NBA: I am the god of basketball

Chapter 274 All-Star Weekend: This comparison is really unique!
Wang Chao has to admit the fact that even though his own ability value has reached the level of numerical monsters in the true sense, the overall system rating is 96, and the score of 2K games is already 99+, but there is still no way to 1v5. There must be at least one or two teammates who are reliable enough.

Of course, if the opponent is the bottom team in the league or a team whose strength is in the middle and lower reaches, Wang Chao can still turn the situation around by himself with his super personal ability.

But the current Cavaliers are clearly not on this list.

The Big Five combination of James, Irving, Pierce, Gasol and Embiid, even if Pierce and Gasol are in the decline of their careers, they still have a certain level. , the strength is not so strong at 01:30.

This is no longer an opponent that Wang Chao can solve with just his personal ability.

Originally, with Jimmy Butler, as long as he can share some of Wang Chao's pressure on the offensive end, the Rockets might not be able to fight the Cavaliers. Has a certain strength, but still lacks in stability, and failed to help Wang Chao in the game.

As a result, the Rockets relied on Wang Chaochao's strong personal scoring ability in the first quarter to gain the upper hand for a short time, but after the Cavaliers double-teamed Wang Chao, they immediately took the initiative and in the next two Set the victory in the first quarter of the game, and finally win the battle of focus.

Defeating the Rockets made the Cavaliers fans rejoice and boost their morale.

The Rockets are the favorites to win the championship, the defending champion team for two consecutive championships!It is also considered to be a team that is 8% likely to stand out from the West and reach the finals. For the Cavaliers who are aiming to win the championship, defeating the Rockets is of great significance.

It's just that apart from the joy, someone poured cold water on them.

"Don't think that you really beat the Rockets. The Rockets are a broken team. Both Yao and Leonard are missing, and two important scoring points are missing. If they can all play, the Cavaliers may win by a little bit. There is no chance!"

This is really true.

The Cavaliers' ability to win the game mainly relied on double-teaming Wang Chao.

Once the Rockets have multiple scoring points, the significance of double-teaming Wang Chao is not great, because Wang Chao, like James, has the ability to quickly find open teammates and pass the ball to the opponent when facing double-teaming.

In Wang Chao's opinion, if the Rockets want to win, they don't even need Leonard and Dayao. As long as Butler's performance is more stable, and then the level of another rookie Middleton is also raised to the peak state. enough.

It's just that even with the bonus of sparring medicine, it still needs a relatively long development cycle. After all, for NBA players, it's not just about polishing their skills to be able to show outstanding strength on the field. They also need to be familiar with And adapt to the NBA's various tactics and playing environment, learn to read and understand the game.

These are things that can only be learned on the court through game after game.

Therefore, Wang Chao's sparring potion can only speed up their strength improvement by one or two seasons at most, but it can't directly make them reach the peak level of their careers, let alone make them even surpass their own peak strength.
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After the Christmas War, the Rockets won the Wizards, the Heat and the Bulls in the remaining games in December, and ended the entire journey in December with a wave of three consecutive victories.

Due to the injury problems in December, the Rockets' performance in December was much worse than in November. A total of 12 games were played, with a record of 12 wins and 11 losses. All losses were against powerful teams in the league. the match of.

This brought the Rockets' total record to 26 wins and 5 losses, but even so, the Rockets are still the team with the highest winning percentage in the league. 25 negative.

The Warriors, who were supposed to have a record of 67 wins and 15 losses this season in history, have become stronger after having Cousins, a powerful inside player. If there is no Rockets, maybe the Warriors this season The team already has the possibility of hitting a record of 70 wins.

Of course, the existence of Cousins ​​also has advantages and disadvantages for the Warriors. Of course, the advantage is that the Warriors have solved the problem of weak internal strength, but the disadvantage is that having a high-quality insider like Cousins ​​also makes the Warriors unable to play. Completely let go of the small ball tactics of the dead five small balls, because Cousins ​​​​also needs a lot of playing time and possession of the ball to show his true strength.

