Assuming that the Nets and Lakers win the championship this season, what will the big guys on the team think in the end?
Lakers
LeBron: It’s really an old cow pulling the strings - I am so exhausted Lao James . If I hadn’t won the championship in the end, I would have been forced to retire early by Master West.
thick eyebrows : How can this "Big Three model" be more tiring than when LeBron and I led the team to win the championship in 2020?
Master Wei: Hehe, I also have a championship.
Nets
Durant : What’s going on? It’s all in the “N Giants” model. Why is it so much harder than those two years with the Warriors?
Irving : I can win the championship even if I only play away games. Hehe, it’s just for fun.
Harden : I’m so exhausted. One of you is injured and the other is suspended. Isn’t this the regular season where I’m carrying you all the way? I don’t even have the energy to go to the nightclub. Fortunately,
finally won the championship, and everyone was happy.
But, is it possible?
Perhaps the most optimistic Nets and Lakers fans today no longer dare to insist that their respective home teams can come back to life during the season, wash away the decline in the first half of the regular season, and finally rise to win the championship in the playoffs .
1. Nets and Lakers - same predicament, different troubles
On the Nets side, Durant has fallen. The whole world knows that Nash will hurt him sooner or later if he uses death like this. But there is no other way. I will not die until I reach the Yellow River. Now the God of Death is completely out of business.
The Nets management did not hesitate to slap Irving in the face and invited Irving back. But it didn't become the team's resurgence. Since returning to play and the Pacers on January 5, the Nets have had 4 wins and 3 losses in the seven away games they played.
's mediocre results did not reduce the burden for Harden and Durant. The Nets had 2 wins and 4 losses at home, which definitely did not meet the management's previous expectations.
What about Harden? Facts have proved that his title of "regular season superstar" still works, but he consciously hides as a point guard when Irving and Durant are around.
alone led the team to defeat the Lakers the day before yesterday with 33 points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists. It was still a super performance, but the Nets' overall performance was held back.
However, although the Nets are miserable, they are still fourth in the Eastern Conference with 29 wins and 19 losses. They are only two games away from the first Heat (31-17). As for the Lakers, they are currently ninth in the Western Conference with 24 wins and 24 losses. They will give Lakers fans a "quick-act life-saving game" every few days.
When the play-off system was introduced last year, LeBron publicly opposed it as a player representative, believing that the league was only for making money and did not care about the health of the players.
did not expect that the Lakers and himself would be the biggest beneficiaries of this competition system. If we have to go through the play-offs for two consecutive years to get tickets for the playoffs, I don't know what he, who led the opposition back then, would think.
They have so many problems that before they even have time to solve one problem, the next problem can't wait to appear, and then they lose sight of the other. Looking back at their early-season troubles, not only were they not resolved, but they became less important because of new problems.
At the beginning of the game, everyone was paying attention to Westbrook's integration issues, his high turnover rate, his integration with LeBron, and his ability to smash the timer's shots.
In order to accommodate him, the Lakers had to let the thick eyebrows stand at the five position for a long time, which exhausted Anthony Davis's fragile body. Not only was he beaten by Antetokounmpo, Towns and even Wood one after another, but his outside line Shooting has dropped below an absurd 20%.
So people turned their guns and criticized the thick eyebrows who were in poor condition and declining in physical fitness. But when Nongmei was injured in the game against Timberwolves , the Lakers' paper-like defense lost its last fig leaf, and they couldn't guard any team.
first lost five games in a row, being beaten by Spurs , the 11th in the Western Conference, by 138 points, by 125 points by the Kings, and by 133 points by Nuggets .
Those who previously disparaged thick eyebrows must have missed this perfect small ball center during this period.
finally forced Vogel, had no choice but to put LeBron at the fifth position, pursuing the ultimate space and offense.
So in recent Lakers games, we can often see LeBron Anthony, two old men with a combined age of over 75, joining forces to defend the Lakers' penalty area. Can a game like
win the championship?
This is not a tactical invention of the Lakers coaching staff, it is completely a last resort.
James , Durant, Big Eyebrow, Harden, Irving, Westbrook, these league's first-line superstars, the "arms race" set off in order to quickly win the championship, this season may really come to nothing.
2. "N Giants Group" - Is it to get rich quickly or drink poison to quench thirst?
In the summer of 2010, LeBron went to Miami and formed a Big Three with his good brothers in the same class Wade and Bosh, which was considered almost "cheating" at the time. .
This is a collaboration between the former two mvp LeBron (09, 10), the previous scoring champion Wade (2008-09), and the top five All-Star power forwards in the league Chris Bosh .
