(The original text was published on September 26, and The author is Justin Verrier, The Ringer deputy editor. The content of The article does not represent The translator’s point of view.)
After two and a half years of chaos featuring restart, shrinking season and temporary players, NBA finally ushered in a long-expected rest this summer. During this period, the news never disappeared completely-largely due to durant’s futile transaction application-but the time for the alliance to slow down was long enough for us to consider cultivating a real hobby. (This proposal was politely rejected.)
However, for those teams who want to play warm-up matches overseas, last weekend’s media day marked the official start of the 2022-23 season. Other teams will also start media day this week. While we are waiting for teams to update injury reports, prepare for a glimpse of the latest situation of those focus players, and wait and see all kinds of details of the embarrassing story in Boston last week, here I list seven questions about the new NBA season:
1. The Los Angeles Lakers know that they need to trade off Wei Shao, right?
In the middle of August, when James and the Lakers renewed their contract, both sides seemed to reach a consensus on their bad-tempered friend with an annual salary of 47 million dollars. James didn’t go through his regular script, didn’t bargain with the team by delaying the decision time, but chose to accept the future plan of the Lakers-at least the future plan for the next two years. On the other hand, the Lakers seem willing to trade their precious first-round signatures in the future, even Talen-Horton-Tucker, a subsidiary of Klutch brokerage company, was exchanged for Wei Shao’s long-term foil Beverly-it was like using mink bear to deal with a python that was entrenched in your garage.
However, more than a month has passed since then, but the Lakers have created an optimistic atmosphere for the Wei Shao team. Maybe the new coach Darwin ham can establish a connection with Wei Shao in a way that Frank Vogel’s can’t. Perhaps injury is the real crux of the Lakers. Maybe their better choice is to spend the season first and keep the salary space in 2023-probably for Owen. Maybe weishao and Beverly can become friends! Boss Jenny Buss recently even called weishao the “best” player of the Lakers last season…… But she later changed her description to “the highest attendance rate”.
Of course, the biggest problem with the above idea is that this is not the case. Wei Shao’s last season was disastrous, no matter who he was working. Even if The Lakers had a bad season with him again, The rewards they received were unlikely to be rich, and they might even be theoretical after all: The Athletic recently mentioned, in addition to being interested in Owen-his outstanding performance frequency last season was almost as high as weishao-The Lakers also regarded Middleton, Van frit and Wiggins as potential trading targets. To dig one of these players from the high-level team they are in now, the chances are not great; Even if they succeed, the price paid may also wipe out the chance for the Lakers to win the championship with James, who will turn 38 in the new season. Is this really worth it?
The Lakers Park champion established a common accepted facts, that is, the combination of LeBlanc and heavy eyebrows is the most dominant force in the league, just like the King and Queen on the chessboard. Although this statement has been weakened by the past two seasons, the lineup configuration based on them is better than that of most teams in the league. The health of both of them is the first thing-just as Davis reduced the amount of Gut Milk he drank before training-but qualified role players are also necessary. Therefore, the only logical way is to abandon all illusions about the recovery of Wei Shao’s state and exchange his contract, which is about to expire, as a quality role player-whether it is Buddy Hilde, miles Turner or other veteran who can shoot more than 10 feet (3.05 meters) away from RIM-has added to the deal.
Speaking of which……
2. Which championship teams can get enough veterans from jazz to “win in the present?
After jazz lost his core team in the past five years, Danny Anji became a discount merchant in NBA. He used keen price to sell those famous role players. The latest transaction took place last Thursday, when Sir sent Bojan Bogdanovic to Detroit in exchange…… Uh, millions of dollars in salary space? Or is it an opportunity to reunite Ange with the famous hat lover Kelly ollinick? I am still trying to understand this matter, but the overall message it conveys is very clear: Jazz wants to become very poor, and any players in the team who can help them become less poor are available for sale.
The list of available players includes Jordan Clarkson, Mike Conley, Rudi Gaye, and may even cover new players like Malik Beasley and Lowry malcanin. None of them are players who can stir up the championship situation, but they are all players who can play a role in the right place-for example, Clarkson can strengthen the ball-holding offensive ability of Milwaukee’s substitute team (maybe, when IBA kaneng is traded, send him out and one or two future rounds to sign the deal?).