How to deal with the coexistence of the dead five and Cousins ​​is the biggest difficulty that the Warriors coaching staff needs to overcome this season.

The Rockets finally ushered in good news in January. Leonard and Dayao both returned. , As long as they can play, the Rockets' offensive firepower can undergo a qualitative leap, and their combat effectiveness will rise in a straight line.

On January 1, the Rockets played against the Warriors at home. The third matchup between the two teams in the regular season was a one-sided massacre.

After resting for more than half a month, Leonard's state was on the charts. He scored 29 points, 7 rebounds and 4 assists. He scored 27 points with Wang Chao, who had 13 points, 11 rebounds and 56 assists. Feud that has won games without Leonard and Yao.

The revenge that belongs to the Rockets is not over yet.

On January 1, the Rockets played against the Cavaliers. Embiid, who had already won the title of undefeated on Twitter before the game, said in an interview that even if the Rockets had a complete lineup this time, they would still win the game. .

The Cavaliers are indeed qualified to say this. Since December, the Cavaliers have gradually improved. Coming to 12 wins and 1 losses, the record is getting closer and closer to the Atlanta Hawks, who are number one in the East.

Like the Warriors, the Cavaliers' lineup changed due to the butterfly effect is stronger than the original history. Although Embiid is a first-year rookie, his role in the team is not inferior to that of the Cavaliers who should have joined the Cavaliers through a trade. Kevin Love, the current average of 14.7+8.4 per game is not much worse than Love's 16.4 points and 9.7 rebounds in the first season of joining the Cavaliers.

Gasol and Pierce have a 14+8 and a 13+4 data, and they have become important right-hand men around James. In addition, Owen can contribute 20 points and 5 assists per game. The combat effectiveness of the Cavaliers is naturally stronger. strong.

It's just that facing the complete Rockets and still playing away games, Embiid's words are still a bit too big.

In fact, the main source of his words is his confidence in the inside of the Cavaliers.

The combination of him and Gasol can definitely suppress the Rockets' insiders. Yao was very strong when he was young, but in this competitive state, Embiid doesn't think he will lose to the opponent at all.

Then, he was educated by Dayao.

Dayao's playing time in this game is still controlled below 20 minutes, but as long as it is against Embiid, Dayao can always easily beat Embiid with various means.

This is not surprising at all. A skinny camel is bigger than a horse. No matter how old Yao is, he will play very softly against a center forward who likes to shoot three-pointers from the outside.

The Rockets suppressed the Cavaliers from the beginning of the game and have maintained a double-digit lead.

The Cavaliers’ tactics of double-teaming Wang Chao was also not working. With Leonard and Butler taking turns to attack with the ball, the pressure on the Cavaliers’ defensive end increased sharply, so they had to give up double-teaming Wang Chao to strengthen the defense against Leonard Butler. The defense of the two, but in this way, only James is left to mark Wang Chao.

As a player with strong defensive ability at the forward position, James has absolutely no way to face Wang Chaoshi. The biggest mountain in front of James.

James, who led his team to the finals for the first time in 07, was defeated by Wang Chao's Suns team and missed the championship. Since then, whether Wang Chao was in the Magic or the Rockets, the two sides have had countless times. Most of the matches, and most of them ended with Wang Chao having the last laugh. The only time James won was the 11-12 season when the Rockets' Dayao was injured in the Western Conference Finals and Wang Chao was alone.

At 121:106, the Rockets easily defeated the Cavaliers at home, avenged their previous revenge, and successfully beat James and Embiid to autism.

The reason for Embiid's autism is that he didn't expect that he would face a 30-year-old veteran and be blown up unilaterally without any resistance. The reason for James' autism is that he had a premonition that as long as the Rockets There will no longer be serious injuries in the game. I am afraid that he will experience the pain of being defeated by Wang Chao again in the finals.

