Bishop of the Devil

Charlotte Municipal Stadium is the Buccaneers' current home stadium.

The reason why it is said to be temporarily used is because when Jordan and Richard took over the Pirates, they had already decided to build a new arena as the home stadium for the Pirates' new team.

The facilities at the Charlotte Coliseum are too old and too small to keep up with the times.

The previous Charlotte Hornets actually moved to New Orleans because the arena was too backward.

George, the owner of the old Hornets, hoped that the city government would provide money to help them build a new arena. However, they failed to reach an agreement and they finally moved to New Orleans.

This kind of thing seems a bit fanciful. If the team wants to use a new arena, why should the government pay for it?

In fact, this matter is quite normal in the United States. Even in China, it is actually quite normal. The government also has to generate revenue...

The team has to pay a large amount of taxes every year, which is the source of government revenue.

Now that the old Hornets are running away, the Charlotte city government is a little panicked. Fortunately, Jordan and Richard are here...

When the Pirates negotiated with the city government about building an arena, the city government was a lot smarter this time and helped the Pirates provide 70% of the funds to prevent the Pirates from running away too.

The arena cost about 300 million U.S. dollars, but Jordan and Richard only spent 90 million U.S. dollars in total, about 45 million U.S. dollars each.

Construction of the arena has already begun, and it is estimated that the Pirates will be able to move into the new arena by the time this season is over.

…

There was not much time left before the game started, but the arena was not full, with only about 70% attendance.

I estimate that once the game starts, the attendance rate will be around 80%.

Richard sighed. The football market in Charlotte was indeed not very good. You must know that before this, whether it was the Trail Blazers or the Pistons, Richard rarely encountered a situation where the attendance rate was less than 80%.

Although tonight is only the opening game of the preseason, with the word "opening game" in mind, the attendance rate will definitely not be low. Richard feels that if it were left to the Trail Blazers or Pistons, tonight would definitely be full.

The main reason is that the basketball atmosphere in Charlotte is not very good.

The Hornets joined the league during the expansion in 1987 and did not have a deep foundation. In the past ten years, they have not achieved any outstanding results, let alone the championship, and have not even tasted the Eastern Conference Finals.

In addition, Charlotte is home to the NFL Panthers. The NFL is the first of the four major sports leagues in North America. The Super Bowl attracts the attention of countless fans every year and is the most commercially valuable sports league in the world.

Under such circumstances, the sluggishness of the Charlotte football market is quite normal.

It's no wonder that the Hornets ran away in the first place. If the ball market was good, they probably would have stayed in Charlotte even if they hadn't negotiated the arena with the city government.

"It seems that the development of the new army still has a long way to go. The first thing to do is to establish a correct team culture, and secondly, we have to think carefully about how to attract more fans' attention." Richard thought to himself.

Establishing team culture is a very important thing and is Richard's main job in the coming season.

The team culture of a team determines their lower limit, which means that a team with a good team culture will not be bad no matter what.

The Spurs team can illustrate this truth very profoundly.

The Knicks team is the most obvious negative example...

…

Team culture includes many aspects, such as team atmosphere, team style...

Take the Pistons for example. Their style is iron-blooded. This is something the Pistons have engraved in their bones. Even if new players join the Pistons, they will become iron-blooded under the influence.

…

Richard's current goal is to build the Hornets into a team similar to the Pistons or Trail Blazers, with an iron-blooded style of play and an indomitable spirit.

…

When it was time for players from both sides to enter the court, Mourning was trembling all over.

Charlotte is where his career began, and judging from the current situation, it may also be where his career ends.

When he and his aunt Larry Johnson played together for the Charlotte Hornets, they turned against each other because of the competition for the team boss.

Later, Mourning was sent to the Heat, and Auntie did not end well. A year later, she was sent to the New York Knicks.

This is also the reason why Mourning and Auntie fought on the court later. The two had a long-standing grudge...

In the blink of an eye, ten years passed, and Mourning felt as if he had been in a dream.

In the past ten years, Mourning has experienced too much and has had incomparable brilliance, edging out O'Neal for the first team.

There were also sad lows, when he was diagnosed with kidney disease and almost ruined his career.

Fortunately, he endured it and still had a chance to stand on the court.

