Jim Bass Ambition

Chapter 73
As the third pick in the 97 draft, Billups' career in the past few years can be said to have twists and turns.

After the Celtics have been crazy for a season, they still haven't selected Duncan or even Van Horn. Billups is at a loss under Pitino.

After only playing more than 50 games, Billups was sent to the Raptors, and then moved to the Nuggets and Magic. Before he even had time to represent the Magic, the contract expired, and the Magic decided not to renew his contract. .

Billups, who fell from the top spot to no one cares about him, was extremely disappointed and began to doubt his life. Finally, Billups signed with the Timberwolves at a low price of $2 million for two years and served as a substitute for Terry Brandon.

Terry Brandon is a kind person. He had to be corrected by braces because of his deformed legs since he was a child. With a height of 1 meters, he finally became an NBA All-Star. Brandon can be called an inspirational model.He is well aware of the difficulties of working hard in the NBA, and provided a lot of help and guidance to Billups who was at a trough at the time.

And Billups did not live up to Brandon's painstaking efforts. He reduced his number of shots and increased his shooting percentage to more than 12% for the first time in his career. The choice of passing and personal offense has gradually matured. After Langdon was injured, he started on the top and scored about 5 points and [-] assists. He is considered a fairly satisfactory player.

So satisfactory that no team is willing to offer him an annual salary of more than 400 million US dollars.

Therefore, when the Lakers signed a five-year long-term contract with Billups using the full middle-class exception, it aroused doubts from all parties.Using the full middle class exception means that the team will enter a hard salary cap state, and all subsequent operations must be carried out under the state of reducing the total salary, and the signing of free agents can only use the basic salary. It is difficult to continue to reinforce.

The Lakers lost their No. 3 center, all-star forward, potential new star, and high-quality 6D. The reinforcements are homeless parallel importers, low-ball merchants on the front line, and the data brush who led the team for [-] consecutive years but failed the first round. The white insiders with mediocre ability are basically all low-ranking rookies. The core of the team is the famous lone wolf Kobe. Many experts believe that the Lakers self-destructed the Great Wall.

Of course, there are also many fans who expressed their support for the team and their vision for the future. They believe that if the core lineup can be kept intact, this team with balanced offensive firepower inside and outside and strong defense will become the top of the league in the next 3 years.

Stevens continues to lead the team to participate in the summer league, the team is led by the newly joined Gerald Wallace, rookie Matt Barnes, Carlos Boozer, Udonis Haslem and so on Everyone is in the team.Only Luis Scola was forced to stay in the Spanish league because his parent team demanded a high signing fee.

Boozer is undoubtedly the most eye-catching of them. The bald-headed villain showed good offensive rebounding ability, but his ugly cannonball shot unexpectedly has a good shooting percentage.In the summer league killing quarter, especially in the game against the Clippers, Boozer completely blown the Clippers' lottery pick Chris Wilcox.In the eyes of the media, Boozer is likely to be another example of the Lakers' low-ranking Taobao.

Other players also played well. Although Haslem was rough but full of energy, Big Ben, who was watching the game from the sidelines, said that he saw his own shadow in Haslem, and Gerald Wallace showed a strong performance. With his excellent physical fitness and strong fighting spirit, he can often be seen flying to the floor, or jumping into the audience to save the ball.

As for Matt Barnes...he invited a lot of friends to watch his summer league debut, and one of them, a beautiful woman named Gloria Govan, was quite eye-catching. Derek Fisher's lewd glance at him.

Many people saw this scene, and even Jim half-jokingly reminded Barnes afterwards to be careful of the old fish next door.

Kobe is not a person who likes to be lively. When most of his teammates were on vacation and occasionally watched the Summer League, he called his trainer and came to the arena to practice shooting every day.

This afternoon, Kobe was about to shoot his 2000 three-pointers when two unexpected visitors came to the arena.

One of them is vice president Jim Buss, and the other is Ron Artest, a newcomer to the team who once had conflicts with the Lakers.

Bryant ignored the two and continued to shoot until Jim walked to the basket and caught the hollow ball.

"Is there any problem?" Bryant was obviously dissatisfied with others interrupting his training without authorization.

"I'll introduce you to a new teammate, Ron Artest." Jim pulled Artest towards Kobe.

Artest, with protruding cheekbones and sunken eye sockets, didn't look like a good stubble. He approached Kobe step by step, staring at him intently, his eyes seemed to burst into flames.

"I've seen him." Kobe replied briefly, standing there expressionless, not avoiding Artest's provocative eyes.

"Very well, the purpose of Ron's visit today is to have a duel with you to decide who is the outside core of the Lakers next season. He invited me to be a witness. Or, it is not convenient for you to let me know the final Win or lose? Then I can let everyone avoid it." Jim explained the reason for the two of them.

"Whatever you want, hurry up if you want to compete, I still need to practice shooting. What kind of competition?" Kobe said impatiently, walked to the side and picked up a basketball, and threw it to Artest.

"Just one-on-one, I'm going to blow you up." Artest caught the basketball, smashed it to the ground, and threw off his coat, revealing his strong muscles.

The two walked to the middle of the field and were about to start a one-on-one fight. Jim smiled and persuaded all the staff who wanted to watch the fun to leave the training hall, and he was about to close the door.

"Mr. President, isn't the training hall open today? I still want to sweat a little." A tall and thin man was wearing a hooded tracksuit and carrying a schoolbag, standing outside the door, obviously disturbed by the staff who filed out. Somewhat confused.

"It's Kevin, I thought you were still in Minnesota, and you've arrived in Los Angeles so soon? There's a game going on inside, are you interested in taking a look? However, no matter who wins or loses in this game, the result must be kept secret from your teammates! "Jim recognized the other party and smiled.

Garnett was obviously interested. He saw Kobe wearing a training vest and attacking with the ball at a glance.On the court, Kobe had to stop the ball under Artest's defense, and made a very difficult pullback, but the ball still hit the board and went into the basket.

"Aha, it can make Kobe's offense so difficult. This guy's defense is good. I'm looking forward to next season." Thanks to the schedule, Artest perfectly avoided playing in both teams because of the trade. Except for the confrontation with the Timberwolves, Garnett is not familiar with him.

The two sat on the ground on the sidelines, watching the fierce duel on the field.

　In 02, neither Bilu nor Artest was famous, and they could only be regarded as good role players, and Daben had just begun to reach the peak.

　　
　
(End of this chapter)