After the start of the new season, we may not hear too much about Utah Jazz. But before that, their players were closely related to any team that wanted to make final adjustments to the lineup.
3. Which Brooklyn basketable Nets star can show up-in physical, spiritual, or figurative sense?
No one is looking forward to the new season basketable nets. This is especially true for their boss Cai Chongxin. But even after months of debate between Durant and management, and…… No matter when anything happens to Owen, basketable nets may still be the kind of incredible team?
It’s probably hard for us to remember, but before…… (Exaggerated gestures made in all directions can be matched here) Brooklyn looks unstoppable. Although the upper limit of the new season may not be as good as that of Harden, their lineup is still terrible on paper. Durant was selected as the second best team last season, although he missed one third of the season. Owen scored more than 30 points in more than one third of his 29 regular season matches, including two nights of 50 points and 60 points per game in a week. Simmons ranked second in the vote of the defensive player of the year last time. Sess-Curry and Joe Harris are two of the four best three-point shooters in NBA history.
Basketable nets can be great…… As long as everyone in the team can put down the contradiction between each other first.
The good thing is that Simmons came back to the public last week and responded to many painful topics that he had escaped for more than a year. The bad thing is that Owen recently shared an old video from Alex Jones, it is shown to everyone that he is still using the conspiracy theory nonsense he found from YouTube to guide his career choices.
The new season in basketable nets is almost impossible to go smoothly. Even from the perspective of basketball, they need more help in the front court, and they have to rely on several players who have had surgery during the offseason. But if all the protagonists can appear on the court, then they still have a chance to become quite good.
4. Where will the Boston Celtic and Phoenix Suns go from the recent storm?
Although both IMEI-Wu ducurno and Robert Savo have been punished for improper behavior, the Celtics and the Sun team have to start to deal with the aftermath of these two incidents, including players, coaches and ordinary employees. According to Brad Stevens, some employees suffered from “Twitter speculation and rampant nonsense” last week.
The sun may have become accustomed to this burden, because they have been receiving NBA surveys last season, and Savo was still the boss of the team at that time. Although Savo has not yet sold his team Equity, a Sun employee has said in an interview with ESPN’s Baxter Holmes that Savo’s dismissal has given people a sense of relief. The employee said, “I am so happy that my autonomy has increased and I am more motivated.” At the same time, he/she also pointed out that in the future, it is necessary to eradicate “the people in power in this organization who support the workplace culture constructed by saphus”.
However, the Celts seemed far from relieved. Last Friday’s press conference basically did not reveal any reason why Boston’s coach was suspended for one year, but said Wu ducurno had made “a large number of violations”. Five days after this vague first report appeared, some news came into being. However, they only imply that Wu ducurno has some kind of trouble, rather than providing more details on the incident itself.
5. Which injured stars are about to return and when will they return?
There are pleasant things in the media day, such as watching the players’ funny headdress or listening to the coaches say that their team can go further in the new season, however, it mainly plays a role in explaining the changes of the team’s lineup in the past few months. Sometimes, a press conference that lasts all day can reveal some important new hobbies, such as a player’s newly established Love for marmosets, but more often it announces new injuries and new developments about old injuries.
Early before the players, coaches and managers stood on the platform, the injury update began to appear gradually: Robert Williams III underwent the second knee surgery, six months after his first surgery; xie Yi-Kyrgyzstan-Alexander sprained the medial ligament of the knee; Ranzo-Bauer had another knee operation; Marker-Fultz suffered a toe fracture; spurs Kelden Johnson suffered a shoulder dislocation. A positive news is that Leonard can already take part in five-to-five training, and he seems to attach great importance to the leg training day during the off-season.
But apart from Leonard, a man who had the opportunity to change the Western pattern with strong thighs, the injuries of several other important figures who could influence the ownership of the 2023 Championship have not been further updated: when can we see Murray and little Michael PROTONIC of the nuggets? Is Harden’s hamstring really as energetic as we saw in his Selected shiraku training photo this summer? What kind of team position will Zion Williamson gain after missing a whole season? (I will continue to discuss this issue soon.) When each of the above players returns, what kind of load management will they need?
