NBA: James wants to team up with me

Chapter 170: In the draft, Hummelsap and Big Ben signed with the Cavaliers

Before the free market opens, the first thing to arrive is the 6 draft held at Madison Square Garden Arena on June 28.

The lottery drawing ceremony for the draft was announced a month ago.

Wang Chong has been in the league for three seasons and has had a considerable impact on the league's situation, causing slight changes in the draft picks of each team.

But the difference between the teams in the lottery is actually not that big. The bad teams with the lowest record perform very stably.

The No. pick was taken by the New York Knicks, who had the second-worst record in the league. Originally, the Knicks should have been the No. pick in history, and traded the pick to the Bulls.

But the emergence of Wang Chong changed history. The Knicks still had this draft pick, and they were lucky enough to get the No. pick.

But the Knicks say there's good luck and bad luck.

Because they used the No. pick to select the popular No. pick and one of the future classic parallel-imported No. picks, Italian player Andrea Bargnani.

In fact, looking at Bargnani's career, it is not appropriate to call him the No. 14.3 pick. He has averaged 4.6 points and rebounds per game throughout his career. Although some are not worthy of the title of No. pick, he is as good as those in the NBA. Compared with the parallel import top picks who can't even match the ball, it's already pretty good.

But this thing is afraid of comparison with others, especially among the rookies in 06, there are still many players who have made some achievements, such as LaMarcus Aldridge, who was selected with the second overall pick, his career average per game With a data of close to 20+8, he has been selected to the All-NBA Team and All-Stars many times. He will be one of the best players at the power forward position in the next ten years.

Moving on, there are players such as Brandon Roy, known as the Yellow Mamba, Rudy Gay with explosive physical fitness, Rajon Rondo, the leader among point guards.

Compared with them, Bargnani, who is the No. pick, is a bit inferior.

Of course, even if the original historical process is followed, the Knicks, who have been around for thousands of years, have no chance, because their draft picks in the next two years will be sent to the Bulls as trading chips, and what they get is not very valuable players.

Before acquiring Stoudemire and Anthony in the future, the Knicks will not have a chance to turn around.

The Knicks won the No. 20 pick, which incited a butterfly effect. The second pick became the Portland Trail Blazers, who only had a record of 60 wins and losses in the regular season, ranking last in the league.

The Trail Blazers were lucky. In the original history, they had the best chance of getting the No. pick, but they only got the No. pick.

However, the Blazers' management is also good enough. Through trading methods, they acquired the second rookie Aldridge and the sixth rookie Brandon Roy. These two people can be regarded as the most outstanding players in the 06 class. The two of them looked at each other as if they were cheating.

If the Blazers hadn't selected Oden a year later and therefore missed Durant, Wang Chong would have really doubted whether the Blazers' management had traveled through time like him.

Although the draft pick has changed, the Trail Blazers' choice has not. They decisively selected power forward Aldridge with the second pick, and then used their own players and draft rights as bargaining chips to trade to the Timberwolves with the seventh pick. The selected Brandon Roy received the two core cores of the future team just like in the original history.

The Raptors, who were supposed to be extremely lucky to win the No. 7.7 pick with the fifth-worst record in the league, ended up with only the No. 4.9 pick. Their choice was power forward Tyrus Thomas, who was originally selected with the No. pick. He averaged points per game in his career. A role player with rebounds is actually not very different from selecting Bargnani with the No. pick.

The Bulls' first-round pick was already given away as a bargaining chip in order to get Wang Chong, and even if it was not given out, the Bulls' actual record ranked fourth in the league behind the Pistons, Spurs, and Mavericks and made it to the playoffs. The result of reaching the Eastern Conference finals is also a last-last first-round pick, which is not worth mentioning.

But even so, Wang Chong was still able to make mistakes in the draft by relying on his foresight as a time traveler.

Last year, Wang Chong successfully missed Monta Ellis in the second round pick. The latter has now become the team's starting point guard. This year's second round pick also has a big miss to pick up. That is the well-known A strong second-round pick, Paul Millsap, who plays power forward.

