Chapter 596

here we go again!

Seeing Liu Mang's strange eyes, Xiao Zhan felt uncomfortable all over.

Even James, who has a strong "mature heart" after training and practice, can't stand Liu Mang's weird eyes.

James felt from the bottom of his heart that the senior in front of him wanted to "play with" him. He felt a chill in his heart, and felt that it was a wrong choice for him to invite Liu Mang to lunch.

However, building a good relationship with the league's superstars is a decision that James has made before entering the NBA, even since 2002, when he announced that he would directly enter the NBA after high school, he has already made a decision.

"Ace, I may go to your country to promote sneakers next summer. Can you tell me about the interesting places in your country? I want to go and see it then." James forcibly diverted his attention and racked his brains to think of a Topic, get rid of this uneasy feeling now.

James thought of a good topic this time, and Liu Mang's attention was diverted immediately: "Travel to our country? You should get the places recommended by the tour guide, but I don't recommend you to go to the famous scenic spots recommended by the tour guide. , Like going to Hangzhou West Lake, you have heard of it, that’s good, if you go to Hangzhou, you don’t have to go to West Lake, it’s better to go to Lingyin Temple next to it, there are too many people in West Lake, the Great Wall is a must, but remember You can’t steal the bricks there. It’s a three-year start. What is a three-year start? I don’t even know about the labor reform? Then I have to tell you about our country’s superior labor reform system, and you will eat and drink for nothing. Raising criminals is different..."

After Liu Mang finished ordering food just now, looking at James's face that was no different from that of ten or twenty years later, he couldn't help but start planning how to deal with the young Zhan in front of him the day after tomorrow.

To abuse the little emperor, it is probably only the first year that he can have fun. Wait until James' second season, the 2004-2005 season, the league began to enter the No-Hand-check era, coupled with the soaring strength of James, the second James It will be very difficult to stop the season, and it will not be easy to abuse James, so Liu Mang looks at James strangely.

However, everyone is happy to discuss the good things about their own country. They can say bad things about their own country, but when chatting with foreigners, they always point to the good places.

Seeing that Liu Mang finally lost that gaze, James breathed a sigh of relief and began to discuss China with Liu Mang.

James attaches great importance to China. His management team told him that China is the most important market for the NBA in the future. He naturally wants to occupy a place in the Chinese market. Understanding China with real Chinese is of course the best choice.

However, if Liu Mang knew what James was thinking, he might feel sorry for James. As far as Liu Mang knew, even if James became popular in the United States in the next few years, in China, people only knew the four major shooting guards... mainly Kobe , and Yao Ming, O'Neal, James and the future Beasts were all well-known by domestic fans after one won the MVP in the 08-09 season and the other won the best defensive player and entered the finals. During the 2008 Olympics, James The cheers received are not as much as Anthony's partner with Iverson.

The first private meeting between Liu Mang and James was a little embarrassing, but overall it was very pleasant.

After lunch, Liu Mang's agent, Schwartz, and James' agent Rich Paul, the largest sports agency in the United States, came to pick them up and went to Nike's largest sneaker store in Atlanta.

James came to Atlanta one day earlier, mainly to get together with Liu Mang, have lunch, and enhance friendship. At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the two went to Nike's sneaker promotion together to help promote James' first-generation boots in Atlanta. .

For this point, Liu Mang felt strange. There had never been two Superman balloon stars promoting sneakers together before. The most popular ones were Koeika, one from Adidas, one from Reebok, and one from Nike. They are all set up as mortal enemies.

Kobe’s image has collapsed this year. This unlucky kid who doesn’t know how to use money to pose for off-court events still goes to Colorado once or twice a month to file a lawsuit. Adi doesn’t want him anymore, and Nike can’t help him for a while. Fortunately Adi's McGrady has stood up in the past two years, and was selected as an All-Star starter last season.

For Nike, Carter's popularity has declined sharply over the past year, and people's aesthetic fatigue has emerged. In the playoffs, Carter did not perform like Kobe and Iverson, and he did not perform as well as McGrady in the regular season. There is still a clear gap between the popularity of Liu Mang and James, and the popularity of Carter's ability to overwhelm Kobe and Iverson in the two years when his popularity was at its peak, so Liu Mang and James were put together Propaganda, used against Reebok's Iverson and Adi's McGrady.

Originally, James and Wade and Anthony were fighting against these two men. The latter two belonged to Jordan and could be regarded as stars under Nike. But now there is a Liu Mang who is more popular than Wade and Anthony combined. Naturally, Liu Mang and James were used to compete with the other two brands.

