Champions Creed

Chapter 400 399: Is Cleveland full of hope again? (Seeking monthly votes!)
Andrei Kirilenko has verbally agreed to sign with the Cavaliers, but Cleveland fans are still uneasy.

After all, they were betrayed by Carlos Boozer.

Cleveland fans know that all verbal agreements are as fragile as the 1939 Soviet-German Non-Aggression Pact.

Before the free agent market officially opened and the Russian wrote his ridiculously long name on the contract, the Cavaliers did not really own AK47.

Every day before the official signing is a torment for Cavaliers fans.

Warriors fans were in a completely different mood. Not only had they just won the championship, but they also received good news at the beginning of the summer of 2005.

Jason Richardson, who grew into the team's third scorer last season and averaged 17.2 points per game, rejected those teams that promised to give him a higher tactical position and resolutely chose to renew his contract with the Warriors and continue to be a conscientious role player.

He announced the news during his speech at the championship parade, and the tsunami-like cheers from the San Francisco fans made Jason Richardson feel that it was all worth it.

Jason Richardson certainly knows that if he goes to other teams he can get more shots, more opportunities to perform, dunk without restraint, doesn't have to work so hard on the defensive end, doesn't have to bear huge pressure, and can easily increase his average points per game to over 20.

Maybe he can get selected as an All-Star and enjoy the feeling of being a star.

He has seriously considered the possibility of this option and he admits that such a future is extremely attractive.

After all, next to Roger and Amar'e Stoudemire, he will always be the third man on the team.

And when people talk about the third person on the team, that person's status is actually only slightly better than that of an ordinary role player.

The choice between a star player and a role player hardly seems to be a choice at all.

Most media also believe that Jason Richardson's departure is a foregone conclusion.

But in the end, Jason Richardson decided to renew his contract with the Warriors.

As a player who grew up on the streets, Jason Richardson, who has a strong street style, believes in a saying: "People who can get ahead rely on three things: being ruthless, being loyal, and having many brothers."

Last season, Roger stood by him without hesitation in the dispute between him and Alan Houston, and resolutely let the team trade Alan Houston away. You know, Alan Houston is the "man next to Wang", and he is qualified to use the locker next to Roger.

In the Warriors' locker room culture, the owners of the lockers on Roger's left and right sides are the two "God's Hands" designated by Roger.

But Roger gave Jason Richardson justice. He did not favor or protect Alan Houston just because he was one of the "God's Hands". Roger insisted on letting the one who was in better condition and more eager to win become the starter. He protected the entire team.

Jason Richardson has always been very grateful for this, so as he attaches great importance to loyalty, he would never abandon the Warriors and betray Roger at this time because of a higher tactical position.

Roger let Alan Houston go in order to give him justice. If he left now without saying a word, it would be inhumane.

In Jason Richardson's opinion, if a team has no hope, then it is understandable to leave. But if a team is still competitive, then it is simply a beastly act to abandon your good brother easily.

Even if he could only stay and be a jester, Jason Richardson would help Roger build a dynasty.

What's more, the contract renewal price that the Warriors gave to Jason Richardson is not low. Several teams are willing to offer Jason Richardson an average annual salary of tens of millions, and the Warriors are also willing to give him 3000 million for three years.

Mikhail Prokhorov's first criterion for renewing a player's contract is that Roger needs him, and the second criterion is that the renewal will not hinder the team's development.

As for salary? That is not even a criterion. The Russians do not consider the contract price at all.

Compared with the development of Mission Bay as a whole, the Golden State Warriors' spending is not worth mentioning.

In this way, Jason Richardson successfully returned to the Warriors and continued to work hard to establish a dynasty.

In fact, Roger Gan had already prepared himself mentally for Jason Richardson's departure. He had encountered similar things too many times.

For players like Jason Richardson, it is understandable that they would leave the dynasty being established for higher contract renewal prices and tactical status.

Because Roger admitted that even if he really established a dynasty, 80% of the credit would be attributed to him alone, 10% would belong to Stoudemire, and everyone else would have to share the last 10%.

Whether it's a basketball game, a football game or a soccer game, the pie is never evenly distributed.

Some people don't even get a share of the cake, for example, Dwyane Wade's status is even lower after winning two consecutive championships.

No matter how much the media and coaches emphasize that this is a team sport, they cannot change the uneven distribution. The superstar will always be the one who benefits the most.

Therefore, role players are often interested in and motivated to win their first ring in their career, but two or three consecutive championships are not that attractive to them.

After all, a championship ring is not a woman, and a man won't always think about getting a new one.

So if Jason Richardson insisted on leaving, Roger would not blame him.

As a result, he chose to renew his contract, which made Roger feel very relieved and full of a sense of accomplishment.

This is another person after Stephen Jackson who would rather give up a higher tactical position and more playing time to stay with Roger.