…

Players from both sides began to enter the stadium. Mourning's entrance made many old Charlotte fans cheer. This is their star who left Charlotte. Now his leaves have returned to his roots. They gave the old Mourning the respect he deserved.

As for Richard's entrance, although Charlotte fans also cheered, they were not as loud as Mourning's cheers.

Charlotte fans have a grudge against Richard.

If Richard hadn't traded away Kobe, they felt that the Hornets would have had a good harvest. Not to mention the championship, they would have at least made it to the Eastern Conference finals, right?

But because of Richard, Kobe, the duck in his mouth, flew away. They must be full of resentment towards Richard.

Of course, because a long time has passed, their resentment against Richard is not that deep. Otherwise, what greets Richard now will definitely not be cheers in twos and threes, but boos one after another.

…

"Guys, although tonight is just a preseason game, for some of you players, this is the first appearance of your career, and I hope you can all take it seriously."

"Tonight we focus on the inside, I want to see the defensive intensity on the field!"

"We must defend well, this is the foundation of our team!"

The game was about to start, and Richard gave the players one last instruction.

Since you want Milicic to increase his confidence, you must naturally let him produce decent data. If there is no data, where will the confidence come from?

"Darko, I hope you can open your mouth and sometimes take the initiative to ask for the ball. This is not only the right of an inside player, but also your obligation!"

"These are your teammates, brothers to whom you can rest assured. Don't have any scruples. Even if you say or do something wrong, no one will laugh at you."

"You are the person that I, Richard, value. I, Richard, have never looked away. I hope I won't make an exception for you!"

Before going on stage, Richard pulled Milicic and whispered something.

Richard didn't expect that these words would directly wake up Milicic. This requires a process, and this process takes a long time.

…

The Buccaneers' starting lineup includes center Varejao, power forward Milicic, small forward Iguodala, shooting guard Ariza, and point guard Payton.

There are no big problems with the lineup, and no one can find anything wrong with it.

This is actually the best starting lineup Richard can currently produce.

Ariza has a nickname called Tiezha. The meaning is simple and clear. There is nothing wrong with this nickname.

Ariza's three-point shooting is indeed relatively strong. In his entire career, his three-point shooting percentage has only exceeded 40% in one season. In most seasons, his three-point shooting percentage has been over 30%.

The three-pointers in his rookie season are even more incomprehensible. To be precise, Ariza has almost no three-point ability in his rookie season.

However, during the month of training, Richard specifically asked Ariza to practice his three-point shooting to the greatest extent while trying to learn defense from Payton. This may improve Ariza's three-point shooting ability as a rookie.

Obviously, Richard is planning to let Ariza take the route of a 3D player, which is the best route for Ariza.

As for Iguodala, his overall strength is not even a bit better than Ariza.

Under normal circumstances, it only took less than two seasons for the Philadelphia 76ers, whom Iguodala joined, to successfully get the 76ers management to abandon Iverson and determine that he would be the cornerstone of the team's reconstruction.

The reason why Iguodala can do this is that there must be something shining in Iguodala.

The first shining point is his powerful ability to create damage under the basket. In his rookie season, Iguodala's shooting percentage at the basket was as high as 70%!

What a terrifying concept this is, even James' rookie season couldn't reach this level.

James's rim shooting percentage in his rookie season was almost 10 percentage points lower than Iguodala's.

Brother Yi's breakthrough ability as a rookie was so terrifying.

The second shining point is that in addition to his strong breakthrough ability, Iguodala also has a good basket.

This is quite scary. A three-point shooting rate of more than 33% from the outside is definitely not particularly good, but one-third of the three-point shooting in his rookie season is actually pretty good.

Still comparing James, James' three-pointers in his rookie season were less than 30%.

The last shining point is the strong defense.

The defensive efficiency value in his rookie season was 102 points, and the offensive efficiency value was 110 points.

In other words, every 100 rounds, Iguodala can score 110 points, and the opponents he can defend only score 102 points.

Still comparing James, James' defensive efficiency in his rookie season was actually good, with 104 points, but his offensive efficiency was only an embarrassing 99 points...

It can be said that no matter how you compare it, Iguodala's rookie season was quite outstanding. It is no wonder that the Philadelphia 76ers management will use him as the cornerstone of reconstruction.

This is why Richard didn't have to trade the Clippers' second pick before.

In Richard's opinion, such an excellent Iguodala is of great value, at least much greater than Okafor.