the little flying mouse again, and found that the little flying mouse had performed so well recently, memories flooded into their minds, and the fans who shouted Ye Qinghui formed a group to pick up the flying mouse for the little flying mouse.

The hottest topic in the basketball world today: Flying Squirrel, Stackhouse, Ben Gordon, Ricky Davis, who is the best substitute in the league among the four?
As for the question of the gold content of the reporters and experts, the fans of the Prison team directly complained-is there any substitute who can achieve 50+ points in a single game like Little Flying Squirrel?

The Flying Squirrel also pushed the teams to attach importance to the sixth man. Stackhouse had already promoted a lot to play as a substitute in his peak period.

At the same time, the way the Trail Blazers used Little Flying Squirrel gave those teams with veterans who have passed their peak but played like core players have a new way of thinking...Of course it depends on whether the veterans are willing or not, and also It doesn’t mean that every player with a core style of play can “reduce dimensionality” after their peak has passed their peak and their strength has declined. In the case of Kemp and Wen Baker, let alone drop from the core to the bench to reduce dimensionality. The Knicks let Wen-Baker Baker went to the Development League and the coaches all hated it, and finally bought it out directly.

But in the end it opened up an idea!This kind of thing will be found to be very simple, but without successful examples, few teams dare to try.

But, this incident caused a headache for the vice president of the Trail Blazers who owns Little Flying Squirrel.

After returning to Portland, the vice president called the general manager and the coaching staff for a meeting.

The content of the meeting was about the expiry of the Little Flying Squirrel's contract.

It's not that they don't want to give money.

Rather, they have to take advantage of the expiry of the contracts of Little Flying Squirrel, Raheem, George Lynch and others this season to free up salary space. The salary cap is calculated at 150% of the season's salary, and Liu Xiu and the outlaws are all rookie contracts, leaving room for a maximum salary.

But if they want to do this, they have to give up the bird rights of Little Flying Squirrel and others, or complete the contract renewal at a lower price.

It's just that as far as the current situation is concerned, the value of these small guards with outstanding scoring ability is rising.

"Boss, our players have done a good job now. We just need to wait patiently for the warden, butcher, and lunatic to grow up. We don't have to go to the free market to compete for stars..." Hollins put forward his own view.

The coach who usually holds this kind of meeting mainly fishes said this time: "Leonor, it's not that our players are so good, but you and Jeff are doing well.

We had a year last season to let the old players develop a tacit understanding, and this season we have been polishing the tactical system for our lineup, creating a style of play that suits our current lineup.

We lack a really powerful off-the-ball shooter, which has always been done by the warden; we lack a truly first-class supporting inside line, which is done by the bishop; the outside assist defense is also done by the warden and gloves Yes, the Warden is our outside core, and the gloves are so old, we need to consider them all.

If we can dig one of these three types of stars, our strength will undergo a qualitative change, which is much more effective than a sixth man. "

It’s not that Hollins doesn’t understand, but he is a nostalgic person, and regardless of his age, he is still a little naive, thinking that even if he has obvious flaws, he can beat the Timberwolves, the Spurs, and the Suns , Kidd is not injured when playing against strong teams such as the Nets and other strong teams, but he believes in dreams and believes that there is light in the world...

The management and other members of the coaching staff appreciate Hollins' innocence. In the world of sports, there are so many such "naive" people that there are so many miracles.

But now the vice president is in charge of the management. The responsibility of the coaches is to lead the players to rush, break through, play the best performance and even surpass themselves, and the responsibility of his vice president is to create the best conditions for the coaches. , this condition naturally refers to the strength of the lineup.

The general manager John Nash sent a list to the members of the meeting. Everyone looked at the players whose contracts have not been renewed, the stars who can jump out of the contracts... not limited to the three types of players mentioned by the coach.

Duncan is one of the stars who can jump out of the contract. The maximum salary contract he signed in 2000 still has one year left, and his salary next season is 1583 million dollars. The next new contract with a starting salary of $7 million.