Yes, Mikhail Prokhorov was willing to pay.

But on the other hand, Roger's personal charm also played a decisive role.

Loss of key role players has always been a big problem in Atlanta.

Nowadays, this problem has been improved because of Roger's existence.

It is good news that Jason Richardson stayed, but the Warriors still lost two players. Nick Van Exel and Derek Anderson, who were traded for Alan Houston and Trevor Ariza last season, both left this summer.

Last season, because Boris Diaw and Matt Barnes performed well, the two who were traded from the Trail Blazers only played less than 30 games in total. The Warriors had no place for them at all, so leaving was a normal choice.

From this perspective, the only legacy left by Alan Houston is the Portland Trail Blazers' first-round draft pick next year.

But that's enough, because given the current situation, the value of that draft pick will not be too low.

The wealthy boss Paul Allen is not having an easy time right now. Alan Houston, whom he had high hopes for, seems to have lost his spirit after being abandoned by the Warriors. His performance in the Trail Blazers is completely incomparable to that in the Warriors period.

Another player he had high hopes for, Zach Randolph, also performed terribly last season. Although he averaged 19 points and 10 rebounds per game, his efficiency was quite low. As an inside player, his shooting percentage was only 44%, and he was no different from a wooden stake on the defensive end.

Moreover, Zach Randolph's off-court style fully inherited the fine traditions of the Portland Prison Team, causing a lot of trouble for the team.

He broke his teammate Reuben Patterson's orbital bone during training, and called it "my tribute to the great Roger".

He was speeding and weapons and a gun wrapped in tinfoil were found in his car.

Things like drunk driving and stealing guns are common occurrences among big black bears.

The Portland Trail Blazers run by Paul Allen are the darkest franchise in NBA history. It's like he's running a team from the 1960s and 1970s, nothing but chaos. The current Trail Blazers are just like their main color, so dark that no light can be seen at all.

The team was rotten internally, and the Trail Blazers could hardly trade troublesome players like Zach Randolph for combat power of equal value. Moreover, the team's salary cap was locked early because of blind spending.

Therefore, the Blazers are unlikely to make any revolutionary changes this summer. As expected, it will still be difficult for the Blazers to make the playoffs next season. So this time next year, the Warriors will experience the joy of the lottery draft.

From this perspective, even if Nick Van Exel and Derek Anderson leave, the legacy left by Alan Houston is already rich enough.

Currently, there are two vacancies on the team's roster.

The first way to fill these two vacancies is this year's draft.

This year, the Warriors' target in the first round was David Lee from the University of Florida. This senior forward does not have outstanding athletic ability or static talent, but is proficient in almost all skills related to the power forward position.

Unfortunately, the New York Knicks traded up the draft pick and snatched it up at the 28th pick.

So the Warriors with the 29th pick could only choose Brandon Bass, a short and tough forward that Roger preferred.

In the second round, the Warriors selected a high school rookie according to Roger's plan, Monta Ellis, the second highest high school student in the United States in the 2005 class, second only to the inside giant Greg Oden.

Nicknamed "Mississippi Bullet", the 191cm guard had a very explosive scoring ability. He scored 65 points in the first game of the season against Greenwood High School, which was amazing at the time. As a result, when the two schools met again later in the season, Monta Ellis even scored 72 points!
Just when everyone was questioning whether Greenwood High School was a strong enough opponent, Monta Ellis scored 46 points in a game against Oak Hill Academy, the top basketball school in the United States.

And all these brilliant scoring performances happened within one season, which directly shut everyone up.

It stands to reason that such a high school genius should be very popular after graduation. His best path is to enter a prestigious NCAA school and strive for the lottery or even the top three picks in the coming year.

But because Monta Ellis's grades were very bad, he decided to directly participate in the draft.

This decision brought misfortune one after another.

In a series of workouts before the draft, Monta Ellis injured his knee and underwent knee surgery. The knee is a key part for a professional player, and a player may show two completely different levels before and after the surgery.

Although there are many miraculous cases in the NBA like Dwyane Wade who still performs well after having his meniscus removed, such individual cases cannot make teams bet on Monta Ellis.

What's more, there are more mature and safer guards to choose from in the first round this year, such as Chris Paul, Deron Williams, and Raymond Felton, so no team would gamble on an injured high school player.

Secondly, Monta Ellis's shot selection in the tryout was very, very bad. In addition, his barefoot height of less than 190 cm limited his strong shooting ability, which put a huge question mark on his offensive ability after entering the NBA.

Monta Ellis' biggest selling point is scoring, but nowadays, scorers under 190 cm in the league either have insufficient output or are too inefficient. Even AI cannot escape this curse.

No team would waste a first-round pick on a scorer who is destined not to be a top scorer.