Some aspects of Liu Mang really admire James. It is not that Liu Mang has not participated in the promotion with other stars this time, but James does not behave like an 18-year-old kid, speaking official words with the media proficiently, When interacting with the fans, Liu Mang looks like he is cold and cold. When Liu Mang was promoting with Carter in Shanghai Station in the summer, he didn't feel so "cold". But now, compared with James Come to think of it, I really don't know how to manage my own image.

However, Liu Mang didn't have much idea of ​​wanting to learn from James. Everyone is different. Liu Mang felt that he would never be able to learn James' social butterfly-like ability. There are different pursuits and habits.

...

...

Time, November 24th, location, Phillips Arena.

"Ace, you are studying that rookie champion! Do you want to play again?" Rasheed Wallace was a little excited.

Liu Mang is studying the few game videos of the Cavaliers from the preseason to the regular season this season, and even some of the game videos in high school were obtained by the team editor. It must be abused. The food is gone!

Jason Terry, who was practicing his strong shooting ability, also came over: "Ace, are you going to teach that guy who lied about being a high school student a lesson?"

"Lied about being a high school student?" Liu Mang was a little surprised by this title.

"Oh, look, that guy looks as old as my dad, he doesn't look like a high school student, and he can play better than Ricky Davis. He must have lied about his age. I guess he is at least three years old. Fifteen or sixteen years old..." Jason Terry was very upset, and he was very upset that another guard who was so strong in his rookie year came.

Liu Mang did not expect that whether it is Chinese fans or American fans, the things that make fun of James seem to be the same.

After all, it's a friend, so of course Liu Mang wants to complain about James! Liu Mang said: "Jason, he's just a little older, don't look at him with colored glasses, it's okay to bully a rookie, but to bully an old man, others will call us disrespectful!"

"Haha, Ace, your mouth is more annoying than mine..."

Liu Mang, Rasheed Wallace, and Jason Terry discussed how to deal with James together, attracting other teammates. After the three defensive champions heard that they were going to deal with James, they immediately became interested, including Kwame Brown, who was also the No. 1 pick in high school, and they were very interested in joining it.

Ratliff, Stockton and other veterans shook their heads with a smile and joined in.

Bullying rookies, especially guys like James and Milicic who seem to be terrifying opponents in the future, bullying and bullying them during their rookie period is something that veterans like to do very much.

The most famous example is Isaiah Thomas, because Jordan did not take the initiative to say hello, making Jordan's rookie season all-star isolated. Of course, Isaiah Thomas may not have thought that Jordan was such a hard iron, and finally put himself into the greatest dream The team's chances were lost.

Although the Cavaliers have a bad start this year, James makes the news every three to five times, mainly because he is completely different from other high school students who entered the NBA before. Talent can be seen, O'Neal's talent has no chance to be seen, and James, who is quite mature in the NBA, is very versatile and can do well in scoring, rebounding, and assisting.

Just like Kidd felt the pressure brought by Liu Mang, most of the famous swingmen in the league felt the pressure brought by James, and this is still a rookie!

The most important thing is that before James entered the NBA, he had already signed the second largest sneaker endorsement contract in history. Didn't even play in the preseason, was just selected as the No. 1 pick, and within a few days won the endorsement fee that many famous stars now can't match their career salary plus endorsement fees, which makes the famous stars teach them a lesson Take a look at James.

Seeing that his teammates didn't have much interest in playing the Cavaliers, and now they are swarming up one by one to abuse the young James, Liu Mang mourned for the little LeBron, and then decisively began to build an impregnable defense and targeted offense for James, so that James really feels what the NBA is...

It's just that after James entered the NBA, his ability evaluation dropped a bit, from 82 to 79.

Liu Mang did some research before he understood this point. It was still a matter of adaptation. When James was playing for the McDonald’s All-Stars, he played with those high school students. After the NBA, it is inevitable that there will be some adaptation problems, so I only showed an ability value of 79.

Of course, this does not rule out teammates, coaches and other factors.

The strength of the Cavaliers is indeed poor. Originally, there was a combination of Boozer and Big Z inside, but now only Big Z is left. James threw himself inside to grab rebounds. Against such an opponent, it is difficult for the Eagles to regard them as opponents of the same level.

As for abusing food, Raheem, who is the most similar in size to James, should be the one who wants to abuse food the most, but Raheem is not such a hot-tempered person, no one brought it up, and he is not that interested.

