At the West Hollywood Hotel in Beverly Hills, Sun Ce and his family will spend two nights with his teammates, coaching staff and others, of which Sun Ce's parents and grandfather will spend three nights and go directly back to Memphis next Monday, and Sun Ce and the team will fly directly to Minneapolis that night after playing the Lakers.

In the courtyard of a suite with a courtyard in the hotel, Grizzlies owner Robert Pera is sipping red wine with one of the owners of a team in the same division.

"It's not very difficult, I won't have anything to lose, but why should I help you? As a competitor, I'd rather see your team fall apart. Cuban looked at the young man in front of him with a playful look.

Unlike the image of the middle-aged man who looked hot-tempered on the side of the court, Cuban had a completely different temperament when talking about business.

"You'll help me because you're coming." Robert Pera was not shocked by Cuban's aura, he was able to become a billionaire at a young age, and naturally had two brushes.

Cuban stared at Robert Pera for a long time and smiled, "Of course, I'm willing to work with you." ”

"Cooperation?" Robert Pera's eyes lit up.

"Yes, not to help you, but to cooperate." Cuban said and took a sip of his wine.

Don't owe favors easily, but don't give favors easily.

Favors, whether owed to others or owed by others, are not a good thing.

The best business is the business that is cashed out immediately.

"What do you want?"

"I don't want anything now, we're still opponents."

"I love the answer......"

……

Seeing off Cuban, Robert Pera returned to the suite's living room, where Coach Hollins and Chris Wallace were chatting.

"Robert, did Cuban say yes?" Chris Wallace asked.

"He agreed to convince those guys to come together and propose to the league to change the salary terms regarding rookie contract extensions, and with him on board, there is no need to worry about it." Robert Pera said and sat down on the couch with a sense of relief.

It has been more than a month since the beginning of February, and he has been lobbying in many ways to win more teams to complete this together.

However, it was not so smooth, and the owners of the big city teams almost did not agree, but only stated that they would not refuse the matter.

Big city teams are blessed with high exposure, a willingness to spend money on role players, and relatively speaking, they can rely on lower salaries to attract stars, and they don't need to use higher salaries to keep their team's selected talents, who are not willing to leave.

And if the terms are not changed, the salaries of players whose rookie contracts expire in these big city teams are still higher than those of other teams, and in all respects, they are not worried about their young players running away, and the change in terms will only add additional salary expenses to them.

Big city teams, apart from the Bulls, no other team has expressed support.

On the contrary, most of the owners of small-city teams agreed, preferring to spend their money on the star they had developed, and after changing this clause, the parent team gave players whose rookie contracts expired several percentage points higher than other teams.

Players whose rookie contracts expire are offered by other teams, and the starting salary and annual salary increase will be lower than the parent team that owns the bird rights, and according to the terms proposed by Robert Pera, the salary gap will be even greater than the original salary gap.

In every way, this is undermining the attractiveness of big city teams, who have to pay more for their rookies and become less attractive to the young stars of other teams, so naturally they will not agree, and of course they will not explicitly refuse, but they will not take a stand.

There had to be a well-connected person to deal with that, so the Grizzlies approached Cuban here.

Yesterday Robert Pera came to Los Angeles with Randolph and invited Cuban here to have fun, and today he brought it up, made some promises, and finally got Cuban done, and Robert Pera felt an indescribable sense of accomplishment.

It's not about making money, it's just a hobby, just like people who like to play strategy games, they may be spending money, but that sense of accomplishment makes him willing to put in the effort and money.

"Can we talk to Noah about renewing the contract now?" Chris Wallace asked eagerly.

"No, Chris, we don't have to worry about the free market, there may not be a free market this year,

We have three months to go, and you go to the professional agencies and calculate the salary cap for next season, and you start with the expected salary cap, the salary structure of our team, the contract renewal plan, the maximum expectation of the terms of the change...... These aspects are used to calculate the contract that can be given to Noah, and when we end this season, when the change clause becomes the hottest topic in the NBA, we will directly give the best offer to Noah and announce it. "Robert Pera has made his plans clear.

"I see, if the terms change is lower than expected, I don't think Noah will blame us, it's an official NBA problem."

"That's right......"

