Pick Westbrook

Chapter 85
The January competition is coming to an end.

After the Bucks ended their trip to the Devils in the West, they only played two home games and ushered in an away trip to the East.

The continuous travel, exhaustion and intensive schedule have made the players' body and mind reach a critical point.

Tyronn Lue and Hammond have persuaded Li Lai more than once to rest the main players of the team, otherwise, once the players are injured in any game, it will not be worth the loss.

For example, the old man of the Spurs, nicknamed Zhuge Weiqi, has let Duncan rest for 6 games this season.

Come and listen to the reasons he gave, left leg cramps, right leg cramps, left and right leg cramps at the same time, loss of appetite, diarrhea, loss of appetite plus diarrhea.
Tyronn Lue and Hammond: "I'm so meow! These are some shit reasons."

Moreover, the Bucks' current team record is very good. If they lose their qualifications for the playoffs at the last minute due to this reason, then the team's efforts throughout the season will be in vain.

Of course Li Lai understands this reasoning, but he has always been repulsed by the practice of taking turns off.

Because in his opinion, those fans pay to buy tickets to watch the players play.

If you spent half a year's savings to travel across the ocean to see Westbrook play, only to find out that he won't play tonight, how uncomfortable would it be?

However, Li Lai is not a stubborn person. After understanding the proposal of Hammond and Tylen Lue, he quickly chose a compromise method.

Away break!

And only take turns to rest veterans Crohill and Elson.

As for Yi Jianlian, whose finger has been injured all the time, he rested normally under the guidance of the team doctor.

And young rookies like Westbrook, George Hill, and Dragic are naturally going to die as long as they can't die.

After hearing Li Lai's decision, Tyronn Lu smiled and gave a thumbs up.

"Coach, our ideas coincide with each other!"

Before the All-Star Weekend.

Hammond, Tyronn Lue, Reggie Miller, and Li Lai sat in the team management conference room with serious expressions.

In the NBA, teams like to treat All-Star Weekend as a midterm exam.

At this time, the management of each team will also analyze what the team has done well and what is not good this season, and decide the way the team will continue to go this season.

There is no doubt that the next road for the Bucks will continue to hit the playoffs.

Because they currently have a record of 33 wins and 22 losses, ranking fourth in the Eastern Conference with a 60% winning percentage, they have great hopes of reaching the playoffs.

Tyronn Lue reminded: "After the end of the All-Star Game in the league, many teams will start the playoff sprint mode.

Starting from this node, each team will gradually increase the intensity of the game.

In doing so, the team can adapt to the intensity of the upcoming playoffs in advance, and it can also remind those rookies that the defenses in the games you have encountered before are very easy. "

Li Lai was silent and said: "So I adjusted the rotation time to before the All-Star Weekend, so as to ensure that the players can show 100% state in the next game.

By the way, how is Yi Jianlian's finger injury? Will it affect the All-Star Game and the following games? "

Hammond put his stomach on the table, gave Li Lai a reassuring look and said, "We discovered Yi's finger injury in time, and it's not a serious problem under the treatment of the team doctor."

"However, we still advise him not to participate in the Rookie Challenge, but this season is his first All-Star, so he can participate and experience it."

"And the team has players selected to the All-Star, which is also a very good thing for us."

In other words, Yi Jianlian will not fight against Westbrook in the Rookie Challenge.

Li Lai felt very sorry for this.

Because the two often play pick-and-rolls on the court, they cooperate very well. Originally, he really hoped to see the scene of the two fighting each other, but now it seems that it can only be an extravagant wish.

The NBA All-Star voting has also come to an end.

Warcraft Howard came from behind and unexpectedly surpassed James and Kobe to become this year's All-Star vote king.

At the same time, due to the Bucks' strong publicity, Yi Jianlian was selected as an All-Star without accident.

What surprised Hammond was that while the Bucks were friendly promoting Yao Ming, the Rockets responded tacitly, also promoting Yi Jianlian.

This allowed both Yao Ming and Yi Jianlian to get more fan votes.

At first, Hammond didn't know what benefits the result of doing so would do to the Bucks. After all, Yi Jianlian's selection to the All-Star was almost certain, and more votes were just a matter of looking good.

It wasn't until the Chinatowns in Houston and Milwaukee were heated up by this wave of friendly interactions that Hammond understood the benefits of this.

"Several sponsors from China are very satisfied with the interaction between us and the Rockets, especially the friendship between the Chinatowns of the two places, which allows them to see more possibilities for cooperation."

"If nothing else, they will continue to sponsor the Bucks next year and are willing to step up their efforts to discuss more cooperation directions."

"Also, Mr. Zhang Zhiyuan, Li Ning's general manager, sent an email, hoping that we can submit the list of potential draft picks for next year as soon as possible."

"They're going to grab those rookies early, it's going to cost less and there's a lot less competition."

Reggie Miller was surprised that Li Lai had such a special cooperation with a Chinese sponsor.

However, the three rookies selected by the Bucks this season have all been selected for the All-Star Rookie Challenge. No matter what the final results are, they can be said to have made a splash.

So under such circumstances, it is not difficult to imagine that Li Ning would value the Bucks' favorite rookie player so much.

"But Li Lai, can he see it right?"

Li Lai, who was sitting in front of the three of them, nodded, but understood Zhang Zhiyuan's thoughts.

After all, Reebok had done such a strategy of grabbing people in advance as early as 02.

At that time, they directly offered an endorsement contract with an annual salary of 1000 million to James, who was still in high school!

This is not a small amount.

You must know that even for superstars like Kobe and Iverson, the endorsement contract was only 1000 million.

However, who would have thought that James would reject him without hesitation.

Li Lai thought about it for a while, and then wrote a list.

When Hammond took the list, his eyes couldn't help shaking.

As the general manager of the team, he has already been paying attention to next year's draft. In fact, everyone will pay attention to it in advance in the draft year like next year.

It's just this list given by Li Lai. To be honest, Hammond really felt something was wrong.

Next year's top draft picks Blake Griffin, Hashim Thabeet, James Harden, Tyreke Evans, Ricky Rubio and Jonny Flynn didn't even show up on the list!
"Boss, even if you are worried that it will be difficult for Li Ning to snatch these super rookies from Nike and Adidas, you don't have to give them all these players who have never heard of them."

Li Lai really had this in mind, he really didn't intend to let Li Ning snatch those super rookies.

The same as the result he got when he talked with Zhang Zhiyuan at the beginning, Li Ning didn't have the strength to grab super rookies at all, so they wanted to survive and develop from the cracks, they could only select those players who could slap their faces in the future.

"Tell Zhang Zhiyuan, these are the players I fancy, and hope he can trust me, and don't care about those super rookies who are boasted to the sky."

　It's Monday.

　　Brothers, cast your votes.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)