Chapter 582
NBA Headquarters, Office of the League Commissioner.
"Adam, you did a good job this time." David Stern praised Adam Silva, but there seemed to be no smile on his face.
"I'm very glad to get your compliment." Adam Silva responded modestly. Adam Silva didn't know whether the job was completed this time to make David Stern happy or unhappy.
"Go and get busy with your work first, and I'll come to you if there's anything else to do." David Stern asked Adam Silva to leave.
Adam Silva left David Stern's office in a daze, thinking about the weird old man and thinking about where he made a mistake this time, but after thinking for a long time, he returned to his office I did, but I didn't expect that I made a mistake!
The work that David Stern asked Adam Silva to do a few days ago is to help the Eagles increase their attention. Compared with the previous two years, the attention of the Eagles in the United States has dropped significantly this year.
As long as it is not the championship, or the Lakers Knicks, other teams, even the teams that have reached the finals consecutively, as long as they have not won the championship, or have not won the championship in recent years, they will be considered to have entered the finals consecutively , and won't maintain its popularity for too long. Slowly, people find that this team seems to be at most a runner-up. Over time, aesthetic fatigue appears.
What's more, the Eagles are not the runner-up, but only the top four in the playoffs. Except for the local fans in Atlanta and Georgia, most fans in other parts of the United States are tired of the Eagles.
Coupled with the unexpected rise of the Pacers in the Eastern Conference this year, people seem to see the Eagles two years ago. People like new things. People on the Eagles have seen enough and go Focus on the Pacers. The Pacers, like the Hawks two years ago, have become the focus of the league.
Moreover, the three-headed monsters and the Big Four in the west have a lot of news. Maybe Liu Mang's distinctive personality traits and the strength of the group of stars who are already the top point guards in the league allow him to have a good exposure rate. , But the exposure rate of the Eagles this year is indeed too low, not as good as during the losing streak last year.
This made David Stern, who saw that the Eagles were not affected by the introduction of Rasheed Wallace and played a good start, very anxious. The feeling of explosion of popularity that hit the headlines at both ends.
Of course, this does not affect the market value of the Eagles or anything else, the popularity of the Eagles in China is basically the same as that of the Rockets, and because the Eagles are stronger, the fans of the Eagles talk more on the forum than the fans of the Rockets Stiff, the Eagles sell well in local tickets, the ratings of the local live broadcast are high, and the sponsorship fees in China are also high. They also take the broadcast fee shared by the league, making more money than last year. The market value of the Eagles is rising steadily.
But it is not good for NBA officials at all. The sales of the Eagles jersey market are not as good as before, the ratings of live broadcasts are not as good as before, and the topic index is not as good as before.
Who will the league support in the East? Pacers? The new version of the Spurs that got off to a hot start, but failed to score 83 points against opponents in six consecutive games and scored less than 90 points themselves?
Or the ratings killers of the Pistons and Nets?
And the other magic, 76ers, and Raptors that originally had super-popular superstars, the three teams are now ranked third to fifth from the bottom in the Eastern Conference.
The Eagles were originally a team that the league strongly praised last year, but the Eagles were still too young to make it to the finals, which made the league regretful. It's all twitching, but fortunately this year's Rasheed Wallace is unexpectedly safe, the Eagles are moving forward steadily, but they are "passed", which makes David Stern a headache, so call the supervisor Business Operations' Adam Silva figured out how to help create exposure for the Hawks.
Adam Silva did it very quickly, but the method, in David Stern's view, was too radical.
David Stern looked at the news comments on the Internet. Whether it was the media, experts or fans, they all questioned the player strength rankings this time. Liu Mang played very well, but Garnett and O'Neal obviously Playing better, both of them are 20+10, and the team record is not worse than the Eagles, only half a game behind the Eagles.
Adam Silva's radical work philosophy of only thinking about completing the work and achieving the goal, and not caring about the process and the negative situations produced, made David Stern hesitate again whether to hand over the position of president to this young man.
But the key point is that Adam Silva is highly respected by league team owners, because Adam Silva has been working in the NBA these years and has brought a lot of income to the league. For example, he signed with TV stations in the summer of 2002 The 7-year broadcast agreement has greatly increased the league's income last season. Coupled with the deepening of cooperation with China, the league's income last season has increased by a full 10% compared to last season, and the salary cap is also higher than that of the previous season. The salary cap projected in 2000 for the next few years was raised by more than $4 million.
The bosses love Adam Silva very much, but David Stern doesn't like it that much. Just like now, the attention of the Eagles is rising, but most of the attention they get is questioning. This is not David- The result Stern wanted.
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On November 12, the Eagles came to the North Shore Garden Arena to challenge the Celtics away with a sip of poisonous milk poured down by the league.
Most teams in the Eastern Conference are miserable this year. Except for the top five, no team in the Eastern Conference has a winning percentage of 50%. The Sixth Heat have only 3 wins and 4 losses, while the Celtics with 2 wins and 5 losses rank in the Eastern Conference. eighth……
This year's Eastern Conference wins were basically taken away by the top three. Except for the Nets who were really fighting for 50 wins in the season, the top three didn't lose much at the beginning, and most of the Eastern Conference teams were tied. Eastern teams play, no, a lot of teams with 0 wins or 1 win at most 2 wins, from the seventh in the East to the fifteenth in the East are all these three situations.
Among them, the Magic are at the bottom, 0 wins and 7 losses are as miserable as they are.