Robert Pera and Chris Wallace had a nice chat, but Coach Hollins didn't talk much.

He was a player back then, and now he is a head coach, and Coach Hollins rarely has a side job with management, and in his opinion, these things are too troublesome, so it is better to be a good head coach and study how to lead the team.

The more I dig deeper, the more worried I am that one day the team's stars will run out......

Because the more I learned, the more I felt that the small city team was too miserable, and the big city team was like a vampire, and they asked their small city team to draw 200CC for them as a snack in three days.

……

……

The management side has been working on the team's future plan for more than a month, and the Grizzlies players have no impact at all, and they don't even know about it.

Only occasionally I see the media hype "talented rookie players being squeezed", but the impact is not particularly great, and there are not many fans who discuss this during the season, and the players estimate that they will not really have influence until the draft stage.

After resting in the hotel for an afternoon and having dinner at five o'clock, Sun Ce took his parents, Wang Keying, Zu Ge, plus Coach Hollins and Robert Pera, and set off together, arriving at the Staples Center at nearly 7 o'clock.

Before the Lakers face the Grizzlies, there is also a key battle, the Lakers vs. the Mavericks.

The Lakers have two consecutive games with live broadcast on the imperial court, tonight's game starts at 8 p.m. Los Angeles time, and now it has entered daylight saving time, that is, the domestic game starts at 11 o'clock in the morning, and domestic students can watch Yao Ming in the cafeteria or at home at lunchtime, and the Grizzlies will challenge the Lakers the night after tomorrow The time is the same.

Riding the boss's luxury car to the Staples Center staff parking lot, Sun Ce's family was separated from the team's coach and boss, because Yao Ming brought Nowitzki, a star teammate, to pick up Sun Ce and others, according to the regulations, NBA team owners and head coaches are not allowed to contact and communicate with players from other teams in private.

Although Wang Keying and Zu Ge were used to seeing Sun Ce's family of three, they had to tilt their heads up when they saw Yao Ming......

"Hello uncle and aunt, Xiaobawang, Chloe, Juanjuan, long time no see." Yao Ming came up to greet Sun Ce's family, "This is Dirk...... Dirk, this is Noah's father, mother, girlfriend, sister......"

Yao Ming has seen Sun Ce's family a long time ago, Sun Ce's mother and Zu Ge have seen it as early as Turkey, Wang Keying has seen it more often, and Sun Ce's father has also met once during the All-Star Weekend.

Sun Ce's father is very popular now, there is news when he first arrives in Los Angeles, Nowitzki also knows Sun Ce's Internet celebrity father, and he is very interested, and said enthusiastically: "Hello, I'm Dirk......"

Before Nowitsky could finish introducing himself, Zu Ge suddenly exclaimed: "Brother, this is what you said about the Silver Horn King!" ”

"Ahem, cough, cough ......" Sun Ce was so frightened that he coughed several times in a row, but fortunately, the sister used Chinese.

In the afternoon, when Sun Ce talked to the family about Yao Ming's new team and what teammates he had, he said that Yao Ming's most powerful teammate looked like the Silver Horn King......

Yao Ming couldn't help but laugh when he heard the exclamation of the ancestral goose, and took a closer look...... It's like! Why didn't you find it before?

Sun Ce's mother blamed but doted on the little head of the ancestral goose, and the ancestral goose stuck out her tongue and said it accidentally.

Nowitzki's head was full of question marks, and after seeing a little loli pointing at him and saying a word, a group of people were laughing, looking at Yao Ming in confusion.

"Uh...... Ah......" Yao Ming didn't know how to explain, and he didn't know if he would offend his strongest partner.

At this time, Sun Ce took the initiative to say: "Dirk, in addition to your skin color, you look very similar to the famous characters in a classic TV series "Journey to the West" in our country, and my sister has liked to watch "Journey to the West" since she was a child. ”

"Really? That's cool! Yao, you must give me a set of that TV series. Nowitzki said to Yao Ming.

Except that the skin color is different...... Yao Ming is angry and funny, that is called a different complexion? The species are all different, okay!

Wang Keying was next to Sun Ce's parents as an interpreter, and the two couldn't hold back their laughter this time.

