Chapter 1364 1363. The Tough Race Is Coming

On the evening of December 29, the "big battle" between the Heat and the Hornets was going on at the American Airlines Center Arena on the south coast of the United States.

The head coaches of both teams tried their best to find ways to lose.

Byron Scott, the master of point control, and Pat Riley, who may be the best head coach in history, are trying their best to replace all the players who are playing well and lose as much as possible.

Neither team can win. At this stage, the head coaches of both teams are carrying out this season for the future of the team.

While Pat Riley has to worry about losing, he also has to think about what Wade can bring back in return.

Pat Riley doesn't want players who have already been developed by the Eagles to prevent the team from being too strong, on the edge of the playoffs, and ultimately accomplishing nothing this season.

He wants the Eagles to select players who have just begun to train, or players who will not help much on the offensive end. Pat Riley believes in the Eagles' vision. The Eagles' vision is too vicious. The Eagles can pick the first pick in the second round. After selecting Millsap and giving him the same four-year contract totaling $5.22 million as the player selected with the 24th pick in the first round, he obviously has great confidence in Millsap.

Riley wants raw talent that he can polish by himself to increase his sense of belonging to the team, and he doesn't want players who have already integrated into other teams.

Or it could be a player like Prince who has little offensive effect but can affect the game and has high trade value.

The key is that Prince is very loyal. Just like Wade, he will not leave easily when he joins a team. This is Prince's best quality.

Pat Riley proposed a trade plan that the other party could not agree to, and it was expected that the Eagles would reject it.

Let’s talk about the specifics slowly. No one can guarantee the condition of players who have undergone minimally invasive surgery before they recover and resume playing games, even if they are players who have just turned 25 years old.

It is not easy for the Hawks to take advantage of Pat Riley. Even if no one is optimistic that Wade can return to his previous form, Pat Riley will not let go easily.

For Pat Riley, the biggest problem is that Wade, who has no meniscus, has torn his cruciate ligament. This is the first time that the NBA has an injury record!

Unlike Jordan's fracture, Wade's cruciate ligament was damaged when the meniscus was removed. What he had to do was a minimally invasive surgery that every team was extremely reluctant to let players do. There are many who are in their twenties and seventies. There was an example of bleeding after minimally invasive surgery during his peak period, so so far, except for the Hawks, no team has shown any inclination to get Wade.

This is a tough question for Pat Riley.

But Pat Riley still wants to take a bite of the Eagles, but what exactly he wants to get, Pat Riley himself has no clue now.

Pat Riley wouldn't think so much if the Eagles refused outright when he didn't have enough chips to reply.

But the Hawks responded. There was a feeling that they wanted to gamble on the small probability of Wade returning to health. Pat Riley was naturally more active. There were two options. One was to get a superstar or All-Star player who could be traded. Another bargaining chip is to supplement role players.

Pat Riley also knows that if the asking price is too aggressive, the other party will definitely not agree. The momentum is good, at most, it will take a year or two for the role players to grow up, and it will soon be a dynasty-level lineup, especially if Liu Mang returns. There is a high probability that he will enter his peak period in a year or two. McGrady is only 28 years old, so there is no rush.

…

…

On December 30th, the game day between the Eagles and the Nets arrived.

I discussed it with Pat Riley again during the day, but still couldn't reach an agreement.

For the Hawks, no matter what kind of reward they use to get Wade, their 100% strength will be lost this season. Wade will definitely not come back until next season. Liu Mang may use injury medicine to treat Wade. There are some potential injuries, but he will definitely not do anything counterintuitive like using superstar value to speed up recovery.

In this way, the Hawks will not pay a particularly high price to trade Wade, which would be a big mistake.

The deal is currently at a standstill as both teams weigh in.

Liu Mang is not in a hurry. Anyway, there is no way to partner with Wade this season. The games this season still have to be played one by one. Let’s beat the Nets first!

At 7 o'clock in the evening, the game between the Eagles and the Nets began.

After the game started, the Nets gave Liu Mang a very special feeling.

Carter and Kidd seemed to be working well together, but there was no communication throughout the whole process!

The Hawks' style of play is very simple. Liu Mang and Prince or Rondo and Battier flank Carter, and the offense can be played normally.

This season, the Nets rely on Carter to score and win. With Kwame Brown and Marion guarding the basket, the Nets' weak inside offensive capabilities are basically helpless. They can't make any open shots given to them by outside shooters.

