against the front

Chapter 145
On June 2009, 6, the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Orlando Magic led by Dwight Howard after five games, and won the O'Brien Cup again after a lapse of 14 years. After parting ways with O'Neal, he finally won the finals MVP trophy as he wished.

After the O'Brien Cup was owned, the 2008-2009 season officially came to an end, and after the finals, the annual draft finally kicked off.

Before the draft, the Kings held two rookie training camps and invited dozens of rookies to Sacramento for trial training. The season is almost the same, those rookies who are predicted to be higher in the draft, and the rookies who have already made a name for themselves before participating in the draft, even if the king sent them a trial invitation, they did not come, but fortunately, the few favorites of the king The players all participated in the rookie training camp held by the Kings, especially the two California natives, Jrue Holiday and Darren Collison, who worked very hard in the training camp, obviously hoping to be selected by the Kings. For some rookies, big cities and hometown teams are always their favorite places to go.

On June 6th, the 25 NBA draft officially kicked off. In order to show the importance attached to this draft, Kings general manager Geoff Petrie, head coach Reggie Toyce, and the core of the team Yan Yan Hua, all three of them came to Madison Square Garden.

Since Yan Hua had no reputation at all before signing up for the draft, Yan Hua did not have the opportunity to sit in the small green room at last year's draft. After entering the league for one season, Yan Hua finally had This is an opportunity to experience the atmosphere of the draft.

Before coming here, Yan Hua was very yearning for the scene of the draft. Everyone is the same. They want what they lack, but after coming to Madison Square Garden, Yan Hua realized how boring and boring it is to sit in the audience Now, and seeing the managers and coaches of the teams who are well dressed, greet each other with a smile on their lips, compliment each other, and don't know how to arrange each other behind their backs, and even pretend to be hypocritical. Regret coming here.

"Yan, are you sure the Serge Ibaka selected by the Thunder is the one you mentioned?" After NBA Commissioner David Stern came out, Geoff Petrie returned to his seat, Then he gently pushed Yan Hua who was already dozing off.

After Yan Hua recommended Serge Ibaka to Geoff Petrie, Geoff Petrie offered Jeff Green to the Thunder, preparing to ask the Thunder for a lot of money, while letting the Kings' scouts I went to collect Ibaka's information and the game video, but when the information was sent to Geoff Petrie, Geoff Petrie discovered that the information he got was different from what Yan Hua described. In Yan Hua's description, this Serge Ibaka is basically an omnipotent all-around power forward with explosive physical talent, excellent single defense, and excellent assistance defense capabilities. There were three points, but when Geoff Petrie read the information given to him by the scouts, he immediately wondered if the scouts had made a mistake.

"It's him. I watched his live broadcast before. It seems to be the game against Real Madrid? I don't remember clearly, but Sergi impressed me very deeply in that game. The defensive end can defend against the opponent. He can also help defend the opponent's outside line, and he is also very accurate in the mid-range on the offensive end. He also made several goals from the three-point line. I also have clips of his game on my mobile phone."

Because of the system, Yan Hua can clearly understand each player as long as he spends a little points to check. However, when Yan Hua recommended Ibaka to Geoff Petrie, he obviously made a mistake. That is the Ibaka that Yan Hua saw in the system, the Ibaka who is at the peak, and the current Ibaka has not even entered the NBA, there must be a big gap with the peak period, so in order not to To make Geoff Petrie suspect, Yan Hua specifically found a game of Ibaka eating dumplings in La Liga these days, studied it for a long time, and asked Zhou Feng to help make a video collection, which was saved to Apple The iPhone 3 that the company sent was intended to be used to fudge Geoff Petrie when he asked again, and it just happened to come in handy.

"Well, as long as you are sure that there is nothing wrong, we have reached an intention to trade with the Thunder. The Thunder want our No. 23 pick and Drew, but I haven't agreed to them yet."

Drew Gooden is less than 30 years old this year, and there are still several years of peak time. This kind of role player with experience in the playoffs, reasonable strength, and low salary is the best team for all teams in the rebuilding period. , are very much needed, so when Jeff Green’s trade talks collapsed, and Geoff Petrie expressed interest in Serge Ibaka to Detonator, the Thunder directly called Drew Gooden , and also want the No. 23 pick that the King got from the Rockets, which is obviously to make the King bleed.

Serge Ibaka was the No. 24 pick last season. He hasn't played a single NBA game yet. He needs to change to the No. 23 pick and a top player who averaged 13 points and 8 rebounds in the playoffs player, and wants Serge Ibaka to land in the NBA, and the team that selects Ibaka still needs to pay a termination fee to Ibaka's home team, the Spanish Manresa Club. It is no wonder that Geoff -Petrie will hesitate, but if Geoff - Petrie agrees very simply, I am afraid that the Thunder's management will suspect that there is something tricky in it.

After watching the video on Yan Hua's cell phone, despite doubts about Serge Ibaka's NBA prospects, Geoff Petrie made a decision to give Thunder general manager Sam Pu Resty sent a text message confirming the deal and decided to take the plunge.

While Geoff Petrie and Sam Presti were communicating the details of the transaction via SMS, David Stern, who was standing on the stage, opened a small note and said Announcing the No. [-] pick in the draft, the Los Angeles Clippers selected power forward Blake Griffin from the University of Oklahoma with the first pick in the first round.

Blake Griffin, who played for the University of Oklahoma, averaged 22.7 points and 14.4 rebounds per game in the season before participating in the draft, and won the John Wooden Award and Naismith Award, also selected as the best player of the year by the "Associated Press", it can be said that Griffin's No. [-] pick is undisputed. Any team that gets the No. [-] pick will choose Blake Gerry Fern's.

After the Clippers, the Memphis Grizzlies selected UConn Hashem Thabeet with the No. 2 pick, the Oklahoma City Thunder selected Arizona State University James Harden with the No. 16 pick, and the Kings selected with the No. 23 pick. UCLA's Jrue Holiday, and the Thunder's Taj Gibson was selected with the [-]rd pick.

After the Kings choose Taj Gibson, they will use this rookie and Drew Gooden in exchange for the Thunder's Serge Ibaka and a second-round pick for next season. After all the target players were selected by other teams, Geoff Petrie randomly selected a swingman from the remaining candidates, Danny Green from the University of North Carolina.

When the Miami Heat selected power forward Robert Dozier from the University of Memphis with the 30th pick in the second round, this year's draft ended very successfully.

However, for all NBA teams, the end of the draft means the beginning of the new season and the upcoming trading battlefield surrounding the draft.

(End of this chapter)