This Forward is Not Serious

How rich is Ballmer?

As early as 2006, Forbes ranked his personal assets at US$13.6 billion.

Among them, 10 billion is his stock in Microsoft.

Of course, it is already 2010, and his assets must have increased.

This is background one. Ballmer has this ability.

How much does Ballmer love basketball?

It’s really hard to imagine an owner with tens of billions of assets coming to support the team in almost every game. Ballmer is such a special case.

His craziness after acquiring the Clippers even surpassed that of Mark Cuban in history.

This is a true basketball fan.

This is background two. Ballmer has this intention.

Then and now the biggest problem is that Ballmer is still the CEO of Microsoft.

If he wanted to acquire the Knicks, he would have to sell his Microsoft stock.

This means that the countdown to his departure from Microsoft has begun.

This is obviously a decision that requires a lot of courage to make.

But Ballmer did it, and this may be the judgment of a top businessman.

Judging from Lin Ying's perspective, the Knicks' market value before he passed through was already close to 6 billion, and that time was only more than ten years ago.

This will definitely be a profitable business.

All in all, the emergence of Ballmer, the Microsoft boss, finally brought the Knicks' farce to an end.

Although Dolan did not expect that someone would actually spend 2 billion to acquire a team, this result is barely acceptable to him now.

After all, he is essentially a businessman. If he no longer plays in the NBA, he can use the money to invest in other teams, such as the NFL, which is also a good choice.

And you have to know that he only spent 30 million when he bought the Knicks in 1997. Now, only 13 years have passed, and it has increased nearly 70 times.

Although this is not as large as the historical proportion of Sterling buying 12.5 million and selling 2 billion, Sterling bought 14 years earlier.

At this time, the happiest people are definitely the Knicks fans and Knicks players.

Dolan is finally out of the Knicks!

They also welcomed a presence who could rival Trail Blazers owner Paul Allen.

And for an owner who is willing to spend 2 billion on an NBA team, even if you don’t know Ballmer, would you say that such an owner has no love for basketball?

If you don’t have love, why don’t you use the money to do other things?

For example, make a regular deposit in the bank! 【funny】

Lin Ying was a little surprised when he saw the news.

As mentioned in the previous analysis, Ballmer would acquire the Clippers in history because he had already stepped down from the position of Microsoft CEO at that time.

But I still do this now when I’m still employed. I can only say that it’s out of love and business acumen.

And that’s not good news for the rest of the league.

Originally, with Dolan here, there were a lot of uncertainties about the prospects of the Knicks' Big Three, such as Dolan blindly interfering in management transactions, or not wanting to spend more on strengthening role players.

But Ballmer is completely different. This guy is very willing to spend money.

The Knicks may not have much room to operate this year, but what about next year, or the year after that?

The prototype of a Knicks basketball empire can already be seen!

So from this perspective, he can be regarded as creating an extremely powerful opponent for himself.

Hey, that’s how things are in this world!

If the one who can control everything and have everything go his way is not man, but God.

And this is not necessarily a bad thing. Isn’t the reason why basketball is passionate about defeating seemingly impossible opponents one after another?

Just like the Suns' championship last season, making the impossible possible makes people excited!

…

In a blink of an eye, Christmas is approaching.

The impact of the Knicks' change of ownership is still continuing.

Following the valuation issue mentioned earlier, the valuations of each team have now increased nearly three to four times compared to the same period in history.

That's obviously a premium, but just like home prices, it's there.

So Stern is also in trouble now, because before there was only an 80% chance that the team would be shut down in the summer, but now it has become 99.9%.

As for the remaining 0.1%, you have to consider the extreme situation of the earth exploding and the planet being destroyed, right?

All in all, this incident caused a far greater butterfly effect than Billy King not going to the Nets.

Next summer, it’s going to be crazy.

Of course, that is also a matter of next summer. The games this season still have to be played, and the excitement continues.

The annual Christmas war has begun to attract fans' attention again.

This year's Christmas war has been anticipated by fans for a long time.

"New York's Big Three vs. Defending Champions"!

