NBA: I am the god of basketball

Chapter 349 The strongest free market and the draft in history
"The Nuggets beat the Nets 4:2 to win the first championship in team history!"

"Wang Chao fulfilled his promise and brought Denver the first NBA championship in history!"

"Achieved the ninth career crown! Wang Chao pointed to the 11th crown Lord of the Rings Russell."

"Durant's dream was broken again. Facts have proved that if he wants to win the championship, he still has to rely on Wang Chao."

"The promise to win the championship for Denver has been fulfilled. What will Wang Chao do next? Should he stay in the Nuggets for the rest of his life, or continue wandering to bring championships to other teams in the league?"

The news of the Nuggets winning the championship quickly climbed that day, occupying the front pages of major sports websites.

But in fact, the fans are already accustomed to Wang Chao winning the championship.

When he just won six championships and tied with Jordan, people will be very surprised, surprised by Wang Chao's luck, that he can meet teammates with outstanding strength and a style of play that fits him every time.

When Wang Chao won the seventh championship and achieved two three-peat championships, people turned from surprise to shock, and surpassed Jordan's six championships lightly. What the hell is this?

By the time Wang Chao won the eighth career championship in the Nets, everyone was actually a little numb. At this time, they all realized that Wang Chao is really strong. Germany, Durant and others all have the chance to win the championship because of his partner.

If there is anything surprising about the Denver Nuggets winning the championship, it is that this is only the first year of the Nuggets rebuilding. Under the leadership of Wang Chao, they actually won the championship. It took two years and Durant to win the championship.

Take a look at the lineup of the Nuggets. Except for Wang Chao, the team does not have a second current All-Star or best team player. Although the team's young players have performed very well this season, Mitchell and Murray Although the performance in the playoffs was a little fluctuating, the overall performance was still very good. Both of them scored 16+ points in the playoffs. Even Rose and Kuzma played well on the bench.

There is no doubt that after a season of playing with Wang Chao, the value of these players will also rise.

It is worth mentioning that Gobert has actually begun to regret it.

This season, he is one of the best defensive gatekeepers in the league, with a higher defensive contribution than Wang Chao, and he is the most powerful contender for the best defensive player.

If he knew this earlier, if he chose a short-term contract, he would have the opportunity and ability to pursue a maximum salary contract with an annual salary of more than 2000 million.

But what he signed with the Nuggets was a contract with an annual salary of 1500 million, and he just signed it last summer, which caused him a lot of losses.

But this kind of thing is hard to say. If he did not choose to join the Nuggets and play with Wang Chao, it is really unknown whether he can play well. After all, during the four years of the Rockets, Gobert has been in the cold. In this state, there is absolutely no hope of turning over.
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In any case, this group of Nuggets players, thanks to Wang Chao, is destined to become a class of players that has attracted much attention from the league.

And with the Nuggets winning the championship, those teams in the league that have not had a championship in team history are starting to move around.

Wang Chao's targeted poverty alleviation policy has been implemented for two teams and has achieved remarkable results. No one wants to miss an opportunity to make their team take off.

Therefore, the free market has not yet started, and several teams in the league have already begun to actively operate, hoping to impress Wang Chao through their own efforts and sincerity, so that this contemporary basketball god will come to their team.

Among them, the most active teams are undoubtedly the Los Angeles Clippers with a big ball market, the Charlotte Hornets team led by the former basketball god Jordan Joe, and the Toronto Raptors in the far northern city.

The Clippers have the support of the Los Angeles ball market. The Hornets and Raptors are currently the strongest teams in the Eastern Conference. In theory, they are the next home that Wang Chao may join.

Some gaming companies have even issued a list of odds for Wang Chao to join the team.

There are currently eight teams in the league that have not yet won the championship, including the Clippers, Hornets, Raptors, Pacers, Grizzlies, Timberwolves, Pelicans and Jazz.

Not many people know that Wang Chao has already confirmed that he will join the Los Angeles Clippers next season, so the media has also conducted a lot of discussions and research on this, which can be described as very lively.

But the truth is, this summer has definitely been the year of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Not only Wang Chao will enter the free market, but also James of the Cavaliers, Durant of the Nets, Chris Paul, Paul George of the Thunder and many other superstars whose contracts expire, no matter which one these stars can pursue, It can turn a weak team at the bottom of the league into a top team.

