Coach, I don't want to retire yet

Chapter 588 Gold turns purple!

Hu Weidong's bronze card was used in a variety of ways by Tabit.

The player bronze card can actually be continuously upgraded, and it also gives Tabit opportunities for continuous upgrades.

Oden developed his dream footwork with a bronze card, raising the value of the bronze card to the level of a gold card.

But Oden's bronze card only barely reaches the value of a gold card, but it does not really become a gold card.

If Oden really were to merge with a technical gold-card center, such as Oden and Yao Ming, then Oden would definitely be stronger.

At this moment, Thabeet's development of Hu Weidong, a bronze card, has surpassed Oden's development of Mu Tiezhu.

Breaking through the gold card means that the ability or potential of Hu Weidong, played by Thabeet in the dream card, has exceeded 90. After ending the experience of this dream card in the future, Thabeet will merge with a superstar guard with an ability of 90.

This is truly amazing.

Dream card world.

Hu Weidong became the focus of the whole world after leading the Chinese team to defeat Yugoslavia to win the World Championship and receiving the MVP.

It also brought great confidence to Hu Weidong.

After finishing the World Championships and secluding himself for more than a month to fully develop his potential, Hu Weidong felt incredibly strong.

"The ability value should have reached 91!"

"Both athletic ability and ball-handling ability have improved. Except for the defensive ability, which may still be only B-level (80 or above), the athletic ability and ball-handling ability have reached A-level (90 or above), and the shooting ability has even reached A+ (95 or above). "

With an ability value of 91, he is probably second only to Jordan among all guards in the NBA.

Payton, Tim Hardaway, Reggie Miller, Richmond, and Stockton are all estimated to be in their early 90s and have just reached the level of superstars.

Penny Hardaway may not even be at the superstar level after his serious injury, and Drexler is old and probably no longer has the ability of a superstar.

Kobe and Iverson are still young and are probably a little bit away from becoming superstars.

In addition, his attribute distribution is extremely reasonable, almost all of them are distributed to key attributes. In addition, he has been developing skills over the years and using advanced vision to develop skills that are beyond the times. He has seen the basketball of Beasley, Jordan, Kobe and others, and his playing style is advanced beyond the times.

Therefore, with the same abilities and attributes, they are definitely no match for him.

He can challenge opponents of higher levels!

The ability of 91 even makes Tabit feel that he can challenge players with the ability of 95!
He is now a player with relatively average defense, but considering his playing style and skills, his offense has reached the level of a super giant.

"In the new season, I can compete for the MVP! If I win the MVP, I can add a little more potential and raise my ability to 92. In the finals, I can compete with Jordan and interrupt Jordan's four consecutive championships!"

This was Thabeet’s goal in the 98-99 season.

However, the key now is to keep Jordan in the NBA. After David Stern announced the indefinite suspension of the NBA, Jordan is likely to choose to support the players' union and announce his retirement.

After another three consecutive championships in 1998, the Bulls were determined to disband. Phil Jackson would definitely leave after the end of the season, and Scottie Pippen's contract expired. The team management had reservations about him, which meant that he would also leave.

Dennis Rodman's injury worsened, and the Bulls management no longer considered renewing his contract.

The entire Bulls has now fallen apart.

Jordan's departure from the Bulls is a foregone conclusion. Judging from the fact that Jordan will make a comeback in the future, Jordan's next life goal is business. If it is for business, Jordan is willing to stay in the NBA and continue playing. As long as he stays in the NBA and continues to play, Jordan will go all out and be meticulous. In the future with the Wizards, Jordan is so old, but he still defends conscientiously and never inflates his stats. His professionalism is respectable.

As the second most commercially valuable player in the NBA, Hu Weidong's words have a certain influence in the NBA.

"Mr. Stern, if you don't want Michael Jordan to retire for the second time, I think you should discuss this with the NBA owners. If the NBA doesn't have Jordan, no matter how righteous you are, what can you do? In the end, the NBA will be the loser."

"Hu, do you mean that Jordan will retire again?"

