Champions Creed

Chapter 369 Chapter 368: Jinzhou Gang (asking for monthly tickets!)

The Cleveland Cavaliers have a new owner.

Steve Nash renewed his contract with the Lakers, and Shawn Marion joined.

Kevin Garnett moves to New York.

This is another busy summer. Under the aftermath of the Olympics, the situation in the NBA is changing.

In this series of transfer news, Mark Cuban's Mavericks signing Jason Terry is not big news at all.

To be honest, although Jason Terry has good scoring ability, who would remember him if he hadn't made that three-pointer against LeBron that completely killed the game in the decisive battle of the 11 Finals?

Anyway, in the summer of 2004, Jason Terry was definitely not a very well-known player.

At most, people will curse Mark Cuban and call him an idiot, and then they will no longer pay attention to this deal.

Is Mark Cuban really an idiot?

No, he certainly knew the team already had Dirk and Shaq, but he still needed offensive players.

Because the "dark defensive era" brought about by the opening of zone defense will never return.

This summer, Mark Cuban and Suns general manager Brian Colangelo took the lead in uniting several owners to report to the league, hoping to change the existing defensive rules.

Although the NBA's ratings were saved last season, the finals score was still not high, which means that even Roger's team will be restricted by the Pistons.

This dull defensive battle will sooner or later lead to a decline in the viewing value of the NBA. Just imagine, if every team imitates the Warriors, Pistons and Spurs to build a team and build an iron wall of defense, the NBA game will become a complete disaster.

David Stern admitted that this was indeed a foreseeable problem.

The opening of the zone defense has brought NBA defense into its most stringent period.

In the 90s, the impact of offense and defense on victory was 50:50.

Nowadays, the impact of offense and defense on victory is 40 to 60, or even 30 to 70.

Look at the Detroit Pistons, do they have any top scorers on their roster? Yet they were able to nearly knock Roger off his perch.

Let’s look at the Spurs. Last season, the only reliable scorer for the Spurs was Tim Duncan, but they still made it to the Western Conference Finals.

The art of offense is being stifled by even more terrible defense. Except for Roger, the unique god-level superstar, the offense of most players is extremely ugly.

Finally, after discussion and voting by the league's board of directors, the NBA decided to abolish the existing "HandCheck" rule.

The latest No Hand Check rule states that defensive players may not place their hands on offensive players unless they are in an area close to the basket or with their backs to the basket.

Shortly after these transactions occurred, the league officially announced this new rule that has a far-reaching impact on the NBA.

In fact, as early as 1994, the NBA claimed that they had eliminated the handcheck, but in reality it did not bring much change.

And this time, David Stern promised that he would not let No HandCheck become a mere formality.

Mark Cuban firmly believes that the future league will be dominated by offensive teams.

Shooters will not lose their touch due to excessive physical confrontation, and it will become easier for breakthrough players to break into the restricted area.

Guys like Ron Artest, who have mediocre offensive talent but fierce defense, will be thrown into the dustbin of history from now on.

This rule has forced teams across the league to study new strategies and consider whether to change the direction of the team.

The Golden State Warriors certainly need such a discussion.

All teams in the league are trying to become stronger through trades, and the Warriors cannot sit idly by.

Although the Warriors won the championship last season, the team still has some problems.

The team's lack of ball-handling points is a problem. Apart from Roger and Old Cat, there is no third player who can handle the ball.

Roger and Old Cat basically stagger their travel times, which means that in a lineup, the Warriors only have one passing and controlling point on the court.

In last season's finals, the Warriors were almost strangled by the Pistons because of this. Although Eric Spoelstra later defeated the Pistons with a bold one-star four-shooting lineup and a ball-holding core style of play, the game was still very dangerous when the Warriors' three-point shooting from the outside was not good.

In G4 and G6 of the finals last season, the Warriors' three-point shooting was not good enough. The Pistons actually had a chance to end the series, but the Warriors finally held on thanks to Roger.

The Warriors need to ensure that there are no accidents in the establishment of Roger's dynasty. If they want to win consecutive championships, the team must be perfect enough and cannot have any obvious shortcomings.

The question now is, under the new rules, what kind of team do the Warriors need to bring in to make it work?
Nine years ago, after Roger won his first championship trophy in Orlando, he also faced the problem of too few passing points in the team. Eventually, the Magic brought in Sarunas Marciulionis, who became the last brick of the Magic dynasty.

Bob Buss originally wanted to bring a European guard with high basketball IQ to Roger, just like the Magic did back then, but Roger rejected this plan.

"The times are different, the opponents are different, and we need to solve this problem while taking into account defense."

Although Sarrou performed well on the offensive end back then, he was a complete burden on the defensive end, which is a common problem for most white European defenders.

European centers can often rely on their larger bodies to become excellent rim protectors, but European guards are limited by their athleticism and height, and are usually sieves.

Roger now doesn't want to use one shortcoming to cover up another.

Bob Bass shrugged: "Didn't you hear what the media said? Next is the offensive era."

"Bullshit," Roger retorted without hesitation, "The new rules at most return the game to the era when offense and defense accounted for 50:50. Defense is still important."

The experience of the original timeline told Roger that the league had not completely softened in the early 21st century. The new rules did make scoring easier, but it was far from as easy as in the small ball era.

The referees were not so strict about the hand-overs, and you certainly couldn't be as rude as before, but as long as the movements were not too big, the referees would turn a blind eye most of the time. So Roger told Bob Bass: "To solve the problem, we need a forward who can play the three and four positions, shoot and pass."

