Chapter 406 [1 Sweep Away the Decline, Dream of Dunking]

? After losing, a hidden danger of the Suns began to emerge. The young players were inexperienced. They were not good at adjusting their status, their performance was unstable, and they would fall into a slump for a certain period of time in the regular season.

Even Joe Johnson couldn't escape this vicious circle, and Josh Howard and Blake even hit the rookie wall.

When Guo Xu was able to survive the rookie stage safely, it was because the Lakers were too strong as a whole and any star could drive the entire team. Not only O'Neal, but Kobe can also kill his opponents when his hands are hot. No one will blame Guo Xu for his occasional abnormal performance.

Now the Suns as a whole are not strong enough to dominate the league, and they need role players to perform. Guo Xu will have problems as soon as he takes a break, and Blake's offensive organization ability is far behind.

The Suns only have two point guards, and none of the young point guards in the summer free market are willing to join the Suns. They know that if they come, they will have to play as a substitute for Guo Xu. The maximum playing time is 15 minutes. How can they put up good data and compete for a job in the future? Big contract? Alstom left for long-term interests.

The experienced veteran point guard is also unwilling to come. Firstly, the Suns are not favored in the summer, and secondly, for the sake of face. Let Payton go to the Suns to hug Guo Xu's thigh, and he can only be a backup point guard. Even if he wins the championship, he will not be happy. "Little Bug" Tim Hardaway wants to come, but the Suns don't want him. He only played 10 games last season and has long been out of the game.

This is not a problem that the coaching staff can solve by boosting morale. The players have to adjust themselves. On the court, the only one who can help them is Guo Xu. He has to help his young teammates find confidence and help them perform.

In the past, the Suns used to let Guo Xu mainly attack in the first quarter, trying to catch the opponent off guard first, and then wait for the opponent to start double-teaming before passing more passes to his teammates to help the young players perform.

After discussion with the coaching staff, it was changed to Guo Xu passing the ball mainly in the first quarter. When his teammates really couldn't bear the offensive responsibility, he would take more shots himself. This can also have an unexpected effect. The opponent may not expect that the main attacker is a role player.

On December 9, the Suns beat the Mavericks 127-90 at home. Six players on the team scored in double figures, sweeping away the decline.

Guo Xu made 7 of 12 shots, 3 of 5 three-pointers, and 6 of 6 free throws. He scored a huge double-double with 23 points and 20 assists.

Joe Johnson found the right shot, 9 of 13 shots, 2 of 3 three-pointers, 1 of 2 free throws, and scored 21 points and 4 assists; Stoudemire made 6 of 10 shots, 4 of 4 free throws, and scored 16 points and 11 rebounds. 2 steals; Marion, who returned, made 9 of 14 shots, 2 of 2 free throws, and scored 20 points and 7 rebounds.

Five members of the Mavericks team scored in double figures, but no one scored 20+, and many players had overlapping positions on the field. Without defensive experts, the Mavericks' internal and external defense was a mess, and their defensive efficiency was second to last in the league.

Nelson used Antoine Walker and Nowitzki to partner in the paint for a long time.

Of course it can't be prevented. Since the start of the game, the five-star Mavericks have lost 6 games and have no championship appearance. Near the end of the third quarter of this game, Nowitzki sprained his knee while attacking in the low post. Although the injury was not serious, he would have to miss at least two weeks.

More and more people are questioning Nelson. His style has always been his own way, and his tactics are unreasonable. This has caused irreconcilable conflicts between him and the players and management.

This summer is Nelson's contract extension year. Cuban gave him a contract, but in Nelson's eyes this contract devalued him. In the end, he chose to compromise, signing a three-year contract to serve as head coach and general manager, earning $5.1 million per year, and it was a dead contract, with no bonuses no matter what the team did.

"He signed it, but there was a loss of trust between the two," an insider said.

