Chapter 338 337. Sky-high Contract Renewal
The Bulls, who were halfway through the season, had completed their running-in, were in great form, and were on a winning streak. They were extremely strong and brought unprecedented pressure to the Bobcats.

Especially the Bobcats coaching staff, there is a feeling that they are invincible.

I didn't have this feeling the last time we played against the Lakers.

After the game, Carlisle returned to his office and lamented to his friend, "I thought Jack was gambling in the first quarter to see if he could disrupt the opponent's rhythm. After the game, I realized that he sensed the crisis and attacked with all his strength in the first quarter. If he hadn't led us to a 4-point advantage in the first quarter, the game might have been over at halftime.

It's a pity that we couldn't hold on at the beginning of the fourth quarter. If we could hold on to Yao's fierce attack, we would still have a chance to win."

Vincent: "Yao Tai was in his prime and was unstoppable. He was like O'Neal back then. He only played 26 minutes in the first three quarters. He was in his best form at the beginning of the fourth quarter and we couldn't stop him. We had an advantage in the third quarter, but Hinrich stood up."

Carlisle: "We don't have another top scorer besides Jack, and when Jack needs a break, we don't have anyone who can step up and solve the problem."

Vincent: "Jack is good enough, we can't ask for more. It's not easy to get another top scorer. It's hard to form a team like the OK combination. We can't find an All-Star like Ginobili who is willing to take such a low salary.

We have Jack, Raymond and Emeka, which is already a great core combination. We can patiently wait for them to continue to grow, and all problems can be solved. Don't forget that Jack is only 19 years old. It is rare for him to maintain a stable output and suppress his opponents with his personal ability for a certain period of time. "

Carlisle: "I know, but we have to do our job and find a way to make it easier for Jack to play against strong teams."

Vincent: "We still have room for improvement. If we can make better use of Brad, our offense can continue to improve. If Paul can improve faster, we can always have excellent support points on the court like the Kings did at that time with Divac as the starter and Turkoglu as the substitute, and our offense can be even better."

Carlisle was speechless: "You are always so optimistic."

Vincent retorted: "Who told you to always consider the worst when something happens to you?"

Carlisle: "Take the worst-case scenario into consideration so that you won't be so passive when you encounter problems."

Vincent: "So you and I complement each other. Someone has to stand up and help boost your confidence..."

...

On February 2th, the All-Star break began.

In fact, the All-Star holiday once had another name, which is more popular in football matches - winter break. The All-Star Game was originally scheduled for January, with a total of one week of rest before and after the game. But in the 1s, after Stern became the president of the NBA, he adjusted the All-Star Game time to February after the end of the NFL season. It was no longer in winter, and gradually no one called it by this name.

Of course, Stern made a good adjustment. More than 20 years ago, the All-Star Game was scheduled in January in order to compete with the NFL playoffs in January. An entertainment game and a championship-deciding event competed for the market...

After Stern became the commissioner in 84, he immediately moved the All-Star Game to February. This adjustment changed the role of the All-Star Game from competing with the NFL to attracting football fans to pay attention to basketball after the NFL season ends.

Over the next 20 years, the formerly monotonous All-Star Game was adjusted by adding the Slam Dunk Contest, Three-Point Contest, Rookie Game, and Skills Challenge, resulting in the current All-Star Weekend with a rich variety of events and high worldwide attention.

This time adjustment also divides the regular season into three stages, namely the front, middle and back stages, as referred to by the media. This has created more topics and increased the influence of the Christmas game, killing two birds with one stone.

There are over 60 players participating in the All-Star Weekend every year. For more than 85% of NBA players, this is a pure vacation. They start to rest after the 52nd game. Even players who are going to participate in the All-Star Game, like All-Star starter Okafor, take his wife, children and nephew to Hot Spring City for a two-day and one-night trip.

Another All-Star starter, Yao Ming, was happy about winning the game last night and went to visit a nearby university with Ye Li today.

Felton, who was going to participate in the skills challenge, just finished his game last night and flew to New Orleans early this morning.

He made an agreement with Paul that he must find a safe nightclub and bring the hot girls from New Orleans back to the hotel without being robbed. He was determined to do it.

Zhang Yang's side...

