NBA: LeBron James wants to team up with me

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After winning the championship for the second consecutive year, the Bulls advanced even faster than the rest of the league. Once the draft has completed the most important trade signings for the entire team, the time comes on July 1st, the free market opens, and a large number of players with expired contracts enter the free market to seek a new contract offer.

However, on the first day of the free market, the Bulls quickly completed the contract extension with their star player, Kevin Garnett.

50 million for three years, with an average annual salary of 16.66 million. Considering Garnett's current status and position, the price of this contract is slightly low, but this is also Garnett's intention to stay with the Bulls and compete for the championship. He opted to make some salary concessions. Additionally, after these three years of play, 2012 will come, and Garnett, who will be 36 years old, will officially enter the end of his career.

In other words, this three-year contract is basically Garnett's last big contract.

Wang Chong also knows very well that Garnett's peak period will last beyond the expiration of this contract.

Until the 2011-12 season, Garnett could still average 15.8 points and 8.2 rebounds per game with the Celtics. He was selected for the Second Defensive Team that season. The East was not afraid of facing the Big Three of the Heat. He led the team to play seven games against the Heat, averaging 19 points and 9.4 rebounds per game as before. At the same time, he also defeated Bosh and defended the opponent. In seven games, he averaged only 11.7 points and 7 rebounds per game.

Therefore, Wang Chong had no objections to the Bulls' contract.

With the Bulls officially renewing Garnett's contract, the team's lineup structure for the new season has been formed. The main starting players are Billups, Curry, Wang Chong, Garnett, and Gasol. Also, Dan Nick Green, Marcus Thornton, and other backup players are secondary players who are not worth mentioning.

Wang Chong doesn't believe that the Bulls' lineup is worse than the previous season they just completed. On the contrary, with Curry as a powerful external scoring point, the Bulls have more options on the offensive side. Curry is not just like James Jones. As a stationary three-point shooter, his ability to attack with the ball is not inferior to Billups, or even a little better.

Of course, this refers to Curry, who has just joined the league, because Curry, who will grow in the future and free himself from injuries, will not even compare to two Billups together.

It is undeniable that Millsap's departure has reduced the Bulls' internal defensive capabilities. Along with Curry's defensive black hole, the Bulls' defensive pressure in the new season will be significantly greater than in the previous two seasons.

Naturally, this is what Wang Chong is considering.

Throughout last season, he completed several achievement tasks through the achievement module and obtained a very generous reward of points. During the playoffs, the Bulls were invincible, and they weren't too frustrated even when facing the Lakers in the finals. Therefore, Wang Chong didn't use many points. He only activated two badges during the finals, which cost 1,000 points.

The two badges activated by Wang Chong were the Final Scorer badge and the Defensive Interceptor badge.

The reason he chose the scorer was that the Lakers used a full-court double team tactic against him during the game. The easiest way to break the double team is undoubtedly to run without the ball. Silver-level off-ball running, combined with the newly activated cutter scorer, greatly improved his off-ball offensive ability.

As for the interceptor, there is no doubt that it is a very cost-effective defensive badge. Its main function is to judge the opponent's passing route in advance, to intercept and disrupt the opponent's pass or even steal it directly.

Wang Chong chose these two badges because of his needs on the court at that moment.

Now that the final is over and the team has new requirements for its skills in the new season, Wang Chong certainly will not skimp on points.

The first is the defensive badge. Any outstanding player should be able to both attack and defend. Wang Chong has no intention of letting his skills have any weaknesses. Although he was successfully selected for the All-Defensive Team this season, he understands it all. Chong's real defensive level is not up to this level. Like Kobe, the media praises him more.

This time, Wang Chong plans to directly improve his defense to a truly top-level impermeability or even DPOY (Defensive Player of the Year).

It's not just about working on the badges. During the offseason, Wang Chong will also use training modules to strengthen his defensive skills, a double approach.