In the previous NBA, superstars have come together through trades and free agent signings.
In the 1996-97 season, Barkley actively requested a trade and was sent to the Rockets. He and Olajuwon and Drexler , the three best players in each position at the time except Jordan , came together at the end of their peak.
Before the 1998-99 season, Drexler retired, and Barkley would rather sign a minimum salary contract just for the team to sign the free agent Scottie Pippen who left the Bulls.
In the 2003-04 season, Gary Payton and Karl Malone , two Hall of Fame legends who had a rivalry with Jordan in the Finals, both lowered their status and joined the "OK Group" just for a ring.
However, these operations are still based on the team. Through various overt and covert operations, these superstars who are supposed to fight against each other as the boss of the team are brought together.
As for the Heat's Big Three in 2010,
was the first super trade in NBA history that was completely led by players and assisted by team management, commonly known as "teaming."
is also the first time that three first-line stars in the league who are at the peak of their careers have come together as free agents at the same time.
They just want to play together. Where they defeat is secondary. The Heat are just the lucky ones.
This disrupts the flow of trades that have been team-led since the NBA was founded. For the first time, players became operators rather than commodities.
brings many hidden dangers.
First of all, the playing styles of players with good relationships may not be suitable. The three of Zhanweibo used to play as the core of the ball in their respective teams. When playing on the same team, someone must make sacrifices.
The Heat and Samsung still adhered to the idea of "suppressing talent and taking turns to play" in the first season. However, in the finals, they encountered the Mavericks who were united and had Nowitzki in great form. They were immediately defeated. Then they established a system with LeBron as the core, Wade as the assistant, and Bosh as a space-based inside line, and they won two championships in the next three years.
Secondly, the value of the superstars is there. The consequence of acquiring three superstars at the same time is that they will definitely not be able to sign other suitable championship pieces. Back then, the three of them took a salary cut and signed a contract together, just to attract high-quality shooters Mike Miller .
But then the rotation can only be filled by veterans who are close to retirement like Big Z and Bibby, or fringe players like Joe Anthony, Norris Cole, or James Jones such LeBron's "guards" ".
Even during the championship season, everyone who watched it should have an impression of how badly the Heat's inside line and rebounding were destroyed.
In the end, this team model is almost a one-time deal, with a lifespan of about two years at most. Once the championship fails, it will fall apart at any time.
When the Heat lost to the Spurs in 2014, LeBron returned to the Cavaliers.
When the Warriors lost to the Raptors in 2019, Durant had to switch to the basket even if he was injured.
So since LeBron set a precedent in 2010, his own "winning model" is basically as follows:
① The prerequisite for his joining is that the team must have a good structure, superstar helpers and salary space.
html Wade and Bosh in 2010, Irving and the No. 1 pick in 2014 (later selected Wiggins for Love), the young talents of the Lakers in 2018 and the thick eyebrows who are determined to join.
② Use a season to run in, find the most suitable system, and eliminate "unsuitable" helpers
After losing the finals in 2011, the Heat changed the system and signed Battier, the best strike partner before thick eyebrows. In 2014, they first traded the ineffective Waiters for J.R. and Shumpert, and in 2015, they replaced the head coach David Blatt. In 19,
used , Ingram, , Ball, and Hart, who still need to grow, and draft picks in exchange for thick eyebrows. The head coach was changed from Luke Walton to Vogel.
No matter which team he is on, LeBron needs to get used to it. He did not win the championship in the first season he joined.
③ After achieving success, he sought big contracts for his younger brothers, further inflating the players' salaries, and finally couldn't deal with it.
There was still Pat Riley under pressure during the Heat. He and the players under Rich Paul Economic Company had not yet made much profit.
In the second period of the Cavaliers, T.T and J.R. Smith of the CCLUTCH agency all got big contracts, and James Jones was also brought all the way from the Heat to the Cavaliers.
arrived with the Lakers. Kuzma and Pope also got contract extensions after winning the championship. Even Horton Tucker at the end of the second round got a multi-million contract.
Kuzma is the younger brother with whom the Lakers have the strongest relationship, and the agents of Pope and Tucker are both CLUTCH companies.
Now, in order to ensure that they are no longer exhausted by the regular season, the Lakers have also signed Master West as a "backup engine", but the price is a two-year, 90 million super contract.
Those teams that got LeBron all have the following characteristics:
① They were overjoyed when they signed him and quickly became a powerhouse in the league.
② won the championship in the mid-term and fulfilled his promise to this city.
③The salary space was overwhelmed in the later period. In the end, when LeBron left, it would take a few years to recuperate.