On the offensive end, McGrady or Rondo holds the ball, and Liu Mang is responsible for taking shots.

Liu Mang played for 35 minutes. Facing Kidd's defense, he made 14 of 31 shots and 5 of 10 three-pointers, scoring 42 points. The Hawks easily defeated the Nets 110-95 and won two consecutive games.

After adapting to the Heat, Liu Mang became more comfortable playing against the Nets. He scored 40+ in three consecutive games, helping the Eagles improve their record to 20 wins and 11 losses, ending the 2006 journey.

…

The scoring average has increased by 0.2 points per game, and Liu Mang's scoring average has increased to 29.6 points per game.

At this time, Arenas, who had come to Atlanta to prepare for the game with the Hawks, was about to cry!

At the beginning of this season, almost no one in the league was competing for the scoring title. Arenas was at the top of the scoring list in the first two months of the season. He thought his spring was coming.

Although the Wizards were only on the edge of the playoffs, his personal performance was outstanding.

Who knew that Liu Mang suddenly started to score soaring points while playing!

Three consecutive games of 40+! This season has been 7 times of 40+, and it has only been two months! Arenas felt that he could get 40+ 7 times in a season.

Arenas felt that the winter in Atlanta was particularly cold...

...

Liu Mang didn't take the scoring title seriously at all. It's not like he hadn't won the scoring title before. He had won it twice, and it didn't attract his attention.

He scored high points and took a lot of shots during his playing time, just to give the substitutes an advantage to squander when they were on the court, and to give young teammates the opportunity to make mistakes.

Only by making mistakes can you find your own shortcomings and then improve them.

Liu Mang didn't know when he started to like the feeling of seeing the new players in the team improve little by little.

After playing for two months in the new season with an uncertain future, Liu Mang gradually liked this feeling. If his teammates didn't play well, he had to fight harder to win, and he also liked this fighting spirit.

If there were occasional substitutes who could widen the score gap so that he could sit and watch, he would also be happy.

2006 is over. Except for the Hawks who only played 31 games and the Lakers who only played 33 games, most teams played 34 to 36 games.

In the East, the Cavaliers and the Bulls are still competing fiercely for the first place in the East.

The Hawks are in a stable third place due to the Heat's three-game losing streak.

The Raptors are ranked fourth in the East with a record of 19 wins and 15 losses.

The Heat are still fifth in the East with 18 wins and 16 losses, but there is no gap with the Magic, who are ranked sixth in the East with 17 wins and 18 losses.

Starting from the sixth place in the East, the winning rate of other teams in the East has not exceeded 50%.

In the West, the Mavericks are ranked first in the league with 30 wins and 5 losses, the first team in the league to get 30 wins.

The Lakers are ranked second in the West with 26 wins and 7 losses.

The Spurs are closely behind with 23 wins and 11 losses.

The strongest teams in the West are still these three teams.

Due to the collapse of the Heat, the Hawks are temporarily free of the pressure of record. It is no problem to maintain the top four. The Hawks have no intention of competing for the first and second place. If they insist on competing, they will be ruthless to the main players. For example, the Heat let Wade play more than 40 minutes in almost every game before Wade was seriously injured this season. It is still possible, but it will inevitably affect the progress of the Hawks' role players and their physical fitness. This season, McGrady, Jason Terry and Kwame Brown, who have played more time in the past few years, have more or less insufficient physical strength in the last quarter.

Since there is no pressure on the record, Liu Mang does not pay much attention to unimportant opponents.

In the next 10 days and 6 games in early January, the opponents are relatively weaker, not as scary as the five consecutive away games against the Suns, Mavericks, Lakers, Heat, and Nets. If the Nets hadn't completely collapsed and the Heat hadn't been affected by injuries, with the strength of the two teams last season... it would be really tough.

There are still four months to go, a total of 51 games, and the Hawks' schedule immediately switched from the easiest to the toughest in the league.

There were 17 games in January, 12 games in February, 16 games in March, and April suddenly became the easiest, with only 6 games in 15 days.

The 10 days and 6 games from January 1st are relatively easy opponents for the Hawks who are used to the tough schedule.

Wizards, Grizzlies, Rockets, Timberwolves, Celtics, Bucks.

For such opponents, Liu Mang's attention is on bargaining with the Heat.