The Celtics are also a miserable team this year. They sent Antoine Walker away. The "genius high school student" they selected this year, Kendrick Perkins, they selected themselves, but soon after signing The rookie season was reimbursed, and a large number of high-quality role players left last season...
Fortunately, Vin Baker is in the contract year again this year. When Perkins was not starting on top of him, he felt a flashback and helped Pierce win two games.
For such an opponent, it is very easy for the Eagles to come to the North Shore Garden Arena to play.
After the start of the game, the Eagles easily won the right to attack first. Liu Mang and Rasheed Wallace, who was very excited today, started a pick-and-roll style of play.
Rasheed Wallace is endlessly unhappy with the Celtics. Although he is not very happy to play in Boston, the fans there have ridiculed him for looking like an uneducated person, but the Celtics actually refused. Getting him instead of two late first-round picks made Rasheed Wallace feel like his ego was hurt.
So this time Rasheed Wallace took the initiative to ask Liu Mang, Stockton and Jason Terry to help him play the Celtics. Liu Mang bombarded the Celtics together. Liu Mang scored 11 points and 4 assists in the first quarter, and Rasheed Wallace scored 14 points, 3 rebounds and 2 blocks. 25 points of the 28 minutes of the festival.
Not only on the offensive end, the two who played the first quarter also tried their best on the defensive end, leading their teammates to defend the Celtics by 18 points in a single quarter, and the Eagles led by 10 points in the first quarter.
In the second quarter, Rasheed Wallace continued to play. When Stockton and Boozer played pick-and-roll offense, they specially passed a lot of balls to Rasheed Wallace. , Jason Terry, who got the control, did not come by himself today, and played the ball for Rasheed Wallace, and Rasheed Wallace continued his offensive performance.
Today Rasheed Wallace played a crazy first half of the game. After scoring 14 points in the first quarter, he scored 21 points in a single quarter in the second quarter. 35 points and 7 rebounds in the half broke the halftime of his career. Score record! 5 blocked shots in the half, which is also a career high!
In this half of the game, Rasheed Wallace tried his best on both ends of the offense and defense, trying to beat the Celtics to death.
The Eagles also led the Celtics by 18 points 57 to 39 after halftime!
Everything seemed to be going so smoothly for the Eagles. After the intermission, the Eagles sent a backcourt combination of Stockton and Jason Terry. They fight.
Liu Mang saw that he was about to clock in and leave work after only one quarter, and felt very sad in his heart. He finally climbed to fifth in the league in points per game. Both of them have fallen sharply, and they were even put on the legendary poisonous milk list by the league, but who doesn't want their data to look good?
It's just that the Celtics obviously had no tendency to struggle in the first half, so Liu Mang could only watch his stats of 11 points and 4 assists in silence, which again had to pull down his scoring average.
This destiny seems to always like to be against people, you have to accept the reality, and it will suddenly give you a "surprise"!
After the start of the second half, Stockton and Jason Terry took Barnes, Boozer, and Kwame Brown up to play, and Mohamed, Willie Green and others were also ready to rotate at any time.
The Eagles are all waiting in line to go up and abuse the food, and suddenly there is an explosion on the Celtics' side.
Perhaps this year is the year when a player named James became famous. Undrafted in 2001, the Celtics' backup point guard Mike James scored a three-pointer, a mid-range shot and a layup after the start of the second half, scoring 7 points in a row. Points, plus Pierce also hit a three-pointer and an empty dunk, beat the Eagles together a 12 to 2!
The point difference was suddenly chased by the Celtics to 51 to 59. The Eagles' lead was only 8 points, and the time only passed more than three minutes!
At this time, Stockton waved his hand, saying that there is no need to rush, and he will play slowly, and he still has the lead on his side.
It is true that Stockton has experience and can hold the scene, so that the Hawks' substitutes did not panic. They continued to open up the offense and defense steadily, and continued to score.
But on the defensive end, the Eagles still played badly. Pierce dribbled the ball on the outside, dawdling, and threw it out with a bump shot. Without the wingspan of Prince or Raheem, there was no way Restricted, you can only bet on whether Pierce's touch is accurate, and Pierce, who came up in the third quarter, feels extremely accurate today!
As for Mike James, today is not a question of whether to be accurate or not, he completely went berserk! Scored 19 points in the third quarter!
Even Pierce's explosion was driven by Mike James. At the beginning, Pierce's three-pointer and air-cut dunk were both opportunities for Mike James to break through and score the ball. Pierce's two shots After entering, he regained his confidence in shooting, and the two teamed up to plan a counterattack wave.
On the last attack of the third quarter, Mike James hit a three-pointer at the buzzer and scored the 19th point in the third quarter, which was also the total 19 points of the game. He didn't score a point in the first half. Strong explosion!
Who would have thought that in 2001, when he was 25 years old and ran back to the United States from the Israeli league to participate in the draft, he suddenly broke out after the third quarter!
On the Hawks side, Liu Mang was already talking and laughing with Rasheed Wallace, Raheem and others, who knew the situation would change suddenly!
During the intermission, they had already started discussing where to go after tonight's game. Boston's nightlife is still very good, but they suddenly realized that there seemed to be something wrong with them. In the beginning, coach Kruger was still sitting on the Diaoyutai, because Stockton was on the court, but Mike James couldn't stand it, and he blew Stockton with 19 points in a single quarter!
At first, Liu Mang thought that the league's MVP list this time was not that poisonous, maybe the poisonous milk powder had been effectively dealt with, but he didn't expect that it was still so poisonous!