Chapter 452 Supersonic Happy Event

25 consecutive wins, 27 consecutive wins.

Just as ardent Seattle fans and the entire league were waiting for the Sonics to surpass last season's 34-game winning streak, an upset ended the Sonics' winning streak at 27-game winning streak.

January 15th, SuperSonics VS Cleveland Cavaliers.

Compared to the Lakers recruiting Yao Ming, the Wizards recruiting O'Neal and Tracy McGrady, etc., the Cleveland Cavaliers quietly completed a big deal this season.

When the trade market first opened, Lola Ballmer, who is now in charge of the team, had O'Neal as her first target, and she was willing to spend money and offer an absolute maximum salary contract.

But unfortunately, Laura has no assets that can be used for trading.

Although the team's main center Zaxunas is also an All-Star center with a maximum salary contract, it is obviously impossible for the Lakers to agree to complete a one-way swap with O'Neal, and the Lakers want the Cavaliers to send LeBron + Zaxunas It was impossible for Nas's combination to get the Cavaliers' approval, and in the end they had no choice but to let it go.

At the same time, the Bucks want to develop Michael Redd and wanted to trade Ray Allen as early as last season.

In another world, the Bucks traded Ray Allen for Payton, but now Payton's position in the SuperSonics is stable and there is no possibility of a trade, allowing Ray Allen to stay with the Bucks for one more season.

A maximum salary contract, but it overlapped with the shooting guard position that the Bucks wanted to cultivate. The Bucks had long wanted to trade him, so they hit it off with the Cavaliers in the trading market.

The Cavaliers traded All-Star center Zasunas for Ray Allen, and asked Ray Allen to switch to point guard, trying to use Ray Allen's leadership style to lead this young Cavaliers team.

The addition of Ray Allen and his accurate 3-point shooting from the outside, coupled with LeBron and Wade's impact on the inside, make today's Cavaliers full of firepower on the offensive end. When it comes to defense, Wade and LeBron are now at their most energetic. When they are strong, their excellent physical condition, abundant stamina, and desire for results make them not inferior to the league's top defenders on the defensive end.

Ray Allen's defense is similar to Payton's old-school style, full of aggression while maintaining an absolutely focused attitude, which makes the Cavaliers' defense not weak.

But the problem is that the incompatibility of technical styles prevents Ray Allen from showing the desired effect in the point guard position.

What's even more troublesome is that the three major scorers all want the ball, which makes the Cavaliers have a big problem with the distribution of the ball.

The unreasonable distribution of ball rights is only one aspect, causing some minor conflicts in the locker room and affecting team unity. At the same time, it also affects the feel and performance of the three core players.

When the game goes smoothly, the scoring ability of the three major scorers is enough to take away the game in a wave. However, if it does not go smoothly, the three major scorers' dependence on the ball can easily lead to one after another. The emptiness also makes it easy for the Cavaliers to take advantage of the inside advantage of some weak teams and take advantage of the instability of the three to win the game.

This makes the Cavaliers' status this season somewhat ups and downs.

Previously, against a strong team like the Spurs, the three of them felt smooth. They penetrated the Spurs' watertight defense and controlled the rhythm with offense and defense, beating the Spurs with a score of 124:98.

But when they turned around and played against the Raptors, who were last in the Eastern Conference, they lost 88:94 due to the poor touch after the three players rotated the ball.

In the SuperSonics game, the three of them were in an explosive state, and under the SuperSonics' defense, they were forced to "unify the ball." Instead, they performed extremely dazzlingly.

First, when facing Lin Dong's defense, Wade and LeBron played a pick-and-roll.

The connection between these two people has become a tacit understanding after two seasons. The pick-and-roll seems to be so perfect that the defender can't find any gaps to exploit. Even Lin Dong is a little difficult to intercept, but fortunately Sakuragi Hanamichi is there and Battier, relying on the supplementary defense of these two people, they can still stop him in the end.