With a salary gap of more than 160 million US dollars, why not jump out of a contract?
But in that case, the Trail Blazers will have a chance. Although it is slim, you can try it. If the money is spent, the owner who is worried about spending too much money will not know how happy it is.

The free market, that's what it is.

But when it was time to give it a try, the vice president decided to give it a try. Of course, Duncan was not his ideal goal, but the goal of delusion.

It would be nice to get an All-Star-level star in the offseason, such as a star in Larry Hughes' class.

And he was ready to fetch water from a bamboo basket in vain.

The vice president had already set the tone, and the members at the meeting began to express their opinions on each candidate star, including strengths, weaknesses, personal characteristics, personality, style of play fit, age...multiple considerations were brought up.

I'm going to get busy now. Signing in is not a matter of scratching the head. What they want to free up is a maximum salary space. , Money is not a problem, the problem is that if it is not suitable after throwing out the money, or if the imported players collapse after signing a big contract, it will be difficult to deal with. Look at the Knicks.

Then the scouts have to be busy, they have to keep an eye on the target, investigate the possibility of introduction, and a bunch of miscellaneous things...

Everyone was busy when there was a knock on the door.

Everyone focused on the door, seeing the vice president nodding, the secretary went to open the door.

People from the management and coaching staff were very surprised to see the visitor, and it was also beyond his expectation that the visitor saw so many people in the office...

It was Damon Stoudemire, the flying mouse!
……

……

"Warden, we are going to play 6 home games in a row, so happy!" Little Flying Squirrel looked at the team manual and was so excited.

Liu Xiu nodded, and warmly reminded: "After that, there will be 5 away games in 4 days."

"..."

This guy is good at everything, except for an extra mouth!

Momonga regretted the decision he made yesterday.

Is it too late to break your promise now?
I heard that breaking a promise will cause nightmares?

Forget it, I still don't break my promise, it's too scary to have nightmares.

As one of the most popular teams, what matches the Trail Blazers' third-highest number of national live broadcasts in the league this season is their schedule in January. There are few back-to-backs and few games. There will be a wave of sweetness at the end 1 consecutive masters, but at the end of the first half of the season, there was a wave of 6 games in 5 days, and they had to fight back to back, and they returned concentratedly.

But at least the schedule in January is easy, and the 1-day 5-game back-to-back away game is an 4-day All-Star weekend break, which is already a good schedule.

After returning home for a night of rest, on January 1, the Trail Blazers ushered in a challenge from the Hornets at home.

In the first three games of this wave of 6 consecutive home games, the opponents were the Hornets, Timberwolves, and Kings. They were the opponents of the three consecutive away games that had just been played.

Originally, this was a very interesting schedule. The kings with magnificent style of play, the Hornets with epoch-making point guard Baron Davis, the Timberwolves with the casual-looking three-headed monster, and the Trail Blazers played 6 games in a row. The league arranges a schedule to increase ratings in the middle of the season, and the major popular teams have some "mid-term schedules" of one kind or another.

But I didn't expect all three teams to collapse!Attention was much lower than expected.

Not to mention that Little Flying Squirrel actually became the scoring king of the NBA bench in a single game...

The alliance is naturally happy. Although the process is different, the result is what they want to see.

For example, tonight, ESPN added the Trail Blazers back home game against the Hornets, and the number of paid subscriptions reached more than 700 million times. It is not a big problem that the number of paid viewers finally exceeded [-] million.

This is definitely a breaking point in the middle of the season.

At 7:30 in the evening, the Trail Blazers ushered in a challenge from the Hornets at home.

The last time they played against each other, Flying Squirrel crushed the Hornets' courage, drive, enthusiasm, and basketball dreams.

Byron Scott pays homage to Momonga's actions - his team's odds of success have skyrocketed!

(End of this chapter)