Although the most attractive of these is Wang Chao, a cross-age superstar, but because he only considers teams without a championship, those teams that win the championship still focus on James and others.

In the original history, James, who returned to his hometown and won a championship for the Cavaliers, became active again. In order to further expand his influence, he chose to join the Los Angeles Lakers in 18 years, wearing a purple and gold jersey, and Two years later, with the arrival of thick eyebrow brother Anthony Davis, he won the 2020 NBA championship.

It is hard to say what choice James will make when Wang Chao has changed beyond recognition. However, given Wang Chao's understanding of James' character, he may still choose to leave the Cavaliers.

The reason is simple, the Cavaliers' chances of winning the championship are gone.

Even if there is Embiid, a player with outstanding strength and excellent potential, in the team, that's all.

The junk contracts of Tristan Thompson, Iman Shumpert, George Hill and other players completely blocked the Cavaliers' salary space.

After this season, Embiid's rookie child labor contract will also end. With his performance, the Cavaliers must pay a maximum salary contract if they want to keep him, and the starting salary will reach more than 2500 million!
Coupled with the minimum 3500 million contract extension for James, the Cavaliers have no chance to strengthen the team.

This is just a hard condition for salary space.

In fact, after the Eastern Conference Finals stopped this season, Embiid faintly expressed his desire to leave the Cavaliers.

This is not surprising, not everyone wants to play next to James, especially a player like Embiid who has a high heart and thinks he will become a superstar. More performance, higher status, these are hard to get as long as James is around.

James can indeed help role players such as JR. Smith, Tristan Thompson, and Shumpert win big contracts higher than their own worth, and can make teammates better, but this definitely does not include star-level players.

This is the defect of the big core with the ball. The result of too much concentration of the ball is that the role players who catch and shoot will play well, but the chances of players with autonomous offensive ability will be reduced accordingly.

The same will happen to the teammates around Wang Chao.

No way, who told them that when they exist, handing over the ball to them is the best solution for the team to win?
It is said that James wastes his teammates, but if you take a closer look at his career, except for Wade, Bosh in the Big Three period of the Heat, and Love in the Cavaliers period, most of the other players performed better than before. Including Irving, in the 16-17 season, it was only by James' side that he averaged a career-high stat of 25+3+6 per game in the regular season.

Even looking at it from the perspective of the future, Irving's best performance in the playoffs was the two seasons of 15-16 and 16-17. After that, whether it was with the Celtics or the Nets, Irving never proved it in the playoffs. Own.

There is still a difference between Embiid and Irving. If he wants to fully display his strength, he must be the first tactical core of a team. With James, he will definitely not be able to reach the level of future MVP level. .

Of course, Embiid doesn't know what his future growth limit is, but he is definitely willing to try it, but he will still struggle a lot if he really wants to make this decision. After all, there is a lesson from Irving's departure from the team. Now Irving is in Cleveland It's almost like everyone yelling and beating a rat crossing the street.
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Before the free market starts, there are still two league projects to be carried out.

The first one is the 6 draft on June 22.

In Wang Chao's opinion, the 18 NBA draft is definitely the highest-quality draft year in recent years. Among the players in this class are Luka Doncic, Trey Young, Colin Sexton, Xie I. Gilgeous Alexander, Jaren Jackson Jr. and No. [-] pick DeAndre Ayton and other high-quality players.

Among these players, except for Ayton and Jackson inside, they will all be super scorers who can contribute 20+ or ​​even 30+ stably per game in the future.

It's a pity that the Clippers obviously have multiple first-round picks for 18 years, but the highest pick is only the 12th pick.

Even Alexander, the lowest pick among these players, can't be selected in this pick.

However, in the original history, the Clippers selected Miles Bridges with the 12th overall pick, and then used him to trade with the Hornets who selected Alexander with the 11th overall pick. Score, selected as a potential new star in the best team.

In the second year, Alexander was used as a trading chip and was sent to the Thunder by the Clippers in exchange for Paul George. In the following years, he became the mainstay of the Thunder.

