The Whip of the God of Basketball

Danny-Angie is perhaps the Celtics who are the least like the Celtics. Like those outstanding Celtics players in history, he has the toughness, toughness, cunning and incomparable desire for victory that do not conform to the appearance. At the same time, as a member of the Celtics family, he has a more businessman temperament. If Auerbach is a big patriarch, then Danny Ainge is the president of a commercial team in the true sense, and everything is in line with interests. So when Arenas showed enough talent, Angie immediately showed Leon that he had made a mistake in the draft, and agreed to Leon's plan to trade Anderson.

If it were Auerbach, some of the principles he insisted on would not be easily changed anyway. That's why the Celtics have no cheerleaders at home to this day, because the no-nonsense cardinal doesn't like teenage girls showing off their thighs on the parquet floors in Boston.

Therefore, the stubborn Auerbach handed over all transaction matters to Angie, Wallace and Leon. He knew that some things he was good at and insisted on in the past could no longer adapt to the new era. In Celtics history, the best player they acquired through trade or free signing is Robert Parish, and he doesn't even rank in the top ten of the Celtics' star-studded roster. Their brilliance all came from the draft, and the Cardinal's insidious or ingenious methods before the draft.

Now these things are useless. The rapid development of the media and the pervasiveness of scouts have made those black-box robbery methods invisible, and the various trades and draft rules introduced by the league have allowed the former championship to win the No. 1 pick, No. 2, five The probability of unfair transactions such as ten cents for five yuan is getting lower and lower. The emergence of the salary cap makes it less and less likely that the wealthy family will dominate and prosper forever. Although Auerbach, who was in full swing in the 1980s, turned the NBA salary cap into a soft salary cap through his own influence, Created such a profoundly influential transaction signing rule as the Bird Clause, but then there were more and more restrictions on team wages and transactions. It was not until the lockout in 1999 that the labor and management renegotiated the wage agreement, and the current new one came into being. Collective-Bargaining-Agreement, also known as CBA for short. This agreement is extremely complicated, and it is revised and changed every year to add new rules. Any team member who wants to make a trade must first face the 435-page CBA with nearly 100 pages of additional clauses. Term Book.

But for Leon, this thick handbook, as early as when he participated in the NBA draft for the first time, read his general content almost. Now that he has been in the NBA for two years and has participated in many transactions, he has already memorized every clause in this book, the source of the clauses, and the operable content, so when Danny-Ainge discussed the deal with Leon in the office When it comes to content, there is no need to read the detailed rules or player contracts at all, there is a living dictionary in front of you.

"I don't think the salary cap will rise next year. This is different from previous years, and there will be no big fish in the free market next year. The salary cap will decline and there will be no good free agents. This trend will be seen sooner or later. So, we have to focus on the next year, that is the most important node. This is more profitable than the transaction, but it takes a longer time to wait.” At this time, Leon was already discussing with Angie in his office for over an hour. His trading plan is to exchange the team's two junk contracts for one of the Nuggets' junk contracts. The Nuggets' contract expired in 2004, but there will be a team option in 2003, which can be used for the Celtics. Free up cap space.

As the price of eating the junk contract and the bargaining chip of the trade balance, Chris Wallace will join the deal. Of course, the Celtics also need to pay for a future second-round pick.

Angie is a little hesitant about such a transaction method. What he hesitates is not the operability of the transaction. He believes that the calculations of Leon and Morey will not be biased. He is just weighing whether the salary for this comeback and the price of a draft pick are worth it. After all, as the team president, he needs to consider more aspects, including public opinion and the support of other people in the team. What Leon wants to send is Walter McCarty, Randy Brown, and the French forward who got the Nuggets, Tarek Abdul Wahad.

Regarding the replacement of Randy Brown and McCas, Angie has no objection from the perspective of team strength. Brown is at the end of his career, and his contribution to the team has become less and less. But what Angie is worried about is that not long ago, he encouraged Brown to take the lead in the operation to force O'Brien from the palace. Now that the operation is over, he will be traded and killed. Angie has to be cautious.

