The Whip of the God of Basketball

After returning to the MGM Grand Hotel, the two guards saw that Leon did not go to the casino, but returned to his room. They breathed a sigh of relief and went back to report to Shangfeng. At this time, Leon had no intention of gambling. Gambling in the NBA off-season was much more exciting and enjoyable than winning money in the casino.

Back in the room, Leon first called the housekeeping department and asked them to send some large pieces of white paper and a carbon pen. After getting these things, he cleaned everything on the coffee table and spread the white paper on the coffee table. , and began to scribble on it with a carbon pen.

This is a habit of Leon in the off-season. When thinking about the current situation, he will sort out all the news, rumors, ideas, and details in his mind, and write them on a large paper in the form of pictures, tables, and text. Everything seems clear at a glance.

Just over a week has passed since the defeat in the finals on June 15. The entire NBA has cooled down from the fiery atmosphere of last season and is beginning to brew a storm for the next season. This is the case in the NBA. It goes back and forth from season to season. One good show has just ended, and the next one begins to be planned behind the scenes. In fact, before the finals are over, those teams that entered the offseason early have already started their actions.

"Starting in the West...The Timberwolves waived Rakochevic, and Houston traded a future draft pick for Jeff Van Gundy, which is not good news for Yao...The Nuggets signed three free agents The players are all on short contracts... There is also Jeff Trepnier, and it seems that Miller is quite loyal... That's pretty much it for the Western Conference, and there are no big moves for the time being... But... "Leon is in his mind. Let’s first review some of the current small moves of the Western Conference teams. Generally speaking, there is nothing worthy of special attention, and the impact of the Western Conference teams on the Celtics is not particularly great.

However, the Timberwolves' move to lay off Rakcevic still caught Leon's attention. This marksman from Serbia was selected by the Timberwolves in 2000. He came to the United States in the 2003 season and spent a relatively unsuccessful season with the Timberwolves. He played 42 games and averaged only 1.9 points per game. It was expected that he would be waived. Obviously, it is difficult for a player with a European style of play like him to adapt to the NBA. European players are most popular in the NBA on the inside and forwards, but it is difficult for defenders to gain a foothold. Even a genius like Petrovic had to suffer a lot before he could really make a career in the NBA.

"The Timberwolves only have a few point guards in total. Stecleland is old and useless, Weeks is not worth mentioning, and the only one left is Henderson, but his performance this year is purely to catch a duck... It seems that the Timberwolves There will definitely be action on the point guard position in the draft." Leon is well aware of the lineup status of each team. Point guard is a very important position for a team. Any team wants to supplement the position. Strong, the first consideration is to place a reliable candidate at the point guard. Since the Timberwolves laid off Rakochevich, they don't have a good reserve of point guards in their own team. It seems that they will most likely strengthen their point guards through trades.

Leon knows that if the Celtics want to get Garnett, the trade will definitely be carried out after the draft. And if the Timberwolves strengthen through trades before the draft and give Garnett hope, then the Celtics will want to get Garnett again. Garnett's difficulty will be greatly increased, so blocking the Timberwolves trade will also become one of Leon's tasks.

After thinking about this, Leon drew a circle where he wrote about the Timberwolves. Next, he wanted to analyze the situation in the East. He moved the pen to the right side of the big paper, but he didn't write anything for a long time, because since the playoffs so far, the entire Eastern Conference team has basically made no substantive moves.

The only substantive action that made him worthy of attention was that after the Eastern Conference Finals, the Detroit Pistons fired their head coach Rick Carlisle and hired former 76ers coach Larry Brown. This is very important news for Leon, but his current thoughts are on how to trade for Kevin Garnett. Regarding the issue of Rick Carlisle, he has to put it aside.

Returning his attention to player operations, Leon's memory is excellent. Basically from the beginning of the playoffs to now, he knows all the rumors about the actions of all teams. Now every team in the Eastern Conference There are only rumors and intentions, but no substantive actions, so he has to find information that is beneficial to him from those clues of intentions.

The most eye-catching trade in the Eastern Conference this season was not the Celtics sending away Joe Johnson for P.J. Brown, but the big deal the Milwaukee Bucks made in February. Core player Ray Allen, along with a draft pick, acquired veteran point guards Gary Payton and Desmond Mason from the Seattle SuperSonics.

This is undoubtedly a strange transaction. The Bucks originally had three Musketeers, namely point guard, shooting guard and forward, which complemented each other. Now they have given away Ray Allen and got Gary Payton, another point guard. Ball defender, position conflict with Sam Cassell. Moreover, both of them are notoriously foul-mouthed, and it would be inappropriate for them to serve as substitutes. As a result, the Bucks created a strange starting lineup with two point guards.

Such a strange backcourt lineup will naturally not have any good results. They were eliminated by the Nets early in the first round and went home to fish. And this summer, the Bucks will definitely make other moves. Seven years ago, they traded for Ray Allen in the 1996 draft. After seven years of ups and downs, he was finally sent away. The Bucks held the No. 8 pick in the 2003 draft. , it seems that they will start a new round of reconstruction again.

"Payton has just been traded, and it seems unlikely that he will be sent away. If Payton doesn't leave, Cassel will be the only one left... The Timberwolves happen to be short of point guards..." Leon couldn't help but think of Cassel. It has been linked to the Timberwolves. If the Timberwolves get an old player like Cassel, their strength will definitely improve a lot.

Thinking of the Bucks, Leon thought of two rumors he had heard recently. The first was that the Bucks wanted to complete a deal with the Magic and send away two unknown people in exchange for some cash. This kind of news was only mentioned in one sentence in the media pages, but Leon tasted it carefully and tasted it.

Leon has been immersed in NBA drafts and trades for many years, and he knows that such player-for-cash transactions are most likely to free up salary space for future transactions. Combined with another rumor, it is recently rumored that Michael Jordan will take over the Bucks as the boss. When the new boss takes office, there will definitely be big moves. This shows that the Bucks will definitely complete Cassel's transaction before and after the draft.

If you don't want this kind of transaction to happen, there are two ways. One is to rob it, exchange better chips for the Bucks' favor, and get Cassel. But Cassel's contract next season will reach more than 5 million. To get Cassel, one of Arenas and Reid must be included in the trade list. The combined contract of these two rookies is only more than 200. Wan, Leon will not give such a high-quality rookie contract to the Bucks.

The second method is to interfere with it, delay the transaction, or even cause the transaction to abort. There are many ways to delay the transaction, such as reporting the transaction violation to the league before the opponent's transaction begins, because the Timberwolves have the example of Smith's yin and yang contract and have been on the watch list, and once the league intervenes in the investigation, the transaction will definitely be postponed. Finally, another example is to encourage Cassel to ask for a big contract. Cassel's contract will expire next season. If Cassel requires a contract commitment from the Timberwolves before he is willing to be traded, it will undoubtedly have an impact on the completion of the transaction.

With these calculations in his mind, Leon was confident. He listed his plans and ideas on the paper one by one, and opened a timetable in the middle. In the following days, he will pay close attention to each team. Team news until the official start of the draft.

After staying in Las Vegas for another two days, Leon decided to leave and go to New York, where the 2003 NBA draft was about to begin. He had two things to do before the feast began.