The Knicks have just won an eight-game winning streak and have knocked the Bulls off the top of the Eastern Conference in one go.

Poor interior defense and insufficient rotation players are some of the problems exposed by the Knicks in the new season.

But other than that, this team is almost perfect.

In addition, the new owner often comes to watch the games, and the morale is very high.

The situation on the Sun's side has finally improved.

However, Nash's condition after returning was obviously not as good as at the beginning of the season.

No matter what the reason is, after suffering such a big blow, it is not easy to get over the psychological barrier.

Lin Ying originally thought that after Nash returned, he could return to the state he was in at the beginning of the season, but looking at this situation, he could not return to it for the time being.

It can only be done by those who are able.

Regardless of the context, the game attracted the highest level of attention to the game since the start of the tournament.

"I won't be able to spend Christmas with Wanda and the others this year!"

This is what Lin Ying is thinking about at the moment.

He has already been prepared in his heart to play against the Knicks or something like that.

Even if we don't fight against the Big Three in New York, we still have to fight against the Big Three of the Heat. Changing the soup does not change the medicine.

How could a focus battle be without the presence of the media?

The venue for this game is in Madison, and the Knicks are waiting to relax.

One interesting thing is that there is no press conference on a typical training day.

But there is no way, the attention of the Big Three in New York is too great.

So since the start of the new season, they sometimes have press conferences on training days.

On a day like the Christmas War, this is naturally inevitable.

So the Big Three wore training uniforms and were interviewed by media reporters at the press conference.

It was so dark under the stage, this is New York!

As the star of the Knicks, James is naturally the one who gets the most questions from reporters.

"Will you be an Avenger tonight?"

The reporter's question contained a lot of information.

Last season, James was swept by the Suns in the Cavaliers, and the Suns even hung a crying emoticon at the front of the parade.

If you want to say that James has no grudge against the Suns, that would be too inhuman.

"I'll be Iron Man."

James's answer is surprising, it is more standard than the standard answer.

Marvel became popular thanks to Iron Man, and the release of Iron Man 2 this year also set off a new wave of movie viewing climax.

New Yorkers love watching superhero movies the most.

James not only responded perfectly to this wave, but also voted for New Yorkers' favorite. There is really no better answer than this.

And after that, he added another paragraph very seriously.

"I'm a Knick now and the past is the past to me and I just want to try and win games for this city."

What a perfect basketball player! Impeccable!

Then, the famous scene came.

"Are you ready to win your first championship here?"

The reporter obviously followed his words, but he dug another hole.

After all, strictly speaking, this Christmas battle has nothing to do with the championship!

But perhaps his performance so far this season has greatly increased his confidence. He faced reporters and said what he would say at this time:

"I want to bring 7 championships to New York!"

What this means is, not 1, but 7!

As for why there are 7? Who knows!

Maybe it’s because they didn’t win a single championship in the seven years they spent in Cleveland. They feel that by forming the Big Three in New York, they can make up for what they lost in the previous seven years?

no one knows.

But after these words were spoken, the reporters below became restless.

Bosh on the side couldn't help laughing.

Wade, on the other hand, smiled and shook his head.

This may be the impact of everyone's different experiences.

Bosh has never experienced a true championship run.

And Wade already has a championship, and he knows very well how difficult it will be to truly win the championship.

The comments on this game day also caused an uproar.

At this time, less than half a year had passed since the decision was made, and James seemed to have recovered from the original public opinion.

So just like the original decision, this has once again become a problem for many fans towards James.

On social media, many new fans of the Suns have emerged.

This Christmas war just got more interesting.

…

Over there, while James was talking about bringing not one but seven championships to New York, Lin Ying was watching the game video in the hotel.

But what is different from the past is that this time he is not watching the opponent's video, but his own video from this season.

Even today is not the first time. He has been doing this since Nash came back and was in bad shape.

So far, his scoring average this season has exceeded 20 points for the first time, reaching 21 points.

But just like the week when I won the Best of the Week, a big feature is instability.

