NBA: I am the god of basketball

After playing against the Nets and the Warriors successively, the Nuggets ushered in a relatively easy schedule, and most of them were home games.

In Denver, the Devil's home court, the Nuggets won the game more easily, so if they didn't pay attention, they won another wave of 7 consecutive victories.

Most of the schedule in November, the Nuggets' record came to 11 wins and 16 loss. While the players' cooperation became more and more tacit, the consecutive victories also boosted the confidence of the young rookies.

This is of course a good thing, but it also has disadvantages.

That is, a situation that is too smooth all the way will make players have an attitude and psychology of underestimating the enemy or being passive. This is especially evident in young and inexperienced players.

Gobert has been a bench substitute for the Rockets for four years, and the edges and corners have long been smoothed out. Now he has finally become the main force of the team. Needless to say, he plays hard and is fully motivated.

But the two main players on the Nuggets' guard line are different.

Both Mitchell and Murray are high-ranked players in the lottery. Mitchell has become the team's main point guard since his rookie season this year.

And Murray, who entered the league in the draft last season, was also the first to be vigorously cultivated by the Nuggets as a potential player. Although he didn't start the game at the beginning, he played a lot of playing time. He also won the best rookie award because of the butterfly effect.

This season, as the Nuggets' record took off, both the attention and exposure of the two have increased significantly. The media's praise and their own good performance in previous games have made the two young people in their early 20s float.

On November 11, in the Nuggets' away game against the Rockets, both of them had problems.

After going around for several years, the Rockets' current lineup is really hard to see. Except for Leonard and Whiteside, there is basically no outstanding immediate combat power in the team.

Although Leonard did not join the Spurs and his life trajectory has completely changed, he did not get reimbursed for the basic season of the 17-18 season due to Zaza's stepping as in the original time and space, and he played very healthy on the court.

However, the poor operation of the Rockets has made Leonard unable to bear his temper, and the conflict with the team management has become increasingly intensified.

In this game, all the Rockets played very well, and the restrictions on the two guards of the Nuggets were in place, especially Mitchell, who was good at holding the ball and breaking through, was almost overwhelmed by Whiteside, who was guarding the basket.

Leonard and Wang Chao's performance in the direct matchup was not false at all, scoring 46 points, 31 rebounds and 8 assists with a shooting rate of 4%.

Wang Chao was not surprised by this either.

Leonard, who is not troubled by injuries, should indeed reach the peak of his personal competitive state by the 17-18 season.

In the original history, Leonard only played 7 games throughout the season due to being reimbursed for the season due to a stepping injury and various conflicts with the Spurs management, and was then traded to the Toronto Raptors by the Spurs.

In the 18-19 season, with the Raptors, Leonard played the most representative season of his career. He averaged 26.6 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists in the regular season. Both scoring and rebounding were career highs.

In the playoffs, Leonard even broke out in the small universe. Throughout the playoffs, he averaged 30.5 points, 9.1 rebounds and 3.9 assists.

Looking back now, the Raptors' championship has a lot of luck. For example, the successive injuries of Durant and Thompson of the Warriors caused this team that had the opportunity to create a dynasty to collapse on the stage of the finals.

In addition, the Raptors' lineup is by no means as simple as a single core as many people say.

As the head star, Kyle Lowry's average data per game is only 14+9, but his role on the field is very large, the core of the ball and the starting point of tactics.

At the same time, the rise of Pascal Siakam, an ordinary player with the 16th pick in the first round of 27, was also unexpected. After all, in the first two seasons of his career, he was just a backup player for the team, averaging only 7 points and 4 rebounds per game.

In addition, the Raptors also have interior defensive leaders Gasol Jr., Ibaka, 3D player Danny Green, and most importantly, there is also a non-draft player Van Jordan Van Vleet with a contract in the early part of 100 million.

This lineup is not weak at all, and it is definitely not enough for Leonard to win the championship with a single core. His position in this team is very similar to Durant of the Warriors. He is independent of the team's tactical system.

It is undeniable that Leonard did a good job at this point, standing up at many critical moments in the playoffs, which enabled the Raptors to win the championship in the 18-19 season.

Just following the next season, Leonard resolutely chose to leave the Raptors reserved and switched to the Angel City Los Angeles Clippers. In the case of the original team, the original team was only Lored, and still played the second record in the East. In the first round of the playoffs, the second round of the Celtics led by Tatuum. In the end, there was no in the team. The top star with a super single ability as Lorenard, who lost his success and defeated.

Although they stopped in the second round, the Raptors in the 19-20 season fully proved that even without Leonard, they are still a powerful team in the Eastern Conference and one of the top teams in the league.

As for Leonard, when he just left the Raptors, he was already regarded as No.1 in the new active league. He has the potential to replace James Durant as the king of the league and become the new king of the league, especially after Paul George also announced to join the Clippers.

However, the attitude of going to work like a civil servant and the physical condition of injuries and injuries made Leonard disappoint the fans time and time again during his several seasons with the Clippers.

By the time Wang Chao crossed, no one would mention the issue of Leonard's historical status.

Although the two championships and FMVP have a high status for Leonard, but with Antetokounmpo's two consecutive regular season MVPs and the finals crowned FMVP, he has successfully replaced Leonard as the league's new best chance to become a strong contender for the league's No.1.

