NBA: I am the god of basketball

Chapter 131 The All-Star Weekend is Here!
The 2009 All-Star Weekend will be held on February 2, and the host will be in Phoenix, the home of the Suns.

The Phoenix Suns are Wang Chao's old club. If you count him before he crossed, he has been here for 3 years.

Especially in the 06-07 season, Wang Chao and the Suns went all the way, setting the best record in regular season team history, the best winning streak record, and winning the championship, which is extremely unforgettable for any Phoenix fan remember.

The past two seasons in Phoenix have been unsatisfactory. The Shaquille O'Neal, which the team spent huge sums of money on, did not have the expected effect. On the contrary, it seriously dragged down the original run-and-gun tactics of the Suns.

So far in the regular season, the Suns have nearly 28 wins and 22 losses, with a winning rate of 56%. Such a record is seriously unqualified for a team that aspires to win the championship. Edge hovers.

As a traveler, Wang Chao naturally knows that in the 08-09 season, the Suns finally achieved a record of 46 wins and 36 losses, ranking ninth in the Western Conference. This is the first time since Nash returned to the Suns that he missed the playoffs.

Although the current Suns team is slightly different from the Suns lineup in his impression, the main players of the team have not changed much, so there is a high probability that the ending will not change much.

The more unsatisfactory the Suns are, the more grievances the fans will have. Even though it has been a year and a half, but look at the current prosperity, the Magic team with the best record in the league, and an average of 34 points per game. With Wang Chao at the top of the list, the fans of the Suns were furious at the poor decision-making of the team management.

They obviously have a chance to keep Wang Chao. If the Suns continue to hold Nash, Stoudemire and Wang Chao's Big Three combination, maybe they have two championships now and are launching an impact on the three consecutive championships!
But now, the Suns management will play a bad hand. Wang Chao refused to give him a one-year contract of 1500 million US dollars, but let O'Neal with an annual salary of 2000 million US dollars come to the team to drag down the team's execution of running and bombing tactics.

This season, the Suns team has four players with an annual salary of tens of millions, O'Neal 2100 million, Stoudemire 1500 million, Nash 1400 million, Jason Richardson 1200 million, plus 610 million mid-level contract. Bosa and other role players, the total salary of the Suns has reached 7612 million U.S. dollars, while the luxury tax threshold of the league in the 08-09 season is 7115 million U.S. dollars, which means that the Suns team owner will pay an additional nearly 500 million. million luxury tax.

There is really no one to settle this account. If you want to save money, you can't save it. Let alone defending the championship, the team was eliminated early in the first round of last season. not competitive at all,

Angry and disappointed fans of the Suns are naturally nostalgic for Wang Chao who has left the team. This kind of thinking is fully displayed through this Phoenix All-Star Weekend.

……

"Wang, I didn't expect you to have so many supporters in Phoenix?"

Howard couldn't help saying this to Wang Chao when he arrived in Phoenix by plane and drove to the All-Star host site.

When they were at the airport, they encountered a large number of welcoming fans, many of whom were supporters of Wang Chao. They held up promotional signs such as "Wang Chao, welcome home!" and shouted Wang Chao's name loudly.

When Wang Chao waved at these fans, it would also cause screams and cheers. The popularity of this year's All-Star voter Howard was stunned.

In fact, it’s not that the Suns haven’t made public relations remedies, and they’ve said more than once that Wang Chao himself has no intention of staying with the Suns, and that joining the Magic was also his initiative, in order to get more possessions. and shot rights.

But such an explanation, the Suns fans obviously don't believe it.

Besides, regardless of whether Wang Chao wanted to stay or not, the Suns management had to show enough attitude, but the Suns were obviously unwilling to give Wang Chao a maximum salary at that time, which was the direct reason that led Wang Chao to join the Magic.

"I really need more Suns management. Phoenix fans are so supportive of you. If the management is determined to keep you, the Magic may not have a chance to get you." Howard said a little fortunately.