From the perspective of a traveler, Alexander's growth rate is still very fast. In the first season, he averaged only 10.8 points, 2.8 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game, but he was traded to the Thunder in the second season and was regarded as the core training of the team. After that, the average data immediately increased to 19 points, 5.9 rebounds and 3.3 assists.

2020-21赛季，也就是亚历山大职业生涯第三个赛季，他已经可以稳定贡献23.7分4.7篮板5.9助攻。

In the 2022-23 season that Wang Chao crossed, Alexander has averaged 31.4 points, 4.8 rebounds and 5.5 assists per game. Unfortunately, the overall strength of the Thunder team is poor, and they failed to enter the playoffs in the end.

Back to the present, the No. 11 pick is not the Hornets, but another team. It is still unknown whether the other party is willing to trade with the Clippers.

And even if Alexander's growth rate is fast enough, it doesn't mean much to Wang Chao. After all, it is difficult for him to perform well in his first season, which is completely different from Mitchell.

Although Mitchell was also a first-year rookie last season, he has strong immediate combat power. Even without Wang Chao, Mitchell would average 20.5 points and 3.7 points per game in his rookie season if he was selected by the Jazz according to the original history. With 3.7 rebounds and 24.4 assists, he showed his prowess in the playoffs. With an average of 5.9 points, 4.2 rebounds and [-] assists per game, he became the main contributor to the Jazz's ability to advance to the second round of the playoffs.

Alexander is different. He has a similar experience to Mitchell. He joined a team that was not weak when he first entered the league.

In the 18-19 season, the Clippers had a very good combat effectiveness. They entered the playoffs with the eighth record in the Western Conference. Alexander also participated in all the first round games of the playoffs with the team, averaging 28.8 minutes per game. For a first-year rookie It's not too much.

But he can only contribute 13.7 points, 2.7 rebounds and 3.2 assists per game.

It can be seen that Alexander may be excellent in the future, but he needs at least one to two years of growth.

Wang Chao's plan is to build the Clippers into a championship team in the first year, so he will not consider the rookies that need to be cultivated.

Considering this point, even Dongcic and Trey Young, who are recognized as peerless duo among the 2018 rookies, are actually not very suitable.

After thinking about it, Wang Chao didn't think about how to use the Clippers' first-round pick, so he didn't provide the Clippers with any method of using the draft pick.

The current lineup of the Clippers is quite strong in Wang Chao's view.

The main players include small forward Tobias Harris, the best sixth man Louis Williams, the league's top scorer Danilo Gallinari, and several old teammates of Wang Chao, who were treated as trades The chips were sent to the Clippers' Montrezl Harrell, Norman Powell and Malcolm Brogdon.

What a group of bench bandits...

Wang Chao felt scary just looking at it.

There is one thing to say, the Clippers and the Nuggets personally built by Wang Chao are a bit similar in purpose. The team does not have a star player, but they are all very outstanding. They are all high-quality players who can play high-profile performances.

When Wang Chao comes to the Clippers, he needs to polish the existing lineup, and he can directly form a strong team that can compete for the championship!

In this case, the draft is indeed irrelevant. After all, is it necessary for Wang Chao to build a long-term lineup for a team that plans to only stay for one season?

The simplest example is that the Nets team he created subconsciously was the biggest obstacle in his way to winning the championship this season. Although he failed to prevent him from winning the championship, he still feels a little uncomfortable after thinking about it.

As for the lineup of the Nuggets, it is a helpless move. After all, without this lineup, it is really enough to beat the Nets, Warriors, Cavaliers and other super teams with superstars.

What Wang Chao didn't expect was that because the Hornets were not the No. 11 pick in the first round, Alexander was not selected with the 11th pick, but was directly picked by the Clippers with the 12th pick.

In this regard, Wang Chao was surprised, and he could only mourn for Alexander.

If he is selected by a weak team at the bottom of other leagues, he may be regarded as the core training of the team in the first year and can perform well.

But in the Clippers, according to the current lineup structure of the Clippers, he really doesn't have much chance to play. After all, just for the guard position, the Clippers have Louis Williams, Powell, Brogdon and Avery. Bradley and other four backbones.

In the striker position, there are Harris, Gallinari and Harrell. How can there be a chance for Alexander, who is mainly on the outside, to play?
(End of this chapter)