And Walter McCarty is more troublesome. He came to the Celtics as early as 1997 and worked hard here for 5 years. Although the statistics have been declining year by year, he is still an old man on the team. And as a 6-foot-10 insider, he is also an important rotation of the team's power forward position, but averaging two or three rebounds per game is really not enough. This is why Carroll would rather use the 40-year-old Rodman than him s reason.

The balance of Angie's inner emotions and interests is swaying, and the reasons given by Leon are already very sufficient, especially his prediction of the salary cap for next season, but Angie still needs a little reason to make up his mind. He looked at the general manager Chris Wallace who was sitting by the side. He had been filing his nails and didn't express his opinion. He was noncommittal about Leon's opinion. In fact, Wallace is already a die-hard supporter of Leon. , but not specifically manifested. As long as Angie agrees, he will call Vandeweghe to apply for a deal and immediately report to the NBA league office. Seeing Angie looking at him, he greeted Morey beside him and said, "Darryl, tell Danny what you think."

Morey cleared his throat. There are not many opportunities to express decisive opinions in front of the president. He said: "You should know that the impact of the 911 incident is all-round. Not only our stock market and real estate are affected, but also the sports consumer market. A recession is ushered in. Part of the reason for Michael Jordan’s comeback is that the league hopes that his return can withstand the impact of terrorist attacks on the ball market. The possibility of the salary cap falling that Mr. Ang said is very great. As the season progresses, more and more teams will realize this. At that time, the expiring contracts of Brown and McCarty will not have that much value. gone."

The decline in the salary cap and the lack of big-name free agents will make the free market in 2002 a stagnant pool, so it is better to focus on 2003, when the free market will not only have many big fish, but also the draft of that year. The General Assembly is expected to have a large influx of talented players, which is a good opportunity for the Celtics to show their talents and turn around in one fell swoop. After all, Morey graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Compared with Leon's background as a street gangster, his words are obviously more convincing. Although Angie also knows that Leon, a street boxer, does not know where he learned his excellent financial accounting skills. Knowledge often makes him, a professional team manager, feel ashamed.

Finally, Angie finally nodded, which not only means that he agreed to the deal, but also means that he accepted Leon's strategy and set his sights on 2003.

…………………

On the morning of December 5th, Chris Anderson, who lived in a hotel in Indianapolis, woke up early. He felt that everything in life was good because he was a real NBA player. It has been more than a week since he signed with the Nuggets, and it is still hard for him to believe that his dream has come true and he has become a professional player with a contract with an annual salary of 290,000 in his hand. He has decided to buy a house in Texas for his mother, because his mother worked hard to raise him, and like many NBA players, his father abandoned them early.

In fact, before he was signed by Denver, he always thought he would become a Celtics player. The scout from Boston named Leon left a deep impression on him. He didn't expect this guy to know China so well, and he I also appreciate my talents. Judging from his attire, he is not an old-fashioned and dogmatic guy. Anderson envied his long hair, so he began to renew it since summer, and now his hair is almost reaching his shoulders.

Today, he will go to Boston with the team to challenge the Celtics. This will be the second stop of their Eastern Conference road trip. They were defeated by Reggie Miller and Jermaine at Conseco Arena last night. - The Pacers led by O'Neill exploded. Anderson still didn't get any chance to play. He saw a genius like Jermaine O'Neal get whatever he wanted inside and scored 25 points, but who made the gap between the two so big.

Anderson has learned to comfort himself a long time ago. He has long recognized his own value in the days of wandering and playing in different places. He is not too conspicuous. of. He still remembers the days in Nanjing, where life taught him a lot. Although he is still immature, he has been able to cope with various changes in the world.

"Chris, you have been traded, and you are about to fly to Boston, which will be your new home. Say goodbye to your teammates on the plane." Anderson received a call from his agent and was informed of the trade To the Boston Celtics.

He still didn't expect that the world would change so quickly.