After participating in the promotion with James, Liu Mang devoted himself to the next duel with James, discussing with Mike Woodson how to defend, and discussing with his teammates how to attack.

For this fight against James, Liu Mang attaches great importance to it. Suppressing James in the early stage of his career is the most difficult part of Liu Mang's task as the king of the new generation of players. Everyone else can say that it is the most difficult for James.

James, who is currently training in the hotel gym, doesn't know that the friendly elder brother who told him about the good places and interesting things about China yesterday is thinking about dealing with him.

However, James' training attitude is also admirable. As the youngest member of the Cavaliers, his training is the hardest. The rest of the Cavaliers came to Atlanta, a big city, and they have already gone to have fun. Only James is left A person is training.

...

One day flew by, and on November 25th, the game day between the Eagles and the Cavaliers arrived!

For the duel between Liu Mang and James, the alliance started to build momentum in advance several days ago!

Finally, the appearance has a new point to build momentum for Liu Mang. At the same time, James has lived up to expectations after entering the NBA. In the first 14 games, he averaged 16 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists per game. As the season progressed, James became more familiar with the NBA. , The performance will definitely get better and better. There is a historical rookie who averaged 20+ per game in his rookie season, and people can already meet him.

This time, David Stern personally planned the promotion of the Rising Star Showdown.

After obtaining the consent of Nike, the day before the game between the Eagles and the Cavaliers, David Stern used a group photo of Liu Mang and James participating in a promotional event. The title of the official NBA website is "This Second Brother , Enemy in the next second".

Compared with Adam Silva, who only bluntly forcibly creates public opinion, and the future kind of forcibly creating two teams in the finals to fight consecutively in an attempt to reproduce the magic bird showdown of the old enemy in the 1980s, it is embarrassingly different. David Stern deserves to be a real master of promotion who single-handedly created the Magic Bird Showdown, the Jordan Dynasty and the OK combination.

Adam Silva is good at negotiating business, and can often sign contracts that are much higher than expected to bring benefits to the league, but making Adam Silva have negotiating capital is all due to David Stern's powerful Promotion ability.

He didn't forcibly exaggerate the strength of Liu Mang and James and the things that could create enmity between the two. Just that sentence showed Liu Mang and James' feeling of being both enemies and friends.

This was originally a promotion of the rookie year match between James and Anthony. James was not used to compare with Kobe at the beginning. Kobe just collapsed this year. The confrontation between James and Anthony was originally what the league wanted.

Originally, apart from the Chinese market, Liu Mang was cultivated by the league as a candidate to challenge Kobe, but Kobe did it himself, and it seemed that he was about to destroy his future. However, James played in line with or even exceeded people's expectations at this time. Originally, David Stern thought that James would grow up in two years before he could become rivals with Liu Mang and Kobe.

But James was so mature when he first entered the NBA at the age of 18, even more mature than Liu Mang when he first entered the NBA. In this case, David Stern decisively chose to put the duel between Liu Mang and James on the stage.

And the effect is beyond David Stern's expectation!

Just before the 1991 Finals against the Devil, David Stern didn't do too much publicity, but just used an adjective-torch.

The word torch has also become the representative of the inheritance in Jordan's mouth, and later Kobe and James have continued to use it.

James is more suitable to oppose Liu Mang than Kobe, and is more representative of the United States. Like most blacks in the United States, he lived in poverty since he was a child.

James is the representative of the American Dream! Compared with Kobe, who is regarded as a sandwich biscuit by many Americans, James is more suitable as a representative of the American dream.

Because the league's promotion is working well, the game between the Eagles and the Cavaliers, the attention of this game has soared. It was originally an insignificant regular season, but it has become a lot of attention!

Because of David Stern's good promotion, American fans naturally regarded this game as a duel between the strongest new generation players of China and the United States!

After Liu Mang finished playing in the first two years, he won the title of the first star of the new generation. Since there were no outside stars and inside stars who could be compared with Liu Mang in the past three years, fans did not expect the Sino-US war. this kind of thing.

But now, James has shown a personal ability that is even better than Liu Mang's rookie season. After the promotion of the league, the confrontation between the two has risen to such a height!

However, Atlanta fans still support Liu Mang. As for the American Dream... Atlanta fans sneered! Without Liu Mang leading the team to the present, their basketball circle in Atlanta is like an invisible man in the United States, talking about the American dream!

Liu Mang didn't know whether James was nervous or something else, Liu Mang didn't care at all, but became more excited!