The team had a poor record and spent a lot of money in vain. The fate of Nelson and the Mavericks should have come to an end long ago.

On December 11, the training intensity within the Suns team was not high. They would fly to the away game in the evening to face the Magic tomorrow. Since the Magic are now the worst team in the NBA, no one is under any pressure.

During free practice, Stoudemire said: "I propose a dunk contest to relax. Who wants to participate?"

There are three people in the team who responded, Marion, Howard and Nene. They all have excellent jumping ability and like to dunk.

Guo Xu also has good jumping ability through two time loop training, but he is short and cannot dunk well, so he can only be a spectator on the sidelines with other teammates.

This season Stoudemire is preparing to participate in the All-Star Dunk Contest. Every time he trains, he spends some time practicing dunks and asks his teammates to help him come up with ideas. Guo Xu came up with two ideas for him. One was to pretend to be Superman, and the other was for Guo Xu to cooperate with him and header the ball to fly over for an alley-oop dunk.

"Warcraft" Howard's Superman dunk was mainly a gimmick. As long as Stoudemire puts on the cape, he will definitely get high scores. In his previous life, the alley-oop cooperation between him and Nash was not difficult, and it was better than creativity.

Guo Xu believes that as long as Stoudemire enters the finals, these two ideas will be enough to win, because Stoudemire also has two high-scoring actions for dunking alone.

After putting forward the idea, Guo Xu felt vaguely unhappy.

There is probably no one in this world who has more creative dunks than him. In his previous life, he had watched every dunk contest and was deeply impressed by those perfect dunks. But he can only partner with Stoudemire and has no ability to dunk on his own. Rather than being a green leaf that sets off his teammates, he wants to be a red flower.

The team dunk contest ended with Stoudemire easily winning. He successfully performed a one-handed dunk, an alley-oop reverse dunk and a windmill dunk.

The performance of the other three was mediocre and they had no tricks inside. They mainly focused on dunks. The most difficult action was the pull-bar reverse dunk.

Howard performed a somewhat reluctant one-handed windmill and self-throw and dunk. He dunked well in actual combat, but his movements were very stiff.

Marion was the most surprising. He actually completed a crotch-hand dunk and a half-turn dunk from the baseline. He said that the second movement was called "The Statue of Liberty" and it was quite difficult, but the way he performed it was clearly like the "Liberty Werewolf", and there was nothing aesthetic about the shrinking neck. It was also a crotch dunk, but his performance was completely different from Stoudemire's, and it was extremely ugly.

Marion has the bounce of a slam dunk contest, but does not have the image and temperament of a dunk king, so he has never participated in it and has the self-knowledge not to show off his shame.

After training, Guo Xu went home and watched TV during dinner in the evening. Sports News showed the top five shots from yesterday's game, all of which were dunks. Carter, Richardson, and Swift gave amazing performances.

Guo Xu said with some envy: "It would be great if I could score like this."

Megan asked with a smile: "Didn't you say that you don't dunk in games because you play basketball for health? Have you changed your mind?"

"It's good to dunk occasionally when no one is guarding, but I don't dunk well. Even if I don't dunk in the game, I can still go to the All-Star Weekend to perform." Guo Xu sighed.

In his previous life, "Little Potato" Nate Robinson rarely dunked in games, but he won three dunk titles. This attracted many fans and became a celebrity in the NBA.

Everyone who plays basketball must have dreamed of becoming a flying player who is good at dunking. Pure dunkers who have poor skills and cannot produce good data will indeed have no future, but stars will be more popular if they can dunk beautifully. Kobe, Carter, Howard and others are all examples.

Most players can only dunk normally. Just like Guo Xu, who occasionally dunked in previous seasons, he is too lazy to dunk this season. Anyway, his civilian dunks are not attractive, and they are two points just like layups.

That night, everyone from the Sun flew to Orlando. After checking into the hotel in the early morning, Guo Xu took a rest immediately. He dreamed...