Not just this time, if the Warriors want to strengthen their team in the future, they will give priority to adding forwards.

Roger believes that although Pat Riley is a bastard, his ideas about the future of basketball are very correct.

The key is that forwards who can really play multiple positions are actually a scarce resource. Therefore, this kind of future lineup can only exist in theory most of the time.

Bob Bass was stunned for a few seconds after hearing Roger's request: "A forward who can play the three and four positions, shoot and pass. You might as well let me trade for you LeBron James."

Roger smiled and said, "I don't think highly of LeBron's jump shot, but I have to admit that if he were the second in command, he would be as good as Scott. Well, at the moment, the people defending him are not as good as Scott. Damn, how on earth is this guy comparing to me and Michael? It seems that surpassing Scott is his destiny."

"You compared him to Scott, and I took that as a compliment to LeBron. OK Roger, although your request is very demanding, this is what the Russians pay me to do."

Before Bob Buss found the person Roger needed and brought in new players, the Warriors had already started to lose players.

But it's not a transfer, it's retirement.

Florida guard Charlie Ward, who had little presence in the basketball world in the original timeline, announced his retirement after winning a ring with the Warriors this season.

Although he occasionally served as a substitute for Alan Houston last season, his presence was indeed not high and his playing time was too little.

In addition, his contract had just expired, and he knew that if he went to another team he probably wouldn't even get any playing time, so he simply chose to retire. After all, he had no regrets in his career.

As for the money issue, as long as he doesn't invest recklessly like Latrell Sprewell, or have a bunch of kids like Rain Man Kemp, Charlie Ward will definitely be able to live a comfortable life after he turns 50 with the NBA's unique pension.

Although Charlie Ward is not a very important member, he still leaves a vacancy at the Warriors' second position.

If you compare a team to a complete person, then the substitutes are actually part of the body. You can not use some body parts for a long time, but you can not just do without them.

In other words, the player at position two also needs to be supplemented.

This summer, the Warriors added at least one ball-handling player and a forward who can play the No. 2 position.

Bob Bass initially had an affair with Portland Trail Blazers' all-around forward Shareef Abdul-Rahim. The former All-Star forward had a frustrating time with the Trail Blazers last season, averaging only 32 points and 10 rebounds per game in the last 4.5 games of the season.

No one knew what happened to him, or why, or whether he could continue to play basketball at a high level. It was because of this uncertainty that the Blazers began to shop the All-Star forward.

But Bob Bass felt that Roger was just the kind of leader who could bring a fallen genius back to life.

If Shareef Abdur-Rahim can rediscover his All-Star game with Roger's help, the Warriors will be invincible.

But Roger was not satisfied with this candidate. Rahim was indeed talented on the offensive end, but just like the reason why Antawn Jamison was traded away, Rahim's defense was too bad.

He is not fast enough to defend the three position, and too soft to defend the four position.

He is strong offensively, but not strong enough to change the game. His passing and control value is a little bit, but not much.

Overall, his help to the Warriors is extremely limited.

Ever since he was able to hold the power to influence the team's signings during the Ted Turner era, Roger has never liked to recruit players based on fame, but instead has to see if a player is suitable for the team.

Roger doesn't need players who are not suitable for the team, no matter how famous they are.

Only cowards who are desperate to lose will be keen on finding stars as teammates.

After several rounds of screening, the Warriors finally got two new players.

Bob Buss first signed Matt Barnes, who was cut by the Cavaliers, Supersonics and Clippers last season, with a one-year minimum salary to replace Charlie Ward.

Originally, Bob Bass was not interested in this, but Roger thought his toughness could help the team. Although the offense was still poor, he didn't need to play more often. For this kind of player who only played occasionally, defense was much more stable than offense.

The offense still needs to find its touch, but the defense comes easily.

After that, the Warriors traded Troy Murphy, who was in the last year of his rookie contract, for Boris Diaw, a French player with excellent physical fitness.

As a French player of the 03 generation, although his statistics in his rookie season were not outstanding, he also had some highlights.
He is a very versatile forward who is excellent in shooting, defense and passing.

His extremely high basketball IQ comes from his mother. His mother, Elisabeth Riffio, is considered one of the best centers in the history of French women's basketball. She instilled an idea in Dio since he was a child: "Let four teammates participate in the offense, and the game will become more interesting."

His father, Issa Diaw, was the Senegalese high jump champion, which gave him excellent physical fitness.

This is a treasure from France, but people have not yet discovered its value.

The outside world has discovered that except for Roger, Alan Houston and old cat Mobley, the official height of the remaining players of the Warriors are all over 200 cm.

You can say that this is a team with a crazier front line than the Seattle Supersonics in the 90s.

They got rid of a guard (Charlie Ward) and a center who wasn't versatile or tough enough (Troy Murphy), and what was left were a group of tough defensive forwards.

And, both have excellent shooting ability to follow the trend.

This is how Steve Levy, host of ESPN's "SportsCenter," described it.

"Imagine that when you hold the ball and prepare to attack, you are surrounded by a circle of ferocious big players. You try to find a defensive weakness, but there is no breakthrough at all. You are like being surrounded by a group of vicious gangsters and can only hand over the ball obediently. Yes, the Golden State Gangsters, this is my new nickname for them.

The weak need the protection of rules, while the strong can succeed under any rules.

The No HandCheck rule won’t change anything, and trying to use it to influence Roger is just wishful thinking for a loser.”

(End of this chapter)