Chapter 28: Making the Lakers Great Again

As soon as the game ended, Zick Hearn shouted at Li Wan: “Man, you are really amazing, keep it up, I look forward to your more crazy performance!” ”

The Lakers live commentator, who is on every Lakers home night, hasn’t been so excited about a rookie’s performance in a long time.

Li Wan nodded with a smile, but his eyes were a little serious. His stats were okay in this game, but from Jeff’s defensive strategy and the match with Gerard Wallace with the ball, he exposed two problems.

The first problem is that as he gradually gains some fame, the coaching staff of other teams in the league are already watching his game and studying him;

The second problem is that his ability to hold the ball is a bit inadequate when it comes to players with physical qualities above him, such as Gerard Wallace.

It seems necessary to study your own video and spend more time on the off-ball running end.

This is the solution that Li Wan can think of.

His current progress is fast enough, but his own foundation is too poor. Now that the regular season is just around the corner, his ability to hold the ball is unlikely to increase by leaps and bounds in just three or five days.

Then you can only think more about how to better combine your strengths.

On the 22nd and 24th, after playing two more preseason games, the Lakers played all the games before the regular season.

The team’s preseason record is 3-3, just half the winner and loser, and no one cares.

In six preseason games, Li Wan averaged 28.6 minutes per game, scoring 16.5 points, 3 rebounds, 2.5 assists and 1 steal. He shot 43.5 percent from the field, 39.7 percent from three-point range and 86.6 percent from the free-throw line.

Among them, he averaged 16.5 points per game to beat Kevin Durant and other celestial heroes, ranking first among rookies in the 07th class.

This performance led ESPN to rank him 4th in the ’07 when predicting the “best rookie” of the new season, and in this list of the most likely players to win the “best rookie”, only Li Wan rookie is after the first round 15th. He is higher in position than Mike Conley.

This shows how much attention his performance has attracted in the pre-season of the league.

After six preseason games, Phil Jackson found Li Wan again.

“As I said before, I will use you as the sixth man of the team in the new season, and I can clearly tell you that 20 minutes is only the beginning, not the end, how much time you can have, it’s up to you, you know, “Soul Train” only provides a stage, whether you can become a star depends on your own efforts!” ”

“Okay, Coach Phil, I don’t think I will disappoint you either! ”

Li Wan expressed his attitude very confidently.

It’s not that after the preseason, he is blindly confident, he knows that the NBA preseason is a completely different intensity from the regular season, and his test has just begun.

But this alliance has always been like this, the winner survives, the loser leaves.

Li Wan is not afraid of competition.

Phil Jackson didn’t say anything more, he re-emphasized these things, nothing more than to express his position.

In the past two days, many media have gradually noticed that Kupchek continues to accept trade offers from other teams for Li Wan, and they believe that the Lakers still have the possibility of trading Li Wan. Phil Jackson had to pick himself out.

Li Wan was quite excited to get this guarantee.

Of course, he himself will not be satisfied with the position of the sixth man of the team, whether it is from his personal goals or the tasks that need to be completed to upgrade the system, the sixth man of the team is just the beginning!

Arriving at the arena as usual, Odom saw him and handed him several newspapers.

“You’re famous, you’re famous, you now have a nickname, Trash Talk! ”

Li Wan took the newspaper and looked at it twice, he knew that the news, the origin was ESPN’s clip video, they cut out all the conversations between Li Wan and his opponent in 6 preseason games, and found that he was a “language master”, and they went to read Li Wan’s dialogue with his opponent on the NCAA court, the same outrageous, the degree of golden sentences is comparable to “if it is better than basketball, it is really several times stronger than you”, “the villain died of talking too much”.

The nicknames “Trash Kid” and “Dirty Talk Kid” are all over the place.

I didn’t expect that my first nickname after entering the NBA was actually this…

He didn’t know how saying two trash words caused such a reaction, there are many “trash talk” masters in the league, and I don’t see a few who have received similar nicknames because of this.

Just because he’s new? Or is it because of his identity as a Chinese player?

After all, these Chinese players in the NBA, only he will rattle and spray with opponents.

In the end, Li Wan concluded that what about him, this may have some impact on his image, and scolding is not a positive image.

But if he wants to eat by his face, he went to be a trainee early, and the practice time is estimated to be almost two and a half years now.

There is one less person in the locker room today.

All six preseason games were over, and the Lakers traded Maurice Evans for a small amount of cash.

Morris was in the shower when he learned the news, and he calmly cleaned up his locker room closet. When Li Wan played a brilliant performance, he knew that he was gone.

Losing to such a newcomer, he has nothing to complain about.

Or he doesn’t have a chance to complain either.

The name tag on his locker cabinet was removed by staff after he left.

There was no trace of Morris in this room at all. Even if Morris played 10 games with the Lakers last season…

This is the NBA.

The other two rookies, Marcus Williams and Carl, are only partially guaranteed contracts, worth only about 200,000 yuan, mainly to fill the lineup. In addition, the team’s water dispenser also needs to be watched.

The Lakers officially confirmed the thirteen-man roster for the new season:

“Point guards: Fisher, Jordan Farmar, Carl;

Quarterbacks: Kobe Bryant, Li Wan, Vújasic, Marcus Williams;

Small forwards: Luke Walton, Radmanovic;

Power forwards: Odom, Ronnie Turiaf;

Centre: Bynum, Kwame Brown; ”

The two positions vacated are Kupchek’s preparations for subsequent reinforcements, mainly to give Kobe Bryant’s imagination.

This list unexpectedly caused a “war of words” in China.

Some “Li Hei” said that Li Wan could play out, mainly because of luck, and there was no one on the Lakers guard line, so he was reused by Phil Jackson, compared to him, Yi Jianlian is much more competitive in the Bucks’ No. 4 position.

It can be seen from this list that Li Wan’s competition in the Lakers is not small, the iron starters Derek Fisher Jackson and Kobe Bryant, and behind them stand a Jordan Farmar and Vu Jasic, these are actually players competing with Li Wan for the playing position.

Li Wan’s ability to win the position of the “sixth man” of the Lakers is not “Phil Jackson is useless” as “Li Hei” said, but it is really spelled out by his own strength.

ESPN listed a power ranking before the official arrival of the regular season, and the Lakers are currently in 16th place. That is, eighth in the West, barely reaching the playoff position.

Most ESPN experts are not as optimistic as the Los Angeles media, who do not expect Bynum the “Baby Shark” to undergo a qualitative transformation this season.

In addition, the sense of surprise brought by Li Wan was not enough to make this team rise to a higher level.

“He’s going to be a great newcomer, but that’s about it! ”

They believe the Lakers’ best situation this year is just standing still.

Due to ESPN’s disapproval, the Lakers shouted their slogan for the new season: “Make the Lakers great again!” ”

As soon as the slogan came out, it shocked the Lakers fans with goosebumps, this slogan was so morale-boosting that they couldn’t wait for the opener to start immediately, and then shout this slogan in the audience at Staples!

Get up early and ask for votes, brother cute!!!

(End of chapter)


Tap the screen to use advanced tools Tip: You can use left and right keyboard keys to browse between chapters.

You'll Also Like