Even in the 22-23 season, when Jokic was crowned king and Antetokounmpo suffered a black eight, Jokic was only superior to Antetokounmpo in the current league selection. In terms of historical status evaluation, both of them had two MVPs, a championship and an FMVP, and both won the first championship in team history for their respective teams. honor.

Combining these honors, even after Jokic won the championship for 23 years, the competition between the two is still inextricable.

Of course, it's hard to say now, but not necessarily in the future.

After all, with Jokic's dominance in the 22-23 season and the Nuggets' lineup structure, there is a great possibility of continuing to defend the championship. On the other hand, the Bucks, after winning the championship, failed to return to the playoffs for two consecutive years.

The topic is a bit far away, back to Leonard.

Wang Chao felt that during the time of the Clippers, Leonard was already in a completely bad state of mind. He didn't have that great desire for victory and championships.

But in this world, the changes and influence brought about by Wang Chao have completely changed Leonard's career trajectory.

Although he has three crowns in hand, he does not have a FMVP, which makes Leonard's status not much stronger than that of another time and space in the same period of one crown and one FMVP.

In this case, Leonard naturally wants to lead the team to win a championship and get FMVP to prove his ability.

However, the depth of the Rockets' lineup is not enough to satisfy his ideas.

The second round of the playoffs for two consecutive seasons made Leonard dissatisfied with the current situation of the team and became more and more anxious.

His anxiety does not come from Wang Chao or other players, but from his former colleague, Jimmy Butler who followed Wang Chao to win three consecutive championships in the Rockets like him.

Unlike his struggles under the Rockets' single-core leadership, Butler's small days in the Spurs were called nourishment.

The gap between the team management and the coach is obvious.

The current lineup of the Spurs is actually not good. Except for Butler and Howard, there are no outstanding players in the team. Among the old GDP, Duncan has already retired, leaving only Parker and Ginobili.

From the perspective of the overall lineup structure, there is not much difference between the Spurs and the Rockets. Leonard's performance on the court is obviously slightly better than Butler's, while Howard and Whiteside currently have the same function on the court.

However, in the past two seasons, the Spurs have reached the Western Conference Finals twice and staged a shopping battle with the Warriors. On the contrary, the Rockets have stopped in the second round every year.

Don't look at Butler's statistics during the regular season are not obvious, only maintaining an average of about 20+5+5 per game, but he also played quite hard in the playoffs, causing a lot of trouble for the Warriors.

This also makes more and more people compare Leonard and Butler together. After all, the two were selected by the Rockets at the same time, and their positions and play styles are also relatively close.

The difference is that the Rockets are more optimistic about Leonard, who has outstanding static talent and higher potential, so the maximum salary keeps Leonard.

In fact, the Rockets also offered Butler a contract extension at the time. Although it was not the maximum salary, it was very close, but Butler also had the idea of ​​​​competing with Leonard.

Since entering the Rockets, Butler has been competing secretly with Leonard, but due to his talent, even though he works a lot harder than Leonard, he is still overwhelmed by the opponent in terms of evaluation and field performance.

Butler just wants to prove that even a player with average talent like him can defeat a genius through acquired efforts!
Leonard knew what Butler was thinking, so he naturally didn't want to lose to Butler. After all, everyone has arrogance, and his talent is so outstanding. If he is surpassed by Butler, wouldn't it prove that he is inferior to Butler?
The two have been competing since last season, but in the second round of the playoffs, when the Spurs and the Rockets met directly, Leonard managed to slightly suppress Butler in terms of personal statistics, but the Rockets lost to the Spurs, and Butler was only slightly inferior to Leonard in terms of statistics, which is hard to describe as losing to Leonard.

In this case, the outcome between the teams is quite critical. Leonard's Rockets lost to Butler's Spurs, which is equivalent to his loss to Butler.

This dealt a huge blow to Leonard's proud self-esteem.

After all, since he joined the Rockets in the draft, he has always been better than Butler. Whether it is Wang Chao's personal training camp's daily heads-up and beating session, or becoming the team's starting main force, becoming an All-Star, and being selected for the best team, he must be one step ahead of Butler.

Now he lost to Butler in the playoffs, how could he bear it?
This summer, Leonard forced the Rockets and asked the team to strengthen their operations so that they can return to the championship.

However, after the team management's toss in the summer, it can be said that nothing has been achieved. Not only that, but also let Gobert go for nothing.

Now that Gobert is playing well in the Nuggets, and his defensive performance is even better than Whiteside's, it seems that the Rockets' management is a bunch of stupid.

Although the Rockets won the game against the Nuggets, Leonard was not happy at all. He could see that the Rockets' victory was entirely due to the team feeling better and the Nuggets themselves had some problems, not because the team was really so strong.

And he could also see that Wang Chao didn't take it seriously at all during the game, which was one of the reasons why the Rockets were able to win easily.

The more so, the more unhappy Leonard felt.

Because he knew that Wang Chao did not regard the Rockets as a threat at all.

Leonard never had the luxury of chasing Wang Chao's footsteps and becoming a top star in league history as successful as he was.

But the "victory" of this game still hurt him deeply.

When the Rockets home fans were celebrating the victory of the game, Leonard did not smile at all, and entered the player channel with a straight face.

The moment he walked into the channel, he was ready to continue to force the management. If the team still can't get a strong teammate who can help him before the end of the trade deadline this season, then he should consider submitting a trade application. He doesn't want to waste his career peak on such a hopeless team! (end of this chapter)