Five Hundred and Nineteen. The "Ambition" Of the Little Overlord

Generally speaking, each team will only play 8 to 10 games in the new season, and the strength ranking prediction will not be updated. It will take at least a month of play before the trend of each team can be clearly seen.

During this period, fans are relatively less concerned about the record, but more concerned about the performance of the players themselves, their ability to lead the team in the new season, etc.

But there are occasional exceptions, such as the current battle for the opening winning streak.

Sports competition is just a group of people competing for certain goals.

The day after the Lakers and Grizzlies both won nine consecutive games, the heat about the two teams' collective nine-game winning streak last night, Kobe's 44 points in three quarters, Sun Ce and Rose's rivalry, etc. began to subside. The media raised some topics again.

For example, ESPN's classification of strong teams.

They stopped doing rankings for the time being. It became a joke last time, but this time they changed their approach and played with different levels.

The division of grades is very logical.

The Lakers, Celtics, and Heat were assigned to the first tier of top teams.

The Mavericks and Magic were assigned to the second tier of top teams.

The Grizzlies, Spurs, Knicks, and Bulls were assigned to the third tier of top teams.

The Lakers are the defending champions, starting with 9 consecutive victories, and must be in the first gear.

The Celtics have won one championship and one runner-up in the past three years, and they are also in the first place. Their Big Three can still compete again.

Although the Heat started with 3 wins and 7 losses, they have three giants. This reason is very strong and they are assigned to the first tier.

The Mavericks and Magic were placed in the second tier. The former was because of the Big Three of Kidd, Nowitzki, and Yao Ming, and the latter was because they had reached the Finals the year before.

There is nothing wrong with this. The current performance of the Mavericks and Magic is classified into the second tier of top teams. The problem is not big. The former is still adjusting, while the latter's performance this year is tepid and is temporarily ranked in the second tier.

But the Bulls, who are still number one in the Eastern Conference, the Grizzlies, who are currently number one in the West, and the Spurs, who are third in the West, and the Knicks, who have a dual-core run-and-gun game, have been relegated to the third tier of top teams... The reasons are quite good. They are all A team that was in the bottom half of last season's playoffs or a team that didn't make it to the playoffs last season is a counterattack force this season, and it is possible that the team will decline just because of its record.

These nine strong teams are classified as top teams.

And it's well-founded and convincing... what the hell! As soon as this ESPN column came out on the morning of the 14th, the ESPN server was really going to be down! It didn’t take long for fans who knew the news and wanted to complain on their homepage to find that entering the website was extremely slow!

…

As soon as he returned to Memphis, Sun Ce saw the news.

To tell him what he thinks...

ESPN’s evaluation of their Grizzlies team is: A team that is in the ranks of counterattacks will be difficult to deal with in the new season relying on defense that others don’t understand and are not used to. After other teams become familiar with their style of play, their record will decline. Slipping...

Regarding the evaluation of the ESPN columnist, Sun Ce feels that it is actually quite pertinent.

Their nine-game winning streak so far this season has indeed taken advantage of their opponents not adapting to their style of play to a large extent.

Who would have thought that they would become fierce and fierce even if they didn't agree with each other? Sun Ce didn't even think about it before the game.

And one thing is certain, as the season progresses, their lack of decisive players will definitely continue to be amplified; other teams have studied them a lot. For example, when the teams begin to adjust their overall tactics in the middle of the season, they will definitely play It would be much more difficult than it is now.

Every year, the middle of the season is not only the most difficult stage of the entire NBA regular season, but also a critical stage when the strong teams begin to widen the gap.

Although ESPN always makes things very exaggerated, and the descriptions give people a strong sense of gimmicks, most of the time their predictions end up being correct, but when they first gave these predictions, the fans were unwilling to accept them from the bottom of their hearts.

Sun Ce hopes that his opponents and fans will believe that ESPN says they are only the third team of strong teams. It is best to think that they are only a dozen or so teams...

However, the Heat, which has just recovered slightly and posted a wave of 3 wins and 2 losses, with a total record of 3 wins and 7 losses, is ranked in the first tier.

It's really hard for people to admit or believe in ESPN's classification of strong teams.

It seems too ridiculous.

No matter how well-founded they are about the reasons for the classification of the other eight teams, as long as the Heat, currently 11th in the Eastern Conference, is classified into the first tier, the entire classification seems so nonsense.

Originally, the Heat finally managed to attract attention by relying on Sun Ce's troubles. However, their attention has dropped a lot during this period. They had a little breathing space and started to win. Now they have regained the focus of public opinion together.

Sun Ce estimates that the Heat's Big Three are grateful to ESPN for thinking so highly of them.

