Jim Bass Ambition

Chapter 29 Mickey Misses His Opportunity

"Jim, the Cavaliers rejected our offer to trade Horace Grant for next year's first-round pick."

"Then what about 03, 03 is fine too, we are not afraid to wait, we can still get a Buechler."

"I've known Jim Paxson for over 20 years, and as far as I know, he's not a fool or a lunatic. Listen, Jim, I understand your desire to get stronger and build a dynasty, but No GM in his right mind would trade a future first-round pick for a 36-year-old backup, and if we keep making offers like this, the Cavaliers will blacklist us."

"If you don't take a gamble, how do you know it's impossible? If we win the bet, we can lie in bed and count championship rings for the next 15 years... Okay Mitch, I know the value of the Horace Grant deal, Cavaliers 02 second-round pick + Desagina Diop, if the Cavaliers disagree, as long as the second-round pick is fine. As for Buichler, we have to think about it... Maybe Phil can save his Where's your favorite general? Hello? Hello? Mickey?"

Jim, who was hung up by Kupchak, began to look for a new home for Buichler, which was destined to be hard work.

As one of the members of the Bulls who won three consecutive championships, Buichler got the biggest contract in his life at the age of 30. Since then, he has lost his defense and hard work based on the NBA, and people have never seen him from the crowd. Grab a rebound, or fly a steal and complete a fast break.After playing, he squatted in the bottom corner to shoot two three-pointers, and then was replaced. This kind of check-in cycle has become Buichler's daily game.

"It seems that if you want to disgust your successor, the best way is to sign an extremely rubbish contract."

Kupchak is a typical activist. It took less than a week from the proposal of the transaction plan to the final negotiation.

The Cavaliers paid the 02 second-round pick for Horace Grant.

"Dear Mitch, did you realize that you missed your greatest opportunity to be the greatest general manager of all time?"

Kupchak only thought Jim was joking.

How many truths are said in the form of jokes.

In the end, the Lakers didn't fool around the pick that could select LeBron James, but a second round is enough to play a lot of tricks in the hands of Jim.The only regret is that the Lakers failed to get the inside tank Diop. Although there are few opportunities to play, the Cavaliers insist that Diop has great potential to be tapped and will not be traded as a bargaining chip.

The Lakers, which had already created a winning streak in the opening game, continued to make great strides. With a score of 112 to 93, they beat the visiting Dallas Mavericks all over the floor. O'Neal scored a super double-double with 49 points and 18 rebounds. Scoring 5 points and 21 rebounds, the total number of rebounds of the Lakers beat the Mavericks by as much as 20. Poor Nowitzki and Bradley, under the ravages of the two evil stars of the Lakers, only grabbed 9 rebounds in total. .

Next, the Lakers will go to Sacramento to challenge the Kings, who have won seven consecutive victories after Webber returned from injury, in back-to-back away games.

Jim regards this game as a preview of this year's Western Conference Finals, as well as a test of his new lineup.

"Listen, Brad, our goal is to put the Kings in isolation, don't let them get easy cuts and open threes, you can learn how Phil controls the game, including his tactical arrangements, substitutions The choice of timeout and calling a timeout... Forget it, you don’t need to learn from him to call a timeout.”

However, the result of the on-site guidance of the Zen master training course that Jim was looking forward to was very disappointing.

Phil Jackson did not serve the Kings with a high-pressure defense as Jim envisioned, but used conventional offensive and defensive tactics, and played an ordinary regular season with regular personnel rotation.

Bibby has almost seamlessly integrated into Adelman's offensive system. He can initiate an offense and has a much better finishing ability than White Chocolate. The White Devil taught Arenas a lesson from beginning to end.In the game, Bibby and Stojakovic teamed up to use powerful outside firepower to make the Lakers' defense full of holes. The two scored 9 three-pointers and scored 54 points together.

When the team's third leading scorer is Ben Wallace with 9 points, one can imagine how constipated the offense has become.The overall shooting percentage of the Lakers is less than 10%. Daben's [-] offensive rebounds have become the only bright spot of the Lakers. Unfortunately, his ability to convert offensive rebounds into points is really poor. The King only needs to pay the price of fouls to easily prevent him from scoring.

In the end, the Kings beat the Lakers 103 to 86 at home, ending the Lakers' 17-game winning streak and improving their record to 16 wins and 2 losses, ranking second in the West following the Lakers.

Anthony Mason's high-level support, who is proficient in this way, seems a bit unsightly in front of Webber and Divac who are proficient in this way, and his aging legs and feet are on the defensive end. Even more powerless, the king doesn't fight you physically at all, which makes Mason's brute force useless.Throughout the game, Mason made 7 of 1 shots, scored 2 points and 3 assists, and sent 5 turnovers. It can be said that he was completely blown away by Stojakovic.

But why did Zen master let Mason play the routine 30 minutes in this kind of game?Stevens found that in the technical statistics after the game, Mason's plus-minus value was the lowest in the game, minus 35.

"Brad, the game is not a game. You can't simply play the player you think should play. At the end of the day, this is just a regular season. We can't just continue this boring regular season winning streak. All his own cards. Besides, Phil also has to take into account the emotions of the players, Anthony has played in the league for so long, you can’t let him sit on the bench in the regular season because of his occasional poor performance.”

"Of course, when you have enough prestige and control, you can arrange substitutions completely according to your own ideas. If anyone dares to object, you can kick him out of the rotation or even out of the team. I look forward to you Be that coach sooner rather than later," Jim added, feeling that Stevens was a little noncommittal about the latter reasoning.

Mason did not let his slump continue to the next game, and the Sonics unfortunately became a sandbag for the Lakers whose winning streak was ended to vent their anger.

Vin Baker followed in the footsteps of his predecessor Kemp, from an all-powerful all-star power forward to a drunkard who drank his life every day. Less than any cheap, the audience only made 17 of 4 shots, and Payton's 33 points in the glove were powerless to prevent the Sonics' fiasco.

Mason scored a triple-double of 10 points, 14 rebounds and 12 assists, helping the Lakers win the Sonics in double figures with 7 players.

And Kupchak received a new task at this time, and the object of the negotiation was the Washington Wizards, who were not doing well.

(End of this chapter)