Limited by his small frame, the trainers of various teams are also worried about his ability to gain weight in the future. If he doesn't gain weight, he won't be able to fight. If he gains too much weight, he will easily become a glass man.

So the high school genius suffered the first blow in his life. Despite being full of confidence, he ended up falling into the second round before being picked up by the Warriors.

But Roger doesn't have to worry about Monta Ellis not being able to play. He thinks this is a good opportunity to train a second-generation sixth man.

The Warriors' current sixth man, Mobley, is 30 years old, just like Roger. He was plagued by injuries from time to time last season, and his state began to become unstable. Maybe the team will need a new sixth man in the future, and you must not wait until the team is already lacking a certain role before thinking about looking for one.

Roger increasingly felt that the role of the sixth man was quite important. Although the sixth man needed to hold the ball a lot to play his power, because they were always on the court in the transition period, even if they held the ball a lot, it would not destroy the team's overall system. When they could not explode, they would not cause serious damage to the team. Once a sixth man exploded, the game would instantly become very simple.

Monta Ellis is the best choice to succeed the old cat.

The 2005 draft ended peacefully, with the media focus on Australian center Andrew Bogut, all-around forward Marvin Williams, Chris Paul who was named by Roger, and super point guard Deron Williams from the University of Illinois.

The Warriors' selection did not attract much attention.

To be precise, the attention received by the entire draft this year was very average, and it is generally believed that this year is not a big year for the draft.

Most fans were focused on the year-long soap opera involving the Cleveland Cavaliers and Andrei Kirilenko.

Finally, on the first day of the free agent market, the big stone in the hearts of Cavaliers fans fell.

After a series of rumors, the Cavaliers officially announced that they had signed Russian Andrei Kirilenko with a six-year, $6 million maximum contract.

A few hours later, Woj broke the news that the Cleveland Cavaliers used Michael Redd to sign and then trade for last season's steals leader and defensive guard Larry Hughes and the energetic defensive center Brandon Haywood.

The cancer of Michael Redd, who neither defended nor passed the ball and who once said something sarcastic about the emperor, "I thought I was here to assist LeBron," has finally been eliminated. It seems that all obstacles preventing the chosen one from entering the playoffs have been cleared.

The deal gives the Cleveland Cavaliers hope.

Once again, hopeful.

After the trade, Bill Simmons asked on his personal blog: "Why are there always so many cancers around LeBron? Why can Michael Reed win the championship with Roger? Why was the 41-year-old Michael Jordan a cancer in Cleveland, but became a hero who created miracles in Atlanta? I can't explain all this, after all, I'm just a stupid fan. Maybe the great LeBron's hands were really damaged by the cancer, maybe."

This is more of a close-up than a question.

This is why Bill Simmons can never be the mouthpiece of the great emperor, his level is too low.

The Cleveland Cavaliers thought that the excitement about trades and signings would last for several days, but they didn't expect that the basketball world would be occupied by another breaking news just the next day.

At 12: in the middle of the night, Roger, who was exhausted after a day of business activities, was awakened by the ringing of the phone.

He thought Maria Sharapova was calling him again to bother him. In the past few days, the girl called Roger twice a day on average and sent him a lot of photos in private messages on the Internet.

Roger wanted to talk things over with Sharapova tonight, but when he took out his cell phone he found that the person calling was his agent Eric Fleischer.

"If I hadn't been traded, you shouldn't bother me at this time." Roger said impatiently after answering the phone.

"Catino is in trouble!"

"What happened to the old cat?"

"He suddenly collapsed during a commercial baseball game and is now diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy!"

"Speaking human, Eric, is this serious?"

"It's the same heart condition that killed Reggie Lewis in 1993."

"Damn it!"

Roger was completely sleepless.
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AK47 and Larry Hughes are more suitable partners for LeBron than Michael Reed. Andre averaged only 15.6 points per game last season, but he was able to deliver 6.2 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.6 steals and 3.3 blocks. He was the block leader last season and was selected to the All-Defensive Second Team. Larry averaged 22 points, 6.3 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 2.9 steals per game last season and was selected to the All-Defensive First Team. They are all team players with comprehensive influence. They can become the strongest left and right arms of the Little Emperor, not a cancer like Michael Reed. Cleveland's dark history will never return. - "Cleveland Plain Dealer".

You know, Andre and Larry are both excellent players. I think I can lead the team to a breakthrough next season. The record of not winning against Roger? No, no, no, that won't continue, absolutely not! ——LeBron James accepted an exclusive interview with ESPN.

Cuttino Mobley is dying. God bless him and his family. --Slam Dunk.

The people of the dynasty must be mentally prepared. Even if Cutino can wake up, he will definitely not be able to return to the roster next season. We wish Cutino can get through the difficulties, and we also hope that Roger can lead the team through the difficulties. - San Francisco Chronicle

(End of this chapter)