"Jordan's persistence will disappoint him. In the end, the labor agreement will become the bosses' plan because most of the middle and lower-level players support it. Jordan will lose his special treatment and face, so of course he will leave. Therefore, no matter what the labor agreement is, Jordan's special status cannot be lost. He can still exceed the salary cap, and a Jordan clause can be made for him. With three consecutive championships and three consecutive FMVPs, he can enjoy this Jordan clause. Even if the bosses win in the end and Jordan gets face, there is no reason for him to retire."

The focus of this labor agreement is that NBA team owners want to adjust the league's salary cap system and the player's salary cap. However, the players' union strongly opposes the owners' plan and hopes to increase the treatment of minimum-salary players.

To put it simply, the previous labor agreement did not restrict NBA players' salary contracts and left too much discretion. Strong rookie players would often ask the boss for a maximum salary, saying, "If you don't give me a maximum salary, I won't play for the team." The boss had no choice but to give the rookie players a maximum salary. Some rookie players even get paid more than Malone.

For example, Mourning, for example, Glenn Robinson.

Since there was a precedent of Alonzo Mourning forcing the Hornets management to sign a big contract, Glenn Robinson and his agent decided to follow suit and ask the Bucks management for a 13-year, $1 million super contract, otherwise he would refuse to play for the Bucks.

The fans and media at the time were very surprised by Robinson's behavior. The 13-year, $1 million contract amount was a sky-high price at the time, and the Bucks felt quite uncomfortable for a while.

The previous labor agreement had no regulations and players could bid for anything they wanted. However, the salary cap is limited, and star players could bid for anything they wanted and take most of the money, leaving role players with no guarantee.

The bosses hope to standardize rookie contracts and star contracts, and have players of each level get contracts of each level and set a cap. This is actually reasonable.

But it infringes on the interests of elite players.

Excellent elite players do not want their salaries to be restricted. Everyone hopes to break the salary cap and get a big contract like Jordan's, which is $3000 million.

Jordan also doesn't want to be restricted. He doesn't want to get the 3000 million. The main thing is that he wants a special status. The 3000 million is a must, otherwise he will retire.

He, Michael Jordan, should not be like ordinary NBA players.

So, it is called a labor-management agreement and a labor-management conflict, but in fact it is a conflict between management and elite players, and the voices of the grassroots players are ignored.

From a historical perspective, as grassroots players begin to speak out and criticize elite players like Jordan, the players' union eventually compromises and accepts the bosses' plans in their entirety.

In this labor-capital conflict, the bosses are the righteous side.

Of course, the NBA was the big loser in the end. Jordan felt that he was stabbed in the back and that his persistence was not responded to. Just one week after the NBA resumed the game, Jordan felt humiliated. In addition, he began to think about retiring, so he announced his farewell to the basketball court through NBC.

We haven’t come to that stage yet.

On October 1998, 10, Jordan and several other stars met with team owners in Las Vegas. A fierce argument broke out between the two sides, and they parted unhappily after eight hours.

Originally everyone thought that this round of labor-management agreement negotiations would end in failure.

In an unexpected turn of events, NBA Commissioner David Stern and Hu Weidong, the second most commercially valuable player in the NBA, got involved and added another set of rules based on the boss's rules.

Jordan stripe frame.

This rule is no longer just for Jordan, but can be used by everyone.

The premise is that as long as you achieve three consecutive MVPs or three consecutive FMVPs, you will be eligible to negotiate your salary with the boss alone. How much you can negotiate is up to you. The final salary is not calculated into the salary cap. At the same time, a team can only have one player in the Jordan category. The plan proposed by David Stern and Hu Weidong was supported by the bosses.

As for the players' union, most of the middle and low-paid players are eager for the NBA to start as soon as possible to make a living. They don't care about Jordan's rules. There are few players in the history of the NBA who meet Jordan's rules.

The Jordan stripes have nothing to do with them.

Finally, on January 1999, 1, the players' union passed the new labor agreement with 6 votes in favor and 179 votes against, and the team owners won the final victory.

Now the eyes of the whole world are on Jordan. The reason is very simple. Jordan's contract with the Bulls has expired. Jordan is a completely free agent. Jordan meets the requirements and he can go to any NBA team and get a contract with any salary.

And it doesn't count towards the salary cap.

As long as the boss has money, theoretically it is possible to offer Jordan 100 million.