He can score close to 40 points in the last game, or he can score only a dozen points in the next game.

This is also the biggest difference from when he played power forward before.

When playing power forward, low singles were his signature offensive method, which was a combination of Duncan and Barkley's offensive methods.

So his performance is very stable.

But right now, because of Grover's plans, he won't start some small forward skills until next season.

Therefore, his current style of play is very flexible, and it is difficult for opponents to guard against him, but he lacks some stable scoring methods, or something that can be called a trump card.

It's definitely not good to continue in this state. He has never been the kind of person to muddle through.

So he must combine his existing characteristics.

In fact, he already has some ideas and started to strengthen training in the past training.

That includes the heavy pivot foot I learned from Kobe Bryant in the summer.

After watching the video, Lin Ying lay down on the bed to rest and let his brain digest it.

After he finished digesting it, he unconsciously thought about the game against the Knicks that night.

This game is very important for the Suns.

It's not just a matter of focus, but also team morale.

Overall, the Suns' performance this season was much worse than expected.

Although Stoudemire's struggle to adjust and Nash's divorce are all unexpected events, they are also part of the uncertainty of the NBA.

If the Suns want to regroup, nothing will be more effective than a win against the Knicks on Christmas Day.

Of course, this Knicks team is much stronger than the Big Three of the Heat at the same time, and winning is not that easy.

Have the heart to win and be prepared to fight difficult battles.

…

That night, Madison Square Garden was packed with people.

There were also many big names in the front row of the auditorium, and unlike the many Hollywood movie stars in Los Angeles, these big names also had different careers.

For example, Rihanna has always been a fan of James, and James' good friend Jay-Z and his wife Beyoncé.

You read that right, James has a great influence in the black American celebrity circle, and big names often come to support him.

Of course, that's not all.

For example, the new owner of the Knicks, the bald tycoon Ballmer, was sitting on the edge of the bench.

Because Ballmer still works at Microsoft, he doesn't go to the Clippers as many times as he did in history, but it's still a lot!

Basically, he will be there for the team's important games, and he is really passionate and will stand up and cheer for a beautiful goal.

With such an owner, it makes sense that the Knicks are getting better and better now.

Another example is that in the middle of the audience, Swift and her friends also came to the scene.

After all, Lin Ying had seen Swift at Staples Center before.

Of course, in addition to these celebrities, there were more New York fans wearing James jerseys.

The Dolan incident caused a lot of trouble to James at first.

But those are at the team owner level and the fan level. James' popularity in New York has exploded.

Because in a sense, James is a front-line warrior against racial discrimination!

After Lin Ying pulled his gaze back from the auditorium, he felt emotional in his heart.

New York James is much more influential than Heat James!

The scene quickly entered the opening ceremony, and by the time the home team arrived, the cheering decibels of the fans were already very harsh.

This is the craze that New York fans are having now.

In media reports, it is always said which fans are the best in the league, but this actually depends entirely on the team's situation.

Before the Splash Brothers came together, the fans of the Warriors were just average in the league. But with the Splash, the fans in the Bay Area became the most enthusiastic.

The Suns made a counterattack all the way in the playoffs, and Phoenix fans are the most fanatical fans in the league.

The same is true in New York now.

The Knicks have never had such a roster in their history, not even in two championship seasons.

Coupled with the fact that Dolan finally left, all fans felt like it was dawn.

And the performance of the Big Three since the start of the game has fully met the expectations of the fans. If not, who is fanatic?

It’s a stressful Christmas Eve for the Suns!

After the opening ceremony, the starters for both teams were announced one after another.

Suns: Nash, Allen, Lin Ying, Frye, Stoudemire

Knicks: James, Wade, Gallinari, Bosh, Gooden

Before the game started, James walked to the technical stage as usual, and his iconic powder throw once again set the Madison Garden Arena on fire.

And after throwing the magnesium powder, he couldn't help but beat his chest twice with excitement.

I don't care about being in front of the media during the day because I can't say anything.

The fact is, the Suns are now his revenge target!

Come and bear the Emperor's wrath!