No one can win the championship before the start of the season, but the information we got this week may indeed dominate the trend of the new season to some extent.
6. How did Zion fit into the pelican who just entered the playoffs?
Last year, Pelican’s media day was more like the last battle of their management. After a series of questionable off-season operations and a series of news that the champion of the team was exposed to long-standing dissatisfaction with the team, david griffin, vice president of basketball operations, finally revealed that zion had undergone surgery fracture bones in the foot. Although he gave a strange hint that Williamson may return before the start of the season, it is obvious that pelican has been difficult to avoid the fourth consecutive failed season and the following personnel changes.
After all, New Orleans did not let last season’s regular season win rate exceed 50%. But after the deal got mccolum, they did show enough determination (and secrecy), not only participating in the play-off, lianke Spurs and the Clippers also entered the playoffs of “mature men”, and finally forced the top seed Sun to fight with them for six times. There are indeed some alarming points in this magic journey: this sample only contains 26 regular season matches, although they ranked seventh in the league in net efficiency during this period; clippers and Suns also lost the top scorers in the team before or halfway to the Pelican. But in three months, Pelicans showed a passion that made it difficult for those really good teams to copy. Moreover, they were also a group of young defenders who made the “God of control” frightened.
The question now is how can Zion adapt to the team culture established when he was absent. You need to add a running guard like Derek Henry to the NFL Tennessee Titans. Similarly, it is not so bad to regard the defense as nothing and the control center with a previous hit rate of 61%. But can second-grade coach Willy Green reasonably allocate the ball power to three players whose usage rate is close to 30%-mccolum, Williamson, Ingram, it remains to be seen whether the trio can effectively make up for the defects on the defensive side.
Unlike last year, Pelican entered training camp believing that he had found some “important things”. Griffin said: “In these (new season) games, you will judge us as a team that deserves to win for the first time.” However, whether “important things” refer to not only a group of interesting and pretentious young people, but also depends on whether Zion can keep healthy, integrate into the team and how the team uses him.
7. Is there any team that pays a lot of money to buy people in this offseason that will feel regretful?
After seeing that the big ball market teams got the stars by digging their own treasure trove of picks and realized the soaring ranking in the regular season, some small ball city teams also took actions during this off-season. Atlanta, Cleveland and Minnesota managed to pay 15 first-round picks, plus several first-round players and young players in recent years, in exchange for dezhantai Murray, Mitchell and Gobel.
All three teams believe that they will become better in the new season, and that may be the only important thing; the concepts of “asset accumulation” and “financial flexibility” have been over-obsessed by people since Sam-octyl became a 76-person general manager, so that now it is said that some people despise those “blog writer, choosing to follow your enthusiasm is really refreshing. But with the approaching of the tax, these teams are under the pressure of getting stronger immediately. Can the three new players help their new club jump from the play-off to the top six teams in the division?
Knights and Timberwolves have people who can play a buffering role on the defensive end. Last season, Cleveland’s modern twin towers pushed their defense to the top five of the league, and they were all ranked sixth in the east before jarert Allen was injured. They will probably allow mitchell to give full play to his advantages and add some creativity from darius garland to the team’s attack. At the same time, Minnesota’s defense was finally able to rank in the top 15 of the league after maintaining the countdown level in the West for nearly ten years. After introducing a three-time defensive player of the year, they can almost certainly continue to improve on the basis of their best defensive performance in the regular season.
Now only murray has not been talked about. The former Spurs defender is a tall and intuitive defender, ranking first in the league’s snatch list last season. However, his one-on-one defense ability is not so good, so it is unlikely to improve the eagle’s bad defense for a long time by himself. Perhaps Murray’s greatest value lies in some things he can do for Trey Yang, including providing the latter with more chances of attacking without a ball, it also includes letting the latter not worry that the team’s attack will collapse during the rest. In either case, the road before him-bringing the changes they need to the new boss and becoming a supporting role for an important NBA star-is the most difficult one.
Original: Justin Verrier
Compilation: asteroid falling
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