But the problem is that although they stopped these two people, they couldn't stop Ray Allen.

The restricted Wade and LeBron often had no choice but to distribute the ball after attracting a large number of double-teams from the SuperSonics. Instead, they helped the Cavaliers complete a wave of unification of ball rights.

Facing Payton, whose explosive power is obviously not as good as before, Ray Allen made 12 of 17 outside shots. He was crazy. He could make any number of shots. He not only won the three-point record in a single game this season, but also sent out 11 assists and 45 points. 11 assists, the best record of his career.

On the other hand, the Sonics were beaten by the Cavaliers with their best 3-pointer, which put huge psychological pressure on the Sonics. On the contrary, the Sonics frequently missed shots from outside.

We can only rely on Lin Dong to solve the problem.

But as early as the Olympics, LeBron and Wade had already adapted to Lin Dong's double-teaming, so Lin Dong didn't have many opportunities to make direct shots. He made 17 of 23 shots from the field, although he scored an extremely efficient 44. points, ranking second in the field, but only 5 assists were recorded.

There was no way, the opportunity came and passed, but the shot could not be made. The Cavaliers even led by as much as 15 points in the fourth quarter.

However, in the fourth quarter, Rukawa Kaede, who was replaced by McMillan for a try, made 3 of 4 shots from outside. Together with Lin Dong, they brought the score back a lot. 115:119. The SuperSonics lost their first home game of the season. interrupted their 27-game winning streak.

The failure to break last season's winning streak made SuperSonics fans regretful for a while, but that's the way the game is. If you win, you will lose.

Lin Dong is now more open-minded about these records. The record of 34 consecutive wins is enough to continue the legend in the NBA for many years. It doesn't matter whether it is broken or not.

You can't expect everyone to maintain absolute form and feel in every game. The Sonics also experienced poor outside feel many times during their previous winning streak. It's just that the Cavaliers are better at scoring and more comfortable than those teams. Good at blocking yourself.

If someone catches your weakness, it's normal to lose.

Losing is obviously not a happy thing, but the Sonics' recent team atmosphere is really good, because apart from losing, other things are good.

First, Battier got a big contract, Nike signed him, a five-year premium contract worth 30 million yuan in endorsement fees.

Although nowadays, with the increasing commercial value of the NBA, endorsement fees of hundreds of millions per year for players such as Lin Dong are beginning to appear, but for most ordinary NBA players, the endorsement fees from various brands are still far from that exaggerated. .

Even for a top player in the league like Kobe Bryant, his contract with Nike is only a little over 10 million per year, which is almost equal to his salary in the NBA, and even far less than the 90 million over seven years that Nike offered LeBron when they first took an interest in LeBron.

To put it bluntly, except for phenomenal players like Jordan and Lin Dong who have their own sub-brands in Nike, the endorsement fees of NBA stars and sports brands such as Nike are only equal to or slightly lower than their salary levels, and they all have to Only the top stars of each team can get such contracts. For example, Yao Ming just signed with Nike last year for 50 million for 5 years, and Hanamichi Sakuragi signed for 15 million for 5 years last year. This is because Sakuragi himself is in Japan. charisma, and the honor of being named to the All-Defensive Second Team last year.

And role players like Shane Battier who have not played in the league for four years, have not graduated as rookies, and do not have first-team or second-team honors, can hardly get a truly decent endorsement contract.

And even if you really like him, judging from the fact that the endorsement fee is roughly equal to the salary grade, Shane Battier's salary in the SuperSonics this year is the 3+1 rookie contract he signed with the Grizzlies when he first entered the league in 2001. , this year happens to be +1 item, and the salary is 3.21 million US dollars. If Nike wants to sign Shane Battier, it is enough to give him a 5-year 15 million contract.

However, 30 million in 5 years...

Shane himself couldn't believe he was worth so much money.

I think this is partly due to last year's championship status, and secondly, it is also due to Lin Dong. Maybe Nike is looking at Lin Dong's 'face'...