What if this magic team does not have Wang Chao?Howard is well aware.

He himself supported the Magic's defense, while Wang Chao supported the team's offense. No matter which of the two is missing, it is impossible for the Magic to achieve the current regular season record and competitiveness.

And looking at the league, there are very few players who can replace Wang Chao in the Magic team, and the Supersonic shooter Rashad Lewis, who the Magic team was more interested in signings before, is obviously far from meeting this requirement. .

Therefore, Howard thanked the Suns management from the bottom of his heart for refusing to give Wang Chao a super maximum salary, which gave them an opportunity to take advantage of.

Regarding Howard's words, Wang Chao just smiled slightly.

The official response of the Suns to the fans was correct. At that time, he really did not consider renewing his contract with the Suns as the best option. After all, with Nash and Stoudemire, he could only serve as a No. [-] person, whether it is the right to the ball or the right to shoot, will be greatly restricted.

When he came to the Magic, Howard would not take the shot, but he could guard the basket and strengthen the defense, and he would not feel jealous because of Wang Chao's outstanding performance... At least not yet, isn't it good?
……

On February 2th, the first day of the NBA All-Star Weekend kicked off, with the Appetizer Rookie Challenge at the forefront.

The 09 All-Star Rookie Challenge was completely Durant's one-man show. He led the sophomores to defeat the first-year rookies led by Oden, Rose, Mayo, Westbrook and others 122:116. With 46 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists, he became the most dazzling boy in the Rookie Challenge.

This year's Rookie Challenge is generally more concerned than the previous ones, because Oden, the No. 08 pick in [-], finally appeared on the All-Star stage after a missed season. Because of this, Oden played on behalf of the first grade in this competition, which also formed the highlight of Oden vs. Durant.

So far this season, Durant has averaged 25.5 points per game and has successfully ranked among the top scorers in the league. With his age and scoring talent on the court, he is destined to become a top star in the future.

On the other hand, Greg Oden, the No. [-] pick over Durant in the draft, did not have a smooth road after joining the NBA. He was reimbursed for his rookie season and made no achievements. In the current second season, Oden's performance Not nearly enough to satisfy fans who expected him to dominate the league.

The difference in performance between the two has led more and more people to believe that Durant is more worthy of the No. 07 pick in [-] than Oden.

Of course, more people still think that Oden is more worthy of the No. [-] pick. Even if he did not perform well in the first two seasons due to injuries, he is destined to become a top insider like O'Neal and Duncan in the future.

There are many scorers like Durant in the league, but how many inside players with excellent offense and defense can look at history?Not to mention the current era of lack of high-quality centers?

But this time in the Rookie Challenge, the two had a chance to face off directly, but it turned out that Durant scored 46 points, while Oden scored only 10 points and 7 rebounds.

The performances of the two are very different, and for this, Oden would also like to thank Wang Chao for the butterfly effect brought about by crossing, because if according to the original history, on the day before the start of the All-Star Weekend, Oden would be in the Trail Blazers. In the game against the Warriors, he missed the All-Star Weekend because of a collision with Maggette that caused damage to his kneecap, and he didn't even have a chance to play.

Uh... But considering the humiliation caused by Durant's 46 points in front of him, it seems that Oden feels better if he does not attend the Rookie Challenge.

Durant, who won the MVP of the Rookie Challenge, was full of spirits, and said in the post-match awards interview that he would work hard to participate in the All-Star Game as soon as possible.

Of course Durant has this confidence. With the strength he has shown in the regular season, if he goes further next season, he can officially step into the ranks of first-line scorers like Wang Chao. Most basketball commentators are very optimistic about Durant's future. The outlook is also optimistic.

And Wang Chao, who is a time traveler, also knows that from next year, Durant will not miss any future All-Star games, except for the games he cannot attend due to injury, until Wang Chao's 23 years of time travel. He is still the top superstar in the All-Star voting and has the ability to compete for the top vote.