As for the badges, Wang Chong currently has a total of three badges: Death Coil of Gold level, Basket Protector Elite, and Bronze Interceptor. He also plans to continue with the principle of selecting cost-effective badges and choose another one. He received a total of four defensive badges, namely, Defensive Shock, Ball Defensive Master, Defensive Perpetual Machine, and Poker-Chasing Master.

These five badges are very cost-effective on the defensive side.

Defensive Intimidation: When a player defends and interferes with shots, it can reduce the shooting success rate of the opponent. In the 2K game, this is known as "eye defense." Although the effect of low-level badges is not obvious, when the badge is upgraded to a higher level, it will improve the ability. Players with relatively low overall ratings and no badge boosts will have a considerable impact.

Ball Defensive Master: Enhances the defensive effect when facing ball-handling players, making it less likely to be out of position on the defensive side. This is a badge that improves overall defensive ability, but it's only for defensive players when holding the ball.

Perpetual Defensive Machine: Reduces the physical consumption rate of the player when defending, saving physical energy. It is a fatigue badge that belongs to the defensive badges. Although Wang Chong's current physical skill value has reached the total value of 99, his endurance still benefits from this fatigue badge.

As for the last one, Poker-Chasing Master, in fact, its cost-effectiveness is slightly worse than the first three badges. This is not to say that the effect of this badge is not good, but as the name suggests, this is a badge that only takes effect when chasing an offensive player.

When a defensive player needs to chase on defense, it means that the defense has been completely out of position. It's a completely recovery defensive behavior, and the success rate can be imagined.

Although James has contributed countless wonderful and dominant shots in his career, he still averages less than one block per game in his career.

But I have to say that chasing blocks does seem really good. Destroying an offense has a greater impact on the team's morale than two successful defensive plays.

In the 2016 NBA Finals, James used a chase block to destroy Iguodala's layup. This led to the classic scene of Irving's three-pointer to defeat Curry.

Wang Chong is taller than James and has a larger wingspan. The gap in athletic ability can be compensated by static talent, so he chose this defensive badge.

After choosing four defensive badges, the number of defensive badges Wang Chong had increased to seven. Although the level is a bit low, five of them are the lowest-level bronze badges. However, as Wang Chong's skill value increases and the game progresses, the number of badges will increase as the upgrade tasks are completed, and the levels of these badges will get higher.

Of course, Wang Chong has not forgotten his old profession. Ultimately, it is offense, or shooting to be precise, that determines his upper limit.

Durant at his peak, in the 2K game, has 16 shooting badges, most of which are gold level, only surpassed by the Hall of Fame Purple. These badges support Durant's super offensive scoring ability. Although Wang Chong has won the league's scoring title for several consecutive years, he only has 9 shooting badges, which he himself considers to be lacking a bit.

Therefore, after choosing four defensive badges, Wang Chong chose another shooting badge to increase his offensive abilities.

And the shooting badge he chose is called Remote Turret.

Remote Turret improves the player's three-point shooting range, and the degree of improvement is directly related to the player's three-point skill value.

This is a badge that shooters love. Although it doesn't directly improve the player's shooting ability, increasing the shooting range is equivalent to improving the player's disguised shooting ability.

The most representative player of this badge is Wang Chong's teammate, Stephen Curry. In the future, Curry will perform many three-point shots with the Warriors. Everyone knows that Curry's three-point shooting range is much longer than the NBA's three-point line.

The reason Wang Chong chose this badge was, of course, to welcome Curry's arrival. If a team has two players who can do something like a three-pointer, the deterrent effect will definitely be 1 + 1 greater than 2.

A total of 5 badges were activated, in addition to the 2 badges activated during the final. Wang Chong activated a total of 7 badges, spending a total of 3500 points.

Wang Chong had a total of 4,500 points before the start of the playoffs. During the playoffs, two consecutive championships and two consecutive FMVPs allowed the achievement module to grant Wang Chong 1,000 points, bringing the total to 5,500 points.