Frankly speaking, Battier himself doesn’t believe that capital will throw money away just to see who’s in favor, but people are always eager for money, not to mention that Battier is very clear about his current position, and he is more suitable to be a champion puzzle. Rather than being the core of the championship, at the same time, in the era of Lin Dong, Wade, and Yao Ming, my future worth may only be five or six million US dollars in annual salary. The maximum salary is probably something I don't have to think about in my lifetime.

Therefore, if you miss a big endorsement contract of 30 million yuan in 5 years, I’m afraid there won’t be another one, or at least it will have to wait many years.

Of course I signed it without hesitation.

Naturally, it makes everyone on the team happy when their brothers make money, and besides that, there is another good thing that makes them even happier.

There was no game on the 19th. It was the team's normal training day. Hanamichi Sakuragi, a training fiend, was actually late for the first time. And instead of being late by a few minutes, he was absent for the whole morning.

No one picked up the phone when he called him, and no one answered when he called his home phone. The team was a little worried about him after finishing the morning training, but they saw this guy rushing into the stadium with a beaming face.

"Brother Gao Ren!" His whole face turned red with excitement and he raised his fingers at Lin Dong.

Seeing his mysterious look, Lin Dong leaned over and heard Sakuragi Hanamichi excitedly saying in his ear: "I'm going to be a dad! Hahahahaha! My mom and dad were the first to know. , you are the second one, no no, the third one! I couldn’t believe it when Qingzi used that thing to test it yesterday. I went to the hospital for a checkup today... Hahahaha! I can do it! I saw the child’s appearance in the B-ultrasound, oh, he looks as beautiful as Haruko, hahahaha!”

"What do you think, Brother Gao Ren, do you want to be my son's godfather? The same goes for my daughter. I'll give you this privilege! By the way, the doctor said that Haruko should take good care of the fetus in these two months and it's not appropriate to disturb her, so Qingzi said not to tell everyone for the time being... I only told you one person, so you must not tell anyone else!"

Lin Dong looked at him with his mouth wide open.

I still remember that when this boy first dated Haruko, they had been dating for at least a few months, but they were still only holding hands and kissing each other on the mouth. They were also ridiculed by the team for being an old virgin who didn't understand the style.

It turns out that I just got married... No, no, no, I got married later than myself. It's only been two months and I already have a child? !

God, how diligent you are... It’s just that you don’t understand, but it’s amazing once you understand!

Sakuragi Hanamichi was chirping and couldn't help but keep talking excitedly. However, Lin Dong was still shocked when he saw that Sakuragi guy was eyeing Payton again.

"Lao Pei Lao Pei!" He ran over excitedly and put his arms around Peyton's neck: "I'm telling you, I'm going to be a father, and you're going to be a master, hahahahaha! My mother and father were the first I know, and then Brother Gao Ren...you are the fourth one to know..."

"Oh oh oh!" Peyton's mouth opened wide after hearing this: "Then I have to give a big red envelope. Is Qingzi in the hospital or at home? I have to go and see her at night."

"Oh no, no, no, the doctor said that Haruko should take good care of the fetus in these two months... By the way, you must not tell others!"

But Sakuragi Hanamichi stared at Rukawa Kaede who was practicing 3-pointers on the court again: "Fox Fox!"

"...Can you change your name?"

"Tsk, that's not important! Don't be ignorant of good people's hearts. I have only told Dad, Brother Gao Ren, and Lao Pei about this big secret..." He rushed over excitedly and put his arms around Rukawa Kaede's neck: "I will tell you Oh...by the way, don’t tell anyone else!”

Then he saw Chandler again.

"Old money, old money! Let me tell you... you must not tell others!"

Then he saw MacMillan again...

Finally, in less than one afternoon, everyone in the team, no! Even the aunt who sweeps the floor in the arena knows about it.

Sakuragi Hanamichi, this red-haired guy is going to be a father!