Basketball: Start with the Neuroknife

Chapter 28: Make the Lakers Great Again

As soon as the game ended, Zeke Hearn shouted at Li Wan: "Man, you are really great, keep it up, I look forward to your even crazier performance!"

The Lakers field commentator, who is there every Lakers home night, hasn't been so excited by a rookie's performance in a long time.

Li Wan nodded with a smile, but there was a bit of seriousness in his eyes. His stats in this game were okay, but from Jeff's defensive strategy and the ball-handling matchup with Gerald Wallace, he still exposed two problems.

The first question, as he gradually became a little famous, the coaching staff of other teams in the league have been paying attention to his game and conducting research on him;

The second problem is that his ability to handle the ball is not enough when he encounters players with a physical quality above him, such as Gerald Wallace.

It seems necessary to study my own footage and spend a little more time on the off-ball running end.

This is the solution Li Wan can think of.

His current progress is fast enough, but his foundation is too poor. Now that the regular season is approaching, in these three or five days, it is impossible for his ball-handling ability to increase by leaps and bounds.

Then you can only think about how to better combine your strengths.

On the 22nd and 24th, after playing two more preseason games, the Lakers played all the games before the arrival of the regular season.

The team's preseason record was 3 wins and 3 losses, just half and half, and no one cared.

In 6 preseason games, Li Wan averaged 28.6 minutes per game and could get 16.5 points, 3 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1 steal. Shooting 43.5 percent from the field, 39.7 percent from 3-point range and 8.6 percent from the free throw line.

Among them, the average 16.5 points per game beat Kevin Durant and other outstanding players, ranking first in the 2007 rookie.

This performance allowed ESPN to place him fourth in the 2007 class when predicting the "Rookie of the Year" in the new season. On this list of players most likely to win the "Rookie of the Year", the top four are only Li Wan is a rookie after the 15th in the first round. He's higher than Mike Conley.

It can be seen how much attention his performance has caused in the league's preseason.

After six preseason games, Phil Jackson found Li Wan again.

"As I said before, I will use you as the sixth man of the team in the new season. In addition, I can tell you clearly that 20 minutes is only the beginning, not the end. How much time can be used depends on the Your own, you know, "Soul Train" only provides a stage, whether you can become a star depends on your own efforts!"

"Okay, Coach Phil, I don't think I'll let you down either!"

Li Wan expressed his attitude confidently.

It's not that he is blindly confident after finishing the preseason. He knows that the NBA preseason is a completely different intensity from the regular season, and his test has just begun.

But this alliance has always been like this, the winner survives and the loser exits.

Li Wan is not afraid of competition.

Phil Jackson didn't say anything, he re-emphasized these things, nothing more than expressing his position.

In the past two days, many media have gradually noticed that Kupchak continues to accept other teams’ trade offers for Li Wan. They believe that the Lakers still have the possibility of trading Li Wan. Phil Jackson has to choose himself.

Li Wan was very excited to receive this assurance.

Of course, he himself will not be satisfied with the position of the sixth man of the team. Whether it is from his personal goals or the tasks that need to be completed in the system upgrade, the sixth man of the team is just the beginning!

Going to the arena as usual, Odom handed him a few newspapers as soon as he saw him.

"You're famous man, you now have a nickname, Trash Boy!"

Li Wan took a look at the newspaper. He knew the news. The source was ESPN's edited video. They cut out all of Li Wan's 6 preseason conversations with his opponents and found that he was a "language master". I went to read Li Wan's conversation with his opponent on the NCAA game field, and it was equally outrageous. The level of golden sentences was comparable to "If it's better than basketball, you are really many times stronger", "The villain died of too many words" and so on.

The nicknames "Trash Boy" and "Swear Boy" spread like wildfire.

I didn't expect my first nickname after entering the NBA to be this...

He didn't know how he caused such a reaction by saying two words of trash. There are many "trash" masters in the league, and I haven't seen a few who have received similar nicknames because of this.

Just because he's new? Or because of his status as a Chinese player?

After all, among the few Chinese players in the NBA, he is the only one who will chatter with his opponents.

In the end, Li Wan concluded that, who cares about him, this may have some impact on his image, and the scolding is not a positive image.

But if he wanted to rely on his face to eat, he had already been a trainee, and the practice time is estimated to be almost two and a half years.

There is one less person in the locker room today.

All six preseason games ended, and the Lakers traded Maurice Evans for a small amount of cash.

Morris, who was in the shower when he got the news, calmly packed his dressing room closet. When Li Wan made a dazzling performance, he knew that he was gone.

He has nothing to complain about losing to such a newcomer.

Or he didn't have a chance to complain either.

The name tag on his locker cabinet was removed by staff after he left.

There was no trace of Morris in this room. Even if Morris started 10 games with the Lakers last season...

This is the NBA.

The other two rookies, Marcus Williams and Karl, stayed on the team. They were only partially guaranteed contracts with a value of only about 200,000, mainly used to fill the lineup. In addition, people need to be watched by the water cooler of the team.

The Lakers officially confirmed the 13-man roster for the new season:

"Point guards: Fisher, Jordan Farmar, Karl;

Shooting backs: Kobe Bryant, Li Wan, Vujacic, Marcus Williams;

Small forwards: Luke Walton, Radmanovic;

Power forward: Lamar Odom, Ronnie Turiaf;

Centers: Bynum, Chris Meim;"

The two vacated positions are Kupchak's preparations for follow-up reinforcements. UU reading www.uukanshu.com mainly gives Kobe's imagination space.

This list unexpectedly caused a "war of words" in China.

Some "Li Hei" said that Li Wanneng was able to play, mainly because of luck. He encountered no one at the backline of the Lakers, so he was reused by Phil Jackson. Compared with him, Yi Jianlian is the fourth position of the Bucks. competition is much greater.

But it can be seen from this list that Li Wan's competition in the Lakers is not small. The hard-hitting starters Derek Fisher-Jackson and Kobe Bryant have Jordan Fama standing behind them. Er and Vujacic, these are actually players who compete with Li Wan for playing positions.

Li Wanneng won the position of the "sixth man" of the Lakers, not because "Phil Jackson is useless" as "Li Hei" said, but he really did it by his own strength.

ESPN listed a power ranking before the official arrival of the regular season, and the Lakers are currently ranked 16th. That's eighth in the West, barely making it to the playoffs.

Most ESPN experts are not as optimistic as the Los Angeles media. They don't think "Little Shark" Bynum will usher in a qualitative transformation this season.

In addition, the sense of surprise brought by Li Wan was not enough to raise the team to a higher level.

"He's going to be a great newcomer, but that's about it!"

They think the Lakers' best-case scenario this year is just standing still.

Due to ESPN's disapproval, the Lakers shouted their slogan for the new season: "Make the Lakers great again!"

As soon as the slogan came out, the Lakers fans got goosebumps all over. This slogan was so morale-boosting that they could not wait to start the opening game immediately, and then shouted this slogan in the Staples auditorium!

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