After greeting each other for a while, they separated, Sun Ce and the others went to the stadium to meet the boss and Coach Hollins to wait for the game, and Yao Ming and Nowitzki went to make the final preparations before the game.

……

At eight o'clock in the evening, the game between the Lakers and the Mavericks began.

Sun Ce asked Wang Keying to bring his parents to Los Angeles together, mainly to get together more, and let Wang Keying take his parents and chatty sister to Los Angeles to walk around tomorrow.

From a work point of view, take a look at the game between the Lakers and the Mavericks, see these two interior giants play each other directly, and analyze the opponent.

If it was before the Spurs rested, the two teams might not be so serious about playing each other, but now that they have a chance to win the first place in the West, and the regular season championship is very likely to be a matter of one or two wins, the two teams will definitely be very serious.

The Lakers and Mavericks are among the three teams with the best records in the league after the All-Star weekend, the other is the Heat in the East, all three teams have only lost one game, the Heat have all finished third in the East, and the Grizzlies are not as good as these three teams.

After the game began, both the Mavericks and the Lakers showed super defense, and Sun Ce frowned as he sat on the sidelines and watched the confrontation between the two teams.

Artest vs. Marion, Bynum vs. Yao Ming, Kobe Bryant vs. DeSean Stevenson, Fisher vs. Kidd...... Except for Nowitzki and Pau Gasol a little "civilized", the other four positions are like fighting.

In addition to the confrontation between the players, there is also the duel between the head coach, the stable performance of skills and tactics under the high confrontation, and the detailed grasp of the head coach will determine the direction of the game.

The Lakers trailed 44-50 at halftime and by eight points at 65-73 at the end of the third quarter.

The reason the Lakers fell behind was that Kobe Bryant shot 1 of 14 in the first three quarters! If it weren't for his 4-of-4 free throws, 6 assists, and 3 steals on the defensive end, he would have had a lot of pits, and even those performances would have looked like pits.

The Lakers were not stretched to a point difference of more than 10 points in the first three quarters, purely relying on Bynum's super performance of 22 points in the third quarter.

Bynum doesn't think about his brains, he is really a talent in terms of playing, he is not afraid of O'Neal in his rookie year, he is now 23 years old, and he is not afraid of Yao Ming and Chandler, and Bynum broke out in the first three quarters of 9 of 12, 4 of 6 free throws, and slashed 22 points, 11 rebounds and 2 blocks.

However, in the fourth quarter, the situation changed abruptly.

Kobe Bryant, who scored only 6 points in the first three quarters and shot only 7 percent from the field, scored 4 consecutive shots in the final quarter...... The Lakers directly made a wave of 8-0 to tie the score!

In the final quarter, Kobe Bryant was 7 of 8 in a single quarter, including 2 of 3 three-pointers, and after 4 consecutive mid-range shots at the beginning of the fourth quarter, the Mavericks were crazy to defend him, Kobe Bryant took advantage of the opponent's tight defense to burst into the basket and caused two fouls to get 4 free throws, plus a pull-up dunk under the basket, Kobe Bryant, who scored 20 points in the final quarter, raised the score to the season average alive, and led the team to a score of 33-20 in a single quarter.

In the end, relying on Kobe's 20 points in the final quarter and Bynum's 28+14, the Lakers defeated the Mavericks 98-93 and won two consecutive wins.

This contest is absolutely amazing!

Sun Ce saw the Mavericks steadily suppressing the Lakers in the first three quarters, thinking that the Lakers were going to be beaten.

Yao Ming played 14 minutes in the first three quarters, scoring 13 points on 5-of-8 shooting, Nowitzki scored 19 points in the third quarter, and Kidd also had eight assists in the first three quarters, and defended well, allowing the Lakers to score only 65 points in the first three quarters.

Who knew that in the last quarter, Kobe Bryant scored 20 points and 3 assists in a single quarter, plus Bynum who scored 6 points in the final quarter, Blake who scored two three-pointers, and Artest made one of two free throws, and the Lakers actually turned the tables!

……

After the All-Star Weekend, Sun Ce watched two games of the Lakers, one was a live broadcast of the game between the Lakers and the Spurs, and the other was a live view, and both games made Sun Ce very different from his original impression of this season.