Millsap was selected by the Utah Jazz with the 2006th overall pick in the second round of 17. This pick would not receive any attention at all. The Jazz also selected him to add a bench player to Boozer's bench. That’s all.

No one expected that Millsap would actually play well from behind. At his peak, he averaged 18+8 per game and was selected to the All-Stars 4 times. Although he was not selected to the All-NBA Team in the fiercely competitive forward position, he was selected to the All-NBA Team. The defensive lineup and solid technical characteristics make him one of the league's top forward players.

Of course, the most important thing is that Millsap is cheap. He is a little-known second-round pick. It is not easy to get him.

In terms of personal ability and achievements, Millsap is definitely not as good as Aldridge at the same time as him, but one is the second pick in the first round and the other is the th pick in the second round. Perhaps the difficulty is not proportional at all, and the cost-effectiveness is natural. highlighted.

The Bulls only used a second-round pick and a small amount of cash compensation to negotiate with a team that ranked high in the second-round draft, allowing the other team to select Millsap and reach a deal with the Bulls on the spot.

This transaction did not attract any attention at all. In everyone's opinion, the Bulls just made a small and insignificant transaction. The purpose may be to strengthen the inside strength. After all, the Bulls' power forward position last season was always Wang Chong. Although he played very well, Wang Chong's real position is small forward, and he will definitely play more comfortably in his best position.

But even so, just trading for an unknown second-round pick cannot change the status quo. Millsap, like Ellis, is also a talent hidden in the second round and can play in just one season. Bar?

No one believes that the same thing will happen twice, and no one like Wang Chong has opened his eyes to predict the future.

In fact, among the second-round picks in 06, there is another player who will play well in the future, P.J. Tucker, who is also positioned as a forward.

However, he has good immediate combat ability. He was able to average 7+5 per game in the first season without being taken seriously. In the third season of his career, he averaged just over 30 minutes per game. Compared with Millsap, who has steadily contributed 13.5 points and 8.6 rebounds, P.J. Tucker is a player who needs a longer growth cycle and does not meet the current team's immediate combat strength needs that Wang Chong and the Bulls urgently need.

The same goes for Kyle Lowry at the end of the first round.

As the representative figure of the Eastern Conference point guard after 2014, Lowry is definitely the best among the players in the 06 class. Especially after the Raptors won the championship, Lowry can even be ranked in the 06 class in terms of historical status and achievements alone. Top three players in this generation.

But Kyle Lowry, like P.J. Tucker, is not an outstanding immediate player. He really came into his own in the league and performed well after 2011, that is, five years later.

<divclass="contentadv">This time period is really far away, at least for now Wang Chong cannot wait.

Since you can't wait, then come back and think about it in a few years. Anyway, before they show their worth, both Lowry and Tucker are insignificant pawns in the league. They can be easily traded with some ordinary and low-priced chips. .

As a result, the Bulls only received one player in the draft, and that was Paul Millsap, who was ranked in the middle of the game in consecutive second-round picks.

-

After the draft, the free market begins.

In fact, there were no big fish in the free market in 2006. The only All-Star starter whose contract expired was Pistons star Ben Wallace.

After the Pistons lost to the Bulls and were upset in the second round, the relationship between Ben Wallace and Pistons head coach Flip Saunders further deteriorated and even came to a head.

In an interview with reporters after the game, Ben Wallace made it clear that the reason why the team lost the game was the team coach's incompetent field command and tactical layout.

Phillip Sanders looked at it and said, "Hey, are you trying to blame me?" How is it possible? So he also complained in front of the media that Ben Wallace's poor free throws ruined the victory that he had a chance to win.

The two of them hold different opinions, but the important thing is that they both have a certain truth.

The Pistons' loss had something to do with Sanders' poor tactical command, but Ben Wallace, who was easily manipulated by the shark-cutting tactics, also had something to do with it.

The two openly fought against each other, which greatly increased the possibility of Ben leaving the Pistons.

This is actually not surprising. In the past three years, the Pistons have failed in the playoffs one after another. They lost the previous two finals. Although they were failures, the overall runner-up result was still acceptable to the team management.

However, in the second round this season, they lost to a new team like the Bulls. No matter who it is, no matter whether he knows the ball or not, this cruel fact will inevitably make people doubt whether the Pistons' lineup and tactics really exist. A fatal problem?

In the NBA, when a team is unable to succeed, it must seize the opportunity to stop losses as soon as possible.

So when Ben showed his hand to the management and said that he and the coach could only keep one, the Pistons management's attitude was very ambiguous.

At this moment, Ben realized that the time had come for him to leave the Pistons.

On July 7, the first day of the free market, Ben's agent made a high-profile statement that Ben would leave the Pistons and join a team that can maximize his abilities.

It sounds grand, but in fact it is to notify the league that any teams interested in him should quickly make offers! The one with the highest price gets it.

It's just... Although Ben Wallace's honor as a star is very good. This season he won the best second team, best first defense, best defensive player DPOY, Eastern All-Star substitute and other honors, but for him There are really very few teams that are interested.

There is no way, everyone knows that although Ben Wallace looks very good and has won many honors in the past two years, he is essentially a blue-collar player on the court.

Based on Da Ben's current achievements, his annual salary is estimated to be tens of millions.

Is it worth spending tens of millions of dollars in annual salary to bring back a blue-collar center who is completely ineffective on the offensive end, who will even be targeted by shark-cutting tactics at critical moments, and whose shortcomings are extremely obvious?

At least Wang Chong wasn't interested at all when he learned the news. He also knew very well that leaving the Pistons' base would lead to a cliff-like decline in his career.

It is undeniable that Ben's defense is indeed very strong, but even on the defensive end, Ben is also a defensive player of that type of system. The Pistons' defensive system tactics are very conducive for him to shine on the defensive end, but on other teams , without a mature defensive system like the Pistons, Big Ben's defense is not as strong.

A typical example is the first season when Ben Wallace left the Pistons and switched to the Bulls, which was the 06-07 season.

During the regular season this season, Ben averaged 6.4 points, 10.7 rebounds, 1.4 steals and 2 blocks per game. Not to mention offensive scoring, defensive data also showed a significant decline compared to the previous season with the Pistons, and the regular season ended. Later, he was only selected to the All-Defensive Second Team and ranked sixth in the DPOY selection.

And this was Ben's best season after leaving the Pistons. In the following seasons, Ben Wallace's performance was like Wang Xiaoer's Chinese New Year, with each year not being as good as the previous.

Whether he was later traded to the Cavaliers or returned to the Pistons, the era of Big Ben no longer exists.

Of course, no one except Wang Chong knows that his condition will decline rapidly, but it does not hinder the understanding and judgment of the team management who understands the game about his technical characteristics and playing style.

There are only a few teams that are really interested in Ben Wallace because he enters the free market, including James' Cleveland Cavaliers.

After learning that Ben was going to test the free market, the Cavaliers management and James became excited.

This is Big Ben. A true All-Star center is a completely different concept from an inside player like Big Z who occasionally plays better for one or two seasons and is lucky enough to be selected as an All-Star. What's more, this season's Big Ben is still The second team's first defense plus DPOY is basically the strongest defensive player in the league.

The Cavaliers already have a very sharp offensive spear in James. If they win the strongest defensive shield in Ben Wallace, the team's strength will surely reach a higher level.

More importantly, it is really difficult for a rural team like Kecun to get a star player in the free market. Now it is difficult to find an All-Star player that other teams are not very interested in. It must be Take it at all costs!

On July 7, the Cleveland Cavaliers officially announced that they had reached an agreement with free agent Ben Wallace and would sign him for 3 million in four years. In the new season, Ben Wallace will wear a Cavaliers jersey. Play alongside James.