This taste is not pleasant at all.

In mid-January, the league announced the final results of the All-Star voting.

Wang Chao was elected as the All-Star vote leader without any suspense. He has suppressed James to become the All-Star vote leader for several years in a row. James and Curry can only be ranked second and third.

With the announcement of the results of the All-Star voting, the starting list for the main game is also officially released.

The starting five of the Eastern Conference All-Stars are James, Anthony Davis, John Wall, Dwyane Wade and Carmelo Anthony in descending order of votes.

The five starters in the West are Wang Chao, Curry, Durant, Leonard, and Dayao.

Although they missed most of December's games due to injuries, Dayao and Leonard, who have the support of Huaguo fans, still get more votes at the forward position than Marc Gasol and Blake Griffin Waiting for the player to be selected as the All-Star starter.

In fact, the vote rate of the two is not as good as Kobe and Harden in the guard position, but who made the All-Star voting be divided into guard and forward after the league restructuring, and there are only two guards and three forwards? ?
Wang Chao and Curry firmly occupied the two positions of guards, and suppressed Kobe and Harden. As a result, although the two got more votes than Dayao and Leonard, they still missed the starting lineup of the All-Stars.

Wang Chao, Dayao, and Leonard were selected as the All-Star starters. The same team had three players selected as the All-Star starters or the previous Miami Heat.

And with Jimmy Butler, who ranked sixth among Western Conference guards in terms of votes, being selected as an All-Star substitute, four players were selected for the All-Star in one season. The last one was the Celtics Big Three plus Rajon . Rondo's Celtics.

What's interesting is that the Rockets are not the only team that has four players shortlisted for the All-Star this year.

The Atlanta Hawks in the East also had four players selected to the All-Star this season, namely Al Horford, Jeff Teague, Paul Millsap and Kyle Korver.

The difference is that three of the Rockets' four All-Stars are All-Star starters, while the Eagles are all All-Star substitutes. The difference in position and quality is obvious.

For the Rockets management, four people were shortlisted for the All-Stars. Not only were they unhappy, but they were even more worried.

The selection of Leonard and Butler to the All-Stars means that the price of contract renewals this summer has risen, and almost 100% of them need a maximum salary to complete the contract renewal.

If both of them have the maximum salary, the combined salary is 3300 million US dollars, and it is still the starting salary in 2015, and it will continue to rise every season after that. In the fourth year, each person is 2300 million US dollars, which adds up to 4600 million US dollars!
If you count Wang Chao's new contract with a maximum salary...

The general manager of the Rockets felt a little hard to breathe.

Sure enough, victory is not so easy to pursue. If you want to maintain a strong championship team with sufficient strength, you must pay high salaries as the price to retain strong players.

Except for Wang Chao who selects high-quality players at the cost of low-ranking picks through the draft, any dynasty team in the league must pay a high price to win consistently.

There is nothing to mention about the All-Star Weekend, so it can be ignored.

Wang Chao is not interested in performing on the All-Star stage at all. After a symbolic play of soy sauce for a few 10 minutes, he rests off the field. Dayao is completely showing his face. After watching the entire game, as for Leonard, although it was the first time in his career that he appeared on this stage as an All-Star starter, he had a strong desire to perform, but his qualifications were too young to catch the ball at all on the court.

In the end, the one who won the All-Star MVP trophy was the Thunder guard Russell Westbrook who played off the bench but managed to score 41 points with basketball alone.

As a point guard, Westbrook only had 28 assist in the whole game when he made 28 crazy shots and scored 41 points on 1 shots. Almost as long as he gets the ball, other teammates don’t even think about it. Touch again.

When Westbrook held up the All-Star MVP trophy with a smile on his face, the smiles of the other teammates around him were relatively stiff, and they just congratulated each other symbolically, cursing in their hearts.

"This comparison is really too fucking unique."

(End of this chapter)