All teams in the league coveted Jordan's strength and influence, and were eager to get him.

The first is the New York Knicks. As the top team in the NBA, the Knicks showed their utmost sincerity. They even provided Jordan with a blank check and let him fill in the amount on it at will. This move directly scared away most of the competitors.

The Knicks offered Jordan a blank check last time.

This time, a blank check was once again offered.

The blank check from the Knicks is scary, but there are still a few top teams that are reluctant to give up and continue to make offers, the first of which is the Los Angeles Lakers.

The Lakers first offered Jordan an annual salary of $40 million.

Next is the Celtics, who also offered an annual salary of 40 million.

Compared to the Knicks' blank check that is full of gimmicks, the Lakers and Celtics' 40 million actually seem to be more sincere.

Because even if Jordan was given a blank check, in order to consider the feelings of his teammates, Jordan couldn't really fill it up too high. It would most likely be the same as the previous one. 3300 million is already far more than the second highest salary in the NBA.

If he fills in too much, people will say that Jordan is greedy, and his teammates will also have opinions about him.

So the Knicks may look generous, but in fact they are stingy and cunning.

Jerry West and the Cardinals are still so generous.

This time, the Bulls, as the parent team, did not offer Jordan a contract because they knew that with the departure of Pippen and Rodman, it would be impossible to keep Jordan.

Just when many people thought that Jordan would end up with the Knicks, Lakers and Celtics.

Someone came out to mess things up.

Pat Riley of the Miami Heat.

Pat Riley signed Jordan to a two-year, $2 million contract, plus a 7000% stake in the Heat after two years.

In the end, Pat Riley made a sideways attack and successfully took down Jordan.

Jordan originally planned to work in NBA management after retirement. Now that the Heat is so interesting and decisive, and this is sincere, he has no reason to refuse.

The Heat, which has Alonzo Mourning, Tim Hardaway and Jamal Mashburn, is already very strong, and now Jordan has landed, which makes them almost invincible...

This lineup looks stronger than the previous three consecutive Bulls games.

Seeing Jordan finally go to the Heat, Thabeet was a little confused.

With his push, Jordan was indeed retained. However, isn't Jordan's team too strong now?

Of course, the Nuggets will definitely be stronger in the new season.

In the 1998 NBA draft, the Nuggets selected Rashard Lewis with the 28th pick in the first round under his operation.

The 1998-1999 NBA season started smoothly.

Everything is going according to Tabit's idea.

In the regular season, Hu Weidong has significantly increased his personal offense, and his offense has completely reached the super giant level.

Hu Weidong averaged 28.5 points per game in the new season, beating Jordan's 28 points to become the scoring champion, and led the team to a record of 69 wins and 13 losses and won the regular season MVP.

In the playoffs, the Nuggets swept all the way to the Western Conference Finals. Facing the Spurs with Admiral and Duncan, the Nuggets finally defeated the Spurs 4-1 and advanced to the finals.

There is no doubt that the opponent in the finals is the Heat led by Jordan and Mourning.

"94! I didn't expect the scoring champion could add a little more potential!"

Before the finals, Thabeet didn't expect that he would end up standing on the finals stage with Mutombo and Mourning.

"When we left the NCAA, maybe we thought this day would come, but we didn't expect it to come so soon. But, we finally got here!"

Alonso, Dikembe Mutombo and Hu Weidong were the three most popular players in the NCAA back then.

Now the Three Musketeers have come to the finals as the star players.

Visible attention and influence.

What's more, there is a showdown between American Jordan and Asian Jordan, the two most popular NBA stars.

This NBA season has been full of twists and turns, but I didn't expect that such a twisted season would actually be the most watched season in NBA history!
……

……

"Ding, your player Tabit has changed his fate, potential +1"

"Ding, your player Tabit has changed his fate, potential +1"

Farke! ! !

It’s purple!!!

Du Kang was stunned. The card, which was golden just now, suddenly began to turn purple slowly. It seemed that Hu Weidong's card had changed his fate again. What magical operation did Tabit do in the dream card?

Du Kang was really shocked!
The gold starts to turn purple, but it won’t turn completely purple, right?
That's terrible!

(End of this chapter)