Today is Monday and North Carolina has no game. Harden only has a class in the morning. At noon, he and Tatum came to Charlotte to play with Zhang Yang, but found out that Zhang Yang had to go to the gym for training in the afternoon!
Now that we're here, what else can we do but train together.

After training together for an entire afternoon, it was dinner time and Harden and Tatum had a rare good meal. Being guys in their teens and twenties, they ate like crazy and the three of them ate up all the food at the table.

After the meal, Harden patted his bulging belly and praised his uncle for his good cooking skills. Zhang Chen smiled. Erha gave a lot of emotional value.

After Zhang Yang's parents left, Harden complained to Zhang Yang: "You have to play 100 games a season. You finally have a few days of rest, but you still spend it on the training ground."

Zhang Yang: "We lost the game yesterday. I am unwilling to accept this. I don't want to go anywhere today. I just want to practice."

Harden: "You are already good enough, how much better do you want to be?"

Zhang Yang: “We are different.”

Harden: "It's different. I've played for several years, and you've been practicing for only one year and you're better than me... Humph, just wait and see. When I enter the NBA, the gap between us will get smaller and smaller. One day, I'll be the second Compton again!"

Zhang Yang: “…”

You work so hard just to get second place?
After complaining in his heart, Zhang Yang asked, "Are you going to watch the All-Star Game this year? AJ has prepared a chartered plane for me, and there are plenty of seats."

Harden and Tatum were both tempted, but after looking at each other, Tatum said, "No, we are competing with Duke for the first place in the division. Although we only have a game on Thursday this week, we have training scheduled for the weekend and can't delay it."

Harden: "Yes, I am also competing with Lawson for the main point guard position. He is very strong and highly valued by the head coach. I have to surpass him in every aspect to keep the starting position that I have finally snatched."

Zhang Yang: "Okay... but aren't we leading by two wins? We should have played 21 games now, and there are only 9 games left. Can we still feel pressure?" Speaking of this, Tatum showed an unwilling expression and responded: "We lost to Davidson College last Saturday. The guy who only knew how to shoot made 8 three-pointers and finally made two three-pointers in a row to kill us. Our record became 19 wins and 2 losses, and we are only one game ahead of Duke."

Davis College…oh, Golden State LaVine’s team.

Because Ronaldinho and Erha are in college, he still pays close attention to college affairs, but he pays less attention to them after the middle of the season. Unlike the early stage of the season, he would take a look at the news reports after every North Carolina game.

Davidson College is not a member of the Big Six, but the North-South Conference they are in has a total of 11 universities, and is also a league with relatively strong overall strength outside of the Big Six.

During the divisional civil war, Curry led Davidson College to create team history, winning all 20 games in the North-South Conference, winning the division championship and qualifying to compete for the top three spots.

Last Saturday, in the first match of the qualifying stage of Davidson College, they actually beat North Carolina!
The team ranked first with 19 wins and 1 loss in the North Carolina division, and has automatically qualified for the Crazy stage. It is now striving to improve its record in order to compete for the status of the seeded team in the four major groups in the Crazy stage. Its competitors are not only Duke, but also the top teams in the other six top leagues.

The top spot in the group depends on a team's comprehensive capabilities in all aspects, but the most important thing, of course, is the record of the entire regular season.

From Tatum's tone, Zhang Yang could tell that the alumni might have been careless when playing against the minor league team, which led to the upset, but Curry was able to seize the opportunity to lead the team to victory, which shows his ability.

He is indeed a genius who was chosen by Nelson and averaged 17+4+5 in his rookie season, second only to Tyreke Evans.

That night, Zhang Yang went to bed early, and Harden and Tatum, who stayed at Zhang Yang's house, stayed up all night... playing various game consoles in Zhang Yang's game room.

The next morning, when Zhang Yang got up, he was speechless to see Harden and Tatum had fallen asleep on the sofa in the game room.

When he first started working, Zhang Yang bought a lot of game consoles, thinking that he could play them to his heart's content when he had free time in the future.

But after he really started working, all those game consoles were covered in dust. Every time a new game console came out or he remembered some fun games, he would buy them, but they would still be covered in dust after he bought them. Some of the cartridges and discs had never even been opened.