Liu Mang is not in a hurry. He tries to score and grab rebounds during the game to help the team win. In his free time, he stays with the boss and coach Kruger and negotiates with Pat Riley.

Although Wade's surgery was successful, the minimally invasive surgery on his knee will inevitably have a significant impact on Wade's explosiveness. Pat Riley became the more anxious one.

…

…

"Uncle, come and see, the first round of voting results are out!"

At nine o'clock in the morning, Liu Mang had just finished running, practiced a set of shooting, came back to take a shower and was ready to take a nap, when he was pulled into her room by the little girl.

The computer screen showed the first stage of voting results for the 2007 Las Vegas All-Star Weekend.

The new All-Star will not be held at any team's home court, but in Las Vegas, a green desert.

Liu Mang was pulled to the computer and the first thing he saw was the Eastern Conference All-Star voting.

Kevin Garnett ranked first in the East with 1.16 million votes.

This is expected. Garnett's popularity is already high, just like in the original time and space, he immediately became the vote king when he joined the Celtics in 2008. When he came to the big city of Chicago, he played such a good regular season record, ranked second in the MVP list, and became the only two players in the East to break a million votes. It was expected.

Garnett ranked first among Eastern forwards with 1.16 million votes, and James ranked second with 970,000 votes.

For guards, Liu Mang ranked first with 1.05 million votes, and McGrady ranked second with 990,000 votes.

There are fewer stars in the East, so the votes are more concentrated.

However, the center position is not concentrated. Three players have more than 400,000 votes, but no one has more than 600,000 votes.

Among them, Dwight Howard's 590,000 votes beat Kwame Brown's 510,000 votes and Milicic's 460,000 votes, temporarily ranking first among centers in the Eastern Conference!

Howard averaged 17 points, 13 rebounds and 2 blocks per game, Kwame Brown averaged 14 points, 10 rebounds and 1.7 blocks per game, and Milicic averaged 13.6 points, 9.4 rebounds, 5.5 assists and 2.8 blocks per game. The record is not too different, and the data is not too different. Popularity It's all leverage.

Ben Wallace, who ranked fourth among Eastern Conference centers with only 110,000 votes, basically had all the votes for Eastern Conference centers taken away by the three of them!

However, this number of votes surprised Liu Mang.

"Happy Boy is so popular!" Liu Mang said in surprise.

"Happy boy? Uncle, you're giving people random nicknames again." The little Loli rolled her eyes at Liu Mang.

"Dina, does that guy always giggle when he's playing ball? He laughs when he wins and loses. Isn't he just a happy boy?" Liu Mang pinched the little Lolita's face and said.

The little loli didn't resist. Recently, Liu Mang made less and less intimate moves with her. He pinched his face and rolled his eyes and said: "Uncle, you study a lot. Dinah can't compare to you. When Dinah also goes to college, uncle Can’t say enough about Dinah.”

"Dina, when you were in college, your uncle went to study for a master's degree."

"Uncle, that's too much! Dinah must tell her mother that you want to bully Dinah for the rest of her life!"

"..."

Liu Mang looked at the angry little Loli speechlessly. Why didn't she look the same as she had grown? She was getting taller and taller, but she was still so...cute...

However, Liu Mang was fascinated by Howard's popularity. In the original time and space, even when his condition collapsed later, his statistics were not bad and his performance on the court was not bad. However, starting from 2014, he suddenly could not make the All-Star list. , not only was he an All-Star substitute, but no one voted for him as a starter. Before that, he had won the All-Star vote many times.

Another point……

McGrady was placed at guard again this year.

Obviously McGrady is still more popular than James. Liu Mang feels that the league will do anything to get James into the All-Star starting lineup! Changing McGrady's position is too casual!

Liu Mang and Xiao Loli complained about the league's bad behavior of trying to support James, and continued to look at the votes in the Western Conference.

Yao Ming ranked first in the Western Conference with 1.22 million votes, and is also the temporary All-Star vote leader.

Forward is too much, Gasol got more votes than Duncan...

Gasol got 810,000 votes, Duncan got 760,000 votes, Anthony and Nowitzki only got 390,000 votes and 370,000 votes respectively...

Follow Yao Ming and you will have meat to eat.

In terms of guards, the rivals of the 1996 generation dominate the list. Iverson ranked first among guards with 1.01 million votes, Kobe ranked second with 980,000 votes, and Nash, also from the 1996 generation, was miserable again...