In fact, it's not just LeBron, the Warriors who also manipulated Durant to join also have the same embarrassment.
In 2016, they took advantage of the league's salary cap increase. Even though they already had three tens of millions of contracts for Curry, Clay, and Green, they still got Kevin Durant. Only then did they have The Warriors dynasty that lasted three championships in four years.
But their later rotations were filled with low-quality rotations such as McKinney , Cook, and Jerebko, which even if they were placed on ordinary teams, they would only be looked at by the water dispenser, and they were also burdened with huge luxury taxes.
If it weren’t for the Warriors’ sharp increase in value in the past few years and the appreciation of the U.S. dollar, team owner Crabbe wouldn’t be able to persist until now.
These are just two successful examples. The Mavericks, Trail Blazers and even Clippers , who also spent a lot of money back then, could only become the laughing stock of the entire league.
3. Grizzlies, Mavericks, Jazz - Teams that have a long history of success are also worthy of respect
Therefore, teams that rely on super giants to fight for the championship must either have an owner who is extremely wealthy, such as the former Microsoft second boss Paul Allen , Mark Cuban , and now Boss Cai.
either pursues exposure more than championships, is born with the "superstar gene", and is the only Laker in the league.
either tasted the sweetness in the early stage and had to spend a lot of money in order to continue its glory, such as the Rockets in the 1990s and the Warriors today.
But after all, there are only a few who play this way. There is only one champion every year, and it is even more difficult to build a dynasty.
Nowadays, as the Nets and Lakers continue to have troubles, more and more teams understand that the way to reunite superstars is tantamount to drinking poison to quench thirst, and is by no means a long-term solution.
At the same time, there are still many teams in the league that have proven time and again that they can still ensure continued competitiveness and play high-quality basketball without relying on a single superstar.
The Cavaliers were once LeBron's biggest beneficiary. The lucky selection of him in 2003 made the team immediately become the focus of the league's attention. In 2016, they won the first national professional championship in Cleveland's history.
But LeBron's departure also made it difficult for the team to return.
In the two seasons after James left in 2010, the team only won 40 games in total.
When LeBron left again in 2018, they only won two games in two years. 38 games.
However, after being "dumped" twice, it also made the team understand that instead of relying too much on the influence of a single player, it is better to focus on strengthening the overall construction of the team, and at the same time make the right choices in the draft and player market.
The guard Garland they drafted in 2019 has already performed at an All-Star level this season and has become the first-line point guard in the Eastern Conference.
During this offseason, they acquired Evan Mobley with the second pick, renewed the contract of young powerful center Jarrett Allen, and exchanged for the Bulls' former European genius power forward Marr. Kanin .
In this "small ball for all" league, they played three highs uncharacteristically, and even brought the almost forgotten Kevin Love back to life.
Now they are ranked third in the Eastern Conference with 30 wins and 19 losses, and their unique style of play has made them the biggest surprise in the Eastern Conference this year.
The one who woke up earlier than them was the Memphis Grizzlies. They lost to the Cavaliers in the 2003 draft lottery and ultimately missed out on LeBron James .
But after they traded the All-Star power forward to the Lakers in 2008, they no longer were superstitious about so-called stars.
In the later "Black and White" era, Gasol was a second-round pick, Randolph was once a "cancer in the locker room" that was annoying to everyone in the league, Tony Allen was a ruthless man who only focused on defense. Michael Conley is a no-frills guard who will never be an All-Star no matter what.
And this tough and rough "hard-boned team" was able to stifle the favorites in the playoffs in almost every season from 2010-18.
From 2018-19, as this group of people gradually aged, they began to replace them. They sent Garfield to the Grizzlies and Conley to the Jazz. Then they used the second pick in the 2019 draft to win a talented but unlucky player. The young and mature Morant .
almost instantly found another cornerstone for team building.
In the past few years, they have not messed up, made trouble, or made gossip. They have focused on polishing their young lineup.
Morant won the Rookie of the Year in his first year, eliminated Curry and entered the playoffs in his second year, and has already booked a Western Conference All-Star spot this year.
Because he not only averaged 25.8 points, 5.9 rebounds and 6.9 assists per game, but also led the Grizzlies to 33 wins and 17 losses, ranking third in the Western Conference, only two games away from the Warriors (33-15).
What’s more valuable is that Jaren Jackson, Dillon Brooks, Desmond Bain, Melton, Clark, this group of young talents around 25 years old constitute their team. Core team.
doesn’t cling to a team, doesn’t show off, doesn’t hype, and is down-to-earth. Who says we can’t build an excellent team?
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