Apart from playing Warcraft with Yao Ming and occasionally turning on the game console, he doesn't know what to play now. He no longer has the joy of fighting for the controller with the Compton Three Kings at DeRozan's house.

So when Zhang Yang saw Harden and Tatum having so much fun yesterday, shouting "I won't sleep until the moon sleeps", he didn't stop them. Tatum is expected to play in college for another two years, and only after graduation will he have a chance to impact the NBA. He will most likely play in overseas leagues and can still play for two years.

After this season, Harden will probably participate in the draft, and he probably won't have the time or energy to play games after that.

哈登大一赛季赛区阶段比赛，20场场均16.6分5.4板5.9助攻，自1995年过后，只有两名球员在一级联盟打出过场均15+5+5的表现——罗伊和韦德，且哈登是唯一一个大一新生。

Zhang Yang expected that Harden, who was competitive, would be so aggressive in his freshman year.

After all, the original idiot, without much ambition, played in college for two years and became the third pick in the 09 draft. With his talent, he could easily become one of the best players in college.

Harden has been working hard since his sophomore year in high school. His talents have been effectively developed during his growth period, so it is normal for him to become one of the best players in the United States in his freshman season.

Last Christmas, Harden was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and was named the most promising rookie.

In January, when the college winter break ended and the league resumed operations, Fox Sports made predictions for this year's draft, and Harden had become a favorite in the lottery area.

Having won the first place in the division, if Harden performs well enough in the next three games, he can be expected to be in the top three.

When thinking of this, Zhang Yang thought of this year's No. 1 draft pick... One of the important reasons why Rose can become the No. 1 draft pick is that he is from Chicago. The Bulls will definitely not be able to get the No. 1 pick. It is really hard to say who will be the No. 1 draft pick this year. At present, the biggest favorites are still Beasley and Mayo.

He is somewhat looking forward to this year's draft, wanting to see how different it will be from what he remembers.

DeRozan also performed well in Kentucky. In his freshman season, he averaged 17.9 points, 5.3 rebounds and 1.5 assists per game. Together with Joe Crawford and Jodie Meeks, he led the Kentucky Wildcats, which had been silent for two years, to become strong again.

Of course, their performance is not as good as North Carolina's, but it is not bad. Last season, the Kentucky Wildcats only achieved a record of 9 wins and 7 losses in the division stage, ranking fourth in the division. They had to compete in the qualifying round to get a place in the Mad Three. This season, they have 12 wins and 4 losses, ranking second in the division after the University of Memphis led by Rose. Although they are not qualified to compete for the seeded team, they also directly advanced to the Mad Three. Now they are striving for a higher group ranking. The top eight can play against opponents with lower strength, and the bottom eight can only play against stronger opponents.

If DeRozan runs for the draft this year, his prospects are good and he is predicted to be in the middle of the first round. His template is Vince Carter. If he continues his current momentum, he may enter the lottery.

...

In order not to disturb the two college students who were playing games all night and catching up on their sleep, Zhang Yang called Coach Lu, who would come to Zhang Yang's house at noon to pick them up and send them back to school.

After Zhang Yang finished his morning exercise and ate the breakfast brought by the nutritionist, at around 8 o'clock, Telem came to his house to pick him up and head to the Balancan District.

This year's All-Star weekend has 8 days of rest, but he actually only had one day of rest yesterday. He had work this morning and went to New Orleans in the afternoon. He has business activities for the next 1 days. He will play the All-Star Game on Sunday and return to the team next Monday. The regular season will continue next Tuesday.

Today's work is very important to Zhang Yang and Tellem. How much of their income will be in the next few years depends on the amount discussed today.

The negotiation process was quite different from what Zhang Yang had imagined. He thought that business negotiations were a game of intrigue, testing, compromise, talking about feelings, ideals, and making big promises.

The actual situation is that the person in charge of Tellem and Hook yelled at each other like shrews, just like the dispute over the vote in the Eagle Sauce Parliament...

After a morning of friendly negotiations, Tellem had the last laugh.

At noon, Nike, AJ and Zhang Yang held a joint press conference and announced that Zhang Yang had renewed his contract with AJ until 4 at a price of US$9600 million for 4 years, with a bonus of up to US$1000 million over 2012 years!
(End of this chapter)