……

After the rookie challenge on February 2th, there will be individual events on February 14th, the skills challenge, the three-point contest and the dunk contest.

In the Skills Challenge in 09, compared to the previous two years, the starlight was much dimmed. The four players participating were the new No. Devin Harris and Tony Parker of the Spurs GDP combination.

Rose will become the youngest regular season MVP in the future, and Parker also has the honor of FMVP early, but compared with the previous players such as Nash, Wade, James, Paul, Deron, etc., it is obviously still worse.

The final result of the game was that Rose passed all the way and beat Harris in the final to win the skills challenge.

Rose's proficient skills and extreme speed displayed during the game made people immediately realize the strength and future development prospects of the No. 08 pick in the NBA in [-].

After the skills challenge, there is a three-point contest.

Compared with the former, the three-point contest is even less interesting and suspenseful. Before the game, basically everyone knew that the champion of the three-point contest would most likely be Wang Chao. After all, apart from him this time, there was no one else A star player took part.

The same is true of the results of the facts.

In the first round, Wang Chao overwhelmed the crowd with a high score of 25 points. Entering the final stage, Wang Chao again understatedly scored 26 points, continuing to show his hopeless dominance.

"Facts have proved that Wang Chao's dominance in the field of three-point shooting is absolute. No one in the current league can challenge his authority, unless Ray Allen announces to participate in the three-point contest. In that case, it will be a little bit less suspense."

Wang Chao, who has won the three-point contest for the fourth consecutive year, has reached 4/5 of the system task progress bar. He only needs to win another championship next year to complete the upgrade task and upgrade his marksman talent.

Wang Chao gained a lot, but when it was the last individual event's slam dunk contest, Howard still failed to successfully defend the title like Wang Chao.

In the slam dunk contest, Howard's performance was actually better than the original 09 dunk contest, because Wang Chao provided him with several creative dunks, including the Leaping car dunk that Griffin will stage in the future action and so on.

But these wonderful moves still failed to win the buckle of Nate Robinson, who was wearing the symbol of kryptonite, leaping over "Superman".

There is no way around this. After all, Howard is a big center with a height of 2 meters. No matter how good his bounce and explosion are, the dunks he can make on the court are still limited by his huge size.

It's not that Wang Chao didn't give Howard the dunk creative moves of LaVine and Gordon, the benchmark figures of the future slam dunk contest, but the latter still couldn't perfectly reproduce the moves after some practice and attempts, so he had to give up.

This is a difficult problem that big players have never been able to solve in the slam dunk contest, so Howard can only resort to some downgraded dunk moves. Although these moves are very brilliant, when the final opponent is Nate Robinson , obviously does not have any advantage.

Nate Robinson, who is only 1 meters tall, naturally has the advantage of scoring bonuses in the slam dunk contest. After all, a player whose height is only of ordinary people can participate in the slam dunk contest. The shock was particularly strong when he leaped over Howard, who was 75 meters high, to complete the dunk.

The scene of Howard leaping over the car looks very strong, but the height of the hood of the car is obviously far from that of Howard in a standing posture. Even if Howard actively bent down and bowed his head to lower part of the height when Robinson dunked, Robinson also supported it with his hands , and the difficulty is much higher than that of Feiyue Automobile.

In the end, "Kryptonite" Nate Robinson defeated "Superman" Howard in the final and won the slam dunk crown.

This scene full of drama and entertainment became the most classic scene on the All-Star stage in 09. At least in terms of viewing and entertainment, it far surpassed the skill challenge and three-point contest.

The Rookie Challenge on the 14th, the Skills Challenge on the 15th, the three-point contest and the slam dunk contest have ended one after another, and the All-Star Weekend is also coming to an end. February 2th is the last day of the All-Star Weekend and the beginning of the entire All-Star segment. The climax - the All-Star Game is finally coming!
(End of this chapter)