…

For Sun Ce, he doesn't care much about this ranking. He has a lot of troubles now. A ranking does not affect his data or endorsement fees. It has nothing to do with him. On the contrary, it may still This will make them less hostile to their opponents. After all, they are only a "third gear" strong team.

But the rest of the Grizzlies team are not as popular as Sun Ce. Most players attach great importance to this kind of thing. Even a boring gourd like Yi Jianlian is very concerned about this matter.

On the 15th, the day to prepare for tomorrow's game with the Knicks happened to be the Grizzlies' regular interview day. When asked about being ranked third by ESPN, most of the Grizzlies team His words were sharp and he directly criticized ESPN.

These two days have been a bumper harvest of news materials for the media. In fact, most of the media, including T.N.T and Sports Illustrated, two older sports media in North America, admire ESPN because ESPN is better at making things happen than they are. , and are more daring to do it, and can create more topics.

And topics represent traffic, and traffic represents income! Although espn is paving the way for itself to occupy the North American market, for the entire news industry, there is really no one who doesn’t like espn as it dares to create and can create hot spots.

But when they arrived at Sun Ce, when they felt that the biggest news might come out of Sun Ce's mouth, Sun Ce replied: "I think ESPN's classification is very good. We are still a young team, and we still have enough room for improvement. , For example, if we advance two levels, if we are classified as the strongest, I feel that they are blackmailing us."

After hearing Sun Ce's words, the reporters felt like they had seen a ghost!

Such sensible words were actually said by Sun Ce. Is the contrast so big? Is this the same Sun Ce who came out to "steal the limelight" and said he wanted to challenge the Lakers when the NBA was still immersed in the Heat's 1-6 start?

Wait, suddenly some reporters "understood" a different meaning.

Regardless of whether Sun Ce thinks so, some reporters understand Sun Ce’s answer anyway!

…

…

At four o'clock in the afternoon, the Grizzlies' preparation training for the game with the Knicks ended.

Some players left after the team training, some stayed to practice more, and the band members also stayed. There is a very important thing today.

After Randolph and Gay's tough talk, Yi Jianlian finally couldn't resist their attacks and agreed to join the band. There will be a welcome party tonight to celebrate the new members joining.

After taking a shower, Sun Ce went to the lounge and waited for the others to finish sorting and go to the reserved restaurant together. While waiting, he habitually turned on the computer in the lounge to read the news.

It's always interesting to watch the news. After ESPN's rankings were divided yesterday, the whole day yesterday was full of complaints from major retired players, criticism from experts, and heated discussions among fans.

Today it’s the news about current players.

The General Manager of the Heat has banned everyone on the team from being interviewed since yesterday. An unverified news came out. Pat Riley cursed ESPN all afternoon at the AmericanAirlines Arena in Miami yesterday, almost bringing down the entire office. Smashed.

There is no news about the Heat, and there is strangely no news about the Lakers. Sun Ce probably thinks it's because the Lakers don't look down on such trivial matters at all.

On the other hand, the Celtics spoke fiercely during the interview, and the old Big Three couldn't attack the new Big Three's teaming up. After all, they are the first real beneficiaries of the teaming up. It's not that they have never had a superstar team. , but it is not the same concept as the Celtics and Heat.

The Big Four of the Lakers... Malone is 40 years old, and Payton is 36 years old. To talk about teaming up... if it weren't for not winning the championship, it would be more like OK.

The Bulls chose their own combination; for the Lakers in the 1980s, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar came to the Lakers first, and there were times when they failed to make the playoffs. Later, for no apparent reason, the Lakers had two of them given to them. The No. 1 pick selected Magic and Worthy, which can be regarded as the Big Three selected by themselves; most of the Celtics in the 1980s were also selected by themselves...

The true sense of teaming was indeed started by the Celtics.

The Heat's team-building approach at positions 2, 3 and 4 seems to be imitating the Celtics.

But the imitation was not perfect at all. Their 3-7 start... was ridiculed by Garnett. In the first year of their formation, they both won 66 games and ranked first in the regular season.

However, this did not attract Sun Ce's attention for long. A hot post on t.n.t's expert analysis column attracted his attention.

He gave a very rational and logical answer to ESPN's classification of teams. It didn't make any splash. No one wants to watch that kind of interview with no explosive points. It is not as attractive as Randolph scolding ESPN.

But some reporters have great imaginations. Sun Ce opened a hot post called "Lord's Ambition" and saw the content... It felt like his world view had been refreshed!

The core of what the content wants to express is: "Sun Ce agrees with ESPN's division of team strength = Sun Ce agrees with ESPN = Sun Ce agrees with ESPN's player rankings = Sun Ce thinks he is a top ten player in the league!"

Sun Ce's head was a little down...Has he ever expressed this? Maybe not……

But looking at the contents, it was logical and clear... He even believed it himself!