Although he was already feeling the differences as the season went on, the more he got to the end of the season, the more strange it became.

Big Gasol really has the feeling of being the league's number one big forward, after Stoudemire was injured, Big Gasol's overall performance so far is definitely the best among all the big forwards in the league, Nowitzki and Randolph are a head behind Big Gasol, and in the case that the two fronts were dominated by Durant and James, Big Gasol almost locked the second team.

Just tonight, Nowitzki's 26 points and 6 boards, compared with Gasol Gasol with 15 points, 11 boards, 6 assists and 2 blocks, Sun Ce's post-game evaluations almost all thought that Gasol performed better.

And Kobe Bryant's key ball......

After watching two Lakers games, Sun Ce was even more jealous of the Mavericks, how terrible does Nowitzki have to be in this year's playoffs to sweep the Lakers?

If the Mavericks played according to the Lakers at the beginning, so that Sun Ce could clearly feel how strong the Mavericks were, this unknown but worry was even more torturous.

After returning to the hotel, Sun Ce discussed the Lakers with Battier, Tony Allen, Gasol Jr., and Conley, who watched the live broadcast of the game in the hotel.

The five unanimously agreed that the Lakers are playing no worse this year than last year!

Kobe Bryant, who averages 26+5+5 per game, Bynum, the league's third center, Da Gasol, one of the best interior lines, and Odom, the best sixth man, the core lineup is still strong, and the bench lineup is more powerful than last year, Blake and Barnes have made up for the aging problems of Fisher and Artest.

Kobe Bryant played so badly in the first three quarters, Yao Ming, Nowitzki, and Kidd performed so well, and they couldn't pull the difference apart, when Kobe played poorly, Bynum had more opportunities, mainly offensive rebounds, and Kobe gave Bynum 5 offensive rebounds.

Of course, this game gave a lot of inspiration to the Grizzlies, the Mavericks did a good job in the first three quarters of the defense of the core combination of Kobe Bryant and Odom, and the Lakers kept the point difference in the top three to be not pulled apart, and it can be said that most of them were supported by Pau Gasol and Bynum, Blake, Barnes and others.

Kobe Bryant couldn't deal with DeSean Stevenson and Kidd hitting 4 mid-range shots in a row, and the Mavericks were stunned by the shots, but this was an unexpected situation, and the Mavericks did a really good job of defending in the first three quarters.

There are many things to learn from Sun Ce and the team's four major defensive masters to analyze and study the Lakers.

On the other hand, the coaching staff is also learning from the Mavericks' style of play, and they are all working together to study how to play the Lakers.

Counting the game the day after tomorrow, the Grizzlies will play against the Lakers twice this season, and the next time will be the penultimate game of the regular season, and the night after tomorrow to play the Lakers, for the Grizzlies it is more about the strength of the Lakers team that has a 10-1 record after the All-Star weekend, but there can be no slack!

……

……

On March 12, Sun Ce and his teammates came to the Toyota Center training hall to prepare for the game.

A tactical meeting was held first, and Battier, as a representative, brought up the ideas and some questions discussed with Sun Ce, Conley, Tony Allen, and Gasol Jr. last night on how to defend against the Lakers.

The coaching staff took some suggestions, answered some questions from the five from a point of view, and analyzed the big picture aspects that the five didn't expect.

Putting their defense together, the Grizzlies have been able to keep the league's No. 1 defense until now, not just casually, but everyone's efforts.

The details on the defensive end, Coach Hollins takes very seriously, but the offensive end ......

After the tactical meeting, Sun Ce was still thinking that Coach Hollins was too general on the offensive end, so he laid out a large tactical framework.

Well, you can always think of it, Sun Ce carefully watched the clip of the game between the Mavericks and the Lakers twice last night, and found one thing, and felt that it could be used!

……

The day's preparation time passed quickly, and on March 13, Sun Ce and his teammates came to the Staples Center to prepare for the game.

The tickets for tonight's game were asked for the day before yesterday, and today during the day, Sun Ce's parents and Zu Gee still followed Wang Keying to walk around, and went to the scene to watch the game at night.

After running two tactical trips in the morning, and during the break after lunch, Sun Ce was asked for an interview by several TV stations.

The court station that broadcