Eight Hundred and Forty. Start Thinking About the Next Season

"...Just leave it at that, I'm already thinking about next season."

After accepting the post-match interview, Sun Ce left a message, took the bath towel handed by the staff, and walked into the bathroom.

Nothing unexpected happened, 1-4, and the Grizzlies stopped in the Western Conference Finals.

On May 26, the Grizzlies lost to the Mavericks 87-106 in an away game and failed to win their second away game.

After finally relying on winning Game 3 to bring the game back to their home court, they were unable to continue. On May 29, just ten minutes ago, 96-103, the Grizzlies tried their best, but could not continue. A game that bid farewell to the season in front of the home fans.

After taking a shower, Sun Ce did not go to the press conference, just let Randolph go.

At the press conference at the end of the Western Conference Finals, Sun Ce wanted to attend as a winner... but he was just lazy. When the final whistle of the game ended, Sun Ce felt that the season was over, and it was like summer vacation. He didn't want to work after summer vacation, and there was no overtime pay.

…

After returning home, compared to Zu Ge's frustration and Wang Keying's comfort... Sun Ce felt that this was not a big deal. He had entered the Western Conference Finals. Some stars in the Western Conference might not be able to reach the conference finals in their lifetime if they did not seek shortcuts.

The Grizzlies have nothing to regret after losing in the Western Conference Finals, and Sun Ce has nothing to regret either.

Being able to reach this point this season has exceeded expectations. Compared with last season, their progress this season has exceeded everyone's expectations, including Sun Ce himself.

In the 2010-11 season when the Lakers were at the peak of the Kodak combination, Yao Ming joined the Mavericks, and the Spurs system first emerged in the 10-11 season, no matter how confident Sun Ce was before the start of the season, he never thought that he would almost win the regular season title. Championship, I was expecting 55+ wins, but ended up with 65 wins.

This season is a great harvest for Sun Ce, the Grizzlies, and Grizzlies fans.

The team suddenly became one of the few 65-win teams in the league. The history of the Pistons, which has three championships, is glorious enough, but they have never won 65 wins. The best record in team history was Philip Sander in the 2005-06 season. After becoming the head coach, Si got 64 wins and 18 losses. At that time, many people regretted that in the 2005-06 season, the Pistons star Ben Wallace was past his peak period. His performance dropped significantly and he could win the best defensive award. The players were purely lucky. Kirilenko was regarded as the favorite for the best defensive player for a long time that season, but he was too fragile. His strength was at its peak, and his glass man attributes were also at his peak. That season he only played More than 60 games, and even if he only played more than 60 games,

He also squeezed Duncan out of the first defense. If Flip Saunders coached the Pistons a year earlier, he might have won more than 64 games.

After reaching this point, the Grizzlies have gained a lot this season, and there is also Sun Ce's MVP!

Sun Ce has been playing in the NBA for two seasons, and his feelings about the NBA are not as idealistic as they were back then. In the eyes of local fans, a team can be called a great team if it can win one championship in 10 years. .

Compared to overseas fans, American fans take the championship more seriously!

Just like the Pistons in the 2003-04 season, although they have only won one championship since the new century, when it comes to strong teams since the new century, the Pistons cannot be avoided.

And Nowitzki in Sun Ce's memory has been known as a softie for so many years. After winning one championship, he was directly regarded as a god and became the greatest non-American player in history.

Sun Ce browsed the forum. Although he didn't care as much about the fans' opinions as the original Schoolbag Man, Sun Ce still wanted to know the opinions of his team's fans and the local media.

This will determine his choice. If local fans and media are like Orlando and Oklahoma City, things will change a lot.

But what surprised Sun Ce was that the fans were actually quite happy! The media actually did not attack them for losing the Western Conference Finals. Instead, they counted their brilliant performances this season that continued to set team history records.

The headline title given by the local media after being eliminated, translated into Chinese, was called "The Brilliant Season".

Although Sun Ce hopes that his fans and local media will not be like Orlando and Oklahoma City, in fact, when he had this idea, he naturally thought of the worst case scenario.

But...that kind of media and fans are weird in the entire NBA. Knicks fans can't be that weird. If Paul and Stoudemire can lead the team to the Eastern Conference Finals this season, even if they are swept, they will Many fans will praise the two of them as gods.

VP+Western Conference Finals floor... After the Grizzlies lost the Western Conference Finals, the fans didn't even have time to grieve and regret. They couldn't wait to start thinking about the future.

Their idle Mengcun could advance rapidly and become a Western Conference Finals team. Fans and local media were not happy before it was too late. How could they commit suicide like those two weird cities.

Although the Spurs have won 4 championships in the past 12 seasons, they have been eliminated from the playoffs in 8 seasons, and they often lose in the playoffs.

Their own team completed the construction of a new core lineup last season and has reached the Western Conference Finals in just two seasons. With such a reconstruction speed, only the Spurs who completed reconstruction in 1997 and won the championship in 1999 were faster than them.

Seeing Sun Ce reach the second round in his rookie year and the Western Conference Finals in his sophomore year, what more can Grizzlies fans ask for? This is the Western Conference! James in the East reached the conference finals in his fourth year of his career. Even Wade, who won the championship in his third year, only reached the Eastern Conference Finals with the help of O'Neal in his second year.

After Sun Ce came to the Grizzlies, he helped the team reach the second round in his rookie year, and his big brother was the Tennessee version of O'Neal.

Fans remember very clearly that before Sun Ce came to the Grizzlies, the Grizzlies were fifth from the bottom in the Western Conference!

The key is that the Grizzlies reached the Western Conference Finals this season, and most of the players are very young!

Gasol is only in his third year, Sun Ce is in his second year, Conley is in his fourth year, Yi Jianlian is in his fourth year, and Jordan is in his third year...

The only real veterans are Battier and Randolph, two players from the 2001 class. The Grizzlies are a team that people regard as a youth army.

Moreover, there was a Gay wearing a suit over a pressure suit on the sidelines. Although it was difficult to eliminate the opponent with more Gays given the opponent's performance, there was definitely a chance to win more games. Gay only played for four years, and his shoulder injury in the fifth season was reimbursed for the season. Although it delayed a year, it was not the kind of injury that would affect his career.

After this season, the Grizzlies brought more hope and expectations to their fans than the Bulls with Rose + Noah and the 76ers with Holiday + Evans in the East!

Looking at the fans' enthusiasm in the Grizzlies section of major forums, and the enthusiasm in the forwarded Memphis local news... Sun Ce didn't want to see this!

Losing and making it seem like winning... Although Sun Ce felt comfortable watching it, he always felt something was wrong.

After seeing Durant being scolded by his own team fans after losing the Western Conference Finals, and Paul being scolded by his own team fans after losing the second round, Sun Ce was really not used to seeing such a scene.

And it's not just the Grizzlies fans and local media who are praising them, but also the public opinion of the entire basketball world!

When the Grizzlies lost 1-4, those netizens and media who didn't want to see the Grizzlies beat the Mavericks before all "defected" and praised the young players of the Grizzlies for their promising future. Sun Ce is expected to become a real top ten player in the league... This is different from before!

At the beginning of the season, ESPN forgot about him and could only rank him tied for 10th, and the other two authoritative media T.N.T and Sports Illustrated ranked him 20th in the league before Duncan. Public opinion almost drowned him.

But now everyone started to praise him.

Sun Ce felt that the world was changing so fast. He didn't know what happened but he was praised so highly, just like Mitchell, Doncic, and Tatum in the future. It felt like a killing.

Sun Ce underestimated the benefits that the playoffs in the past two years brought him. The media and fans' enthusiasm for him was not as good as Mitchell, 077, and Tatum combined in the future!

He recalled the Celtics in the original time and space. Before they played the Eastern Conference Finals with the Cavaliers, the fans hoped that they would lose. But after they really lost, the fans began to praise them, saying that they had a bright future and James would not be their opponent next season.

Some fans are like this. When they prefer veterans, they hope that the newcomers will lose. When the newcomers lose, they will rebound and say how talented the newcomers are and how they have unlimited future prospects. They always have to show their uniqueness.

This made him feel strange... But not many people criticized him, which is a good thing.

However, Sun Ce also discovered a subtle thing... Most of the fans who expected the Grizzlies to lose after the first game of the Western Conference Finals were Heat fans!

Sun Ce found from the posts in the Heat section that compared to the Grizzlies, who can fight with unlimited defense, Heat fans hope that the Heat can play against the Mavericks in the finals.

Sun Ce was dumbfounded. He didn't know where the Heat fans got their confidence from. After watching the Grizzlies give up defense and go all out to attack in the first three quarters to lead the Mavericks, they felt that their team could do better than the Grizzlies and would not be afraid of the Mavericks in offense because they had the Big Three.

This confidence... Sun Ce wanted to tell them that although he also felt that the Heat were strong and the Big Three were really powerful, the Grizzlies might not be stronger than the Heat... but the Mavericks didn't even think about winning by attacking, they were just part of the strategic plan.

But for this kind of thing, Sun Ce thought it was better to let the Heat fans experience it for themselves. He felt it after suffering a big loss, and he didn't even have the idea of ​​opening a small account to laugh at it.

...

Turning off the computer, Sun Ce returned to the bedroom from the study... This chatty sister was sleeping in his girlfriend's arms again!

Sun Ce had no choice but to sleep in the guest room.

But sleeping alone, Sun Ce could be quiet for a while, otherwise the season would be over, and he would definitely not be able to control himself and wake up Wang Keying in the middle of the night.

Just like what Sun Ce said when the game just ended three hours ago, he has already started thinking about the next season, not just teasing McGrady.

Normally, after the season ended, Sun Ce would not want to care about the NBA and the team for the time being. He wanted to have a good rest for more than ten days and did not want to touch anything related to basketball. At most, he would watch NBA live broadcasts as a fan and have a good time for a while.

From July last year to now, almost 11 months, he has not had a good rest. He is not a robot. He has been busy with basketball for 11 consecutive months. When he was eliminated, he even had some resistance to basketball. The season is too long. Sun Ce can understand to a certain extent those guys who drink and overeat during the offseason and make themselves fat. Such emotions need time to adjust. Everyone has different ways.

But this year is special. He had to start planning early.

Not only the contract expires and becomes a restricted free agent, but the labor-management negotiations have also collapsed. Now the players and the boss are waiting for the end of this season and the announcement of the shutdown after the draft.

No one thinks that the next final negotiation on June 30 will be successful.

Sun Ce didn't believe it either. As a player, he couldn't accept a contract that was reduced by one-fifth for no reason. Players who didn't sign a new contract couldn't accept a salary that was one-fifth less than expected in the next contract. Once the share ratio of 57% was reduced to 45%, the salary cap would be directly reduced by about 20%, which means that even if his next contract was completed according to the ideal situation, it would be almost one-fifth less than expected.

As for the boss... from the news I got from Bill Duffy, the boss had reached the point where it was purely to maintain face.

This was very consistent with Sun Ce's impression. The bosses didn't reduce the share ratio too much in the end, but adopted a flexible share ratio.

And now those bosses are still tinkering with some "Arenas Agreement", "Trading Restriction Clause", "Sign-First-Then-Trade Restriction Clause" and other agreements to protect the rights of the parent team or to lower salaries. The bosses are still scheming about Sun Ce's new clauses... Obviously, the bosses don't really intend to let the NBA disappear.

Therefore, Sun Ce was not in a hurry to reach an agreement on labor-management negotiations. Let the lockout be a lockout. He was not like Curry, a second-generation star, who was "worried about the country and the people".

It was just the lockout that made him have to get a lot of things done before the lockout, otherwise it would be difficult to get them done in a few days.

There was still a little more than a month before the lockout on July 1, which was the general trend. Time was tight.

Sun Ce planned what to do next, roughly wrote down some key time points in a small notebook, and arranged a schedule for himself. He was ready to discuss with Bill Duffy how to get things that could be negotiated before the lockout.

After making these plans, Sun Ce opened the system panel.

The season is over, some events have ended, and some events have continued to the next season. He also needs to take a good look at this to let himself understand what aspects he should focus on in the offseason according to the needs of the team, personal needs, and event needs to conduct targeted training and improve his strength.

Sun Ce no longer expects to achieve success overnight. It is enough to make visible progress every year. Relying on the personal characteristics of the "strongest system player" and steady progress, it is not bad to be a "future superstar" who has accumulated a lot of experience.

First, there are two event prompts at the end of the game in the evening. He was busy before and had no time to look at them. Now that he is done, he can finally look at them and see if the event failed... This is why he delayed it until the last minute.

"S-level event Bear King Road Stage 6 Event: Our Champion (Unfinished)..."

The first one is the Bear King Road event. The Stage 6 event "Our Champion" will continue to the next season. This stage event will not fail, and the score is also fixed S. The championship is not a simple thing. As long as he completes his career in the Grizzlies, it will be fine. It's just that the extra bonus for improving the overall evaluation of this S-level event completed this season is gone.

Sun Ce has no choice. It is not something that can be done at all. He can only accept it if he can't do it. Fortunately, the Jordan card will not disappear.

However, the second event is painful. After failing a stage event, the final stage event was not triggered directly.

"The 8th stage event of the S-level event "Attack of the Little Overlord": The first part of the championship journey,

The host needs to lead the team to the finals. (Failed)

The final event was not triggered, this event ended, a total of 7 stage events were completed, the basic score is S-, and it will enter the comprehensive scoring stage..."

Two stage events were not completed, and the basic score is still S-? This is great!

Sun Ce looked at the first 7 events, 6 of which were almost perfectly completed, and one of them was rated S+. The only event that did not get the best reward was the event that ended the Lakers' two consecutive championships. It played 6 games and the score was B+.

Looking at the percentage timer of the score, Sun Ce was looking forward to what kind of reward he could get.

Finally, after a few seconds, the percentage reading bar was full.

"The S-level event "Attack of the Little Overlord", after comprehensive calculation, the total score is A+, congratulations to the host for obtaining the mysterious fragment*3, and entering the lottery stage..."

Looking at this prompt, Sun Ce felt his heart twitching, the classic three-choice is here again! Every time I draw a lottery, I feel happy and painful. I feel happy before the draw, worried during the draw, and after the draw... whether I feel heartache or excitement depends on my luck.

However, after the three rewards appeared on the system screen, Sun Ce's eyes lit up. S-level events are extraordinary. Although they seem to be A-level, they are far different from A-level lottery cards! It's not just as simple as A+.

"Random Physical Attribute Enhancement Training Card (A)", "A-level Random Equipment Card", "Random Skill Upgrade Card (*)".

When Sun Ce saw these three awards and had doubts in his mind, the system prompt came.

"Because the total score of the event is A+, the three random rewards in the prize pool are the original S-level rewards downgraded to A+ according to the score, which is a weakened version of the S-level reward. The three random rewards were originally designated attribute training cards (S), S-level random equipment cards, and designated skill upgrade cards (*)."

There shouldn't be doubts! Sun Ce looked at the system's explanation and really had heartache!

The three awards were changed from S-level to A+ level, and Sun Ce felt so heartbroken that he couldn't breathe!

But, what is the asterisk on the random skill upgrade card and the designated skill upgrade card?