After deducting the 3500 points for badges, there were still 2,000 points left. These 2,000 points are what Wang Chong spent on the training module during the offseason. Wang Chong's defensive wing capacity is generally not high.

The main skill values related to defense are 75 blocks, 54 steals, 85 outside defense, 75 interior defense, 77 blocking ability, and 85 help defense ability.

This is much lower than the physical strength and overall durability that Wang Chong mainly strengthened before. According to the feature that the lower the skill value, the faster the update speed, 2,000 points are enough to greatly improve these skills.

Wang Chong estimated that by the end of this summer, after the 2,000 points are spent, his overall skill rating would probably surpass the 97 mark and reach 98.

This is not surprising. Wang Chong's skill rating based on Durant has already reached 97. The main skill evaluation is highly concentrated in the two categories of offense and spirit. The average defensive ability and quality are not the same.

Since the value of defensive skills has increased significantly, it is not surprising that the general skill value has made a great breakthrough. If things go well, it would not be surprising if the overall skill value directly reaches 99. After all, the general skill rating in 2K is not simply the sum of all the skill values to get the average value, and there is also a compensation in the overall evaluation. Otherwise, if it's just the average of the total skill value, even Jordan's overall skill rating would barely reach the early 90s.

Of course, the final result still depends on the actual situation.

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The Bulls' offseason work was completed in just one day, but for other teams in the league, the free market had just begun, especially the strong teams that failed to return to the playoffs. There is no doubt that everyone wants to further strengthen their lineup to challenge the Bulls and prevent the opponent from completing three consecutive championships and creating a dynasty.

No player or team wants a dynasty team to emerge during their era. After all, it also represents the incompetence and failure of other teams during that time, as they were completely dominated by this team during this period.

The first to bear the brunt were naturally the biggest losers, the Los Angeles Lakers, who fell in the final.

The first thing the Lakers did during the offseason was renew the contracts of the main players whose contracts had expired.

Many of the Lakers' contracts expired in 2009, including the three main players: Odom, Artest, and Bynum.

The Lakers renewed Odom's contract for 33 million dollars over four years and 33.95 million dollars for Artest over five years. Their initial salaries for the new season are 7.5 million dollars and 5.85 million dollars, respectively, based on their performance in the game. As shown, the contract is already considered high quality and low price.

The successful renewal of the two contracts freed up a lot of salary cap space for the Lakers, because last season, Odom's annual salary reached 14 million dollars, and Artest also had an annual salary of 7.4 million dollars. Considering the renewals of both, salary reductions were achieved. The Lakers spoke successfully.

But this didn't relieve the Lakers too much of their burden, because the real leaders of the team are not these two.

Kobe's 23 million and Gasol's 16 million are the main proportions of the salary cap.

The real headache for the Lakers is young shark Andrew Bynum, whose rookie contract has expired.

Although Bynum played like a worker center during the playoffs, this did not stop his talent from attracting a great deal of interest from teams around the league.

There are many teams that originally hoped Bynum would offer a high salary. To retain Bynum, the Lakers could only grit their teeth and offer him a contract with an average annual salary in the tens of millions.

In the end, what Bynum got was a four-year contract worth 57.4 million dollars, with an average annual salary of 14.3 million dollars. It certainly wasn't the maximum salary, but it was enough for a center who averaged 14+8 per game during the regular season.

After reaching a consensus, the Lakers were in no hurry to sign Bynum's contract immediately, because once the signing was completed between the two parties, the Lakers' salary cap space would be instantly locked, and there would be no possibility of signing reinforcements.

And if the Lakers sign other players first and then complete the contract extension with Bynum, because Bynum has played for the Lakers for four years and meets the Bird Clause, they can ignore the salary cap limit and renew the contract above the cap.

Although this method could result in high luxury tax penalties for the Lakers, falling in the Finals for two consecutive years made the Lakers' management and Kobe red-faced. They cannot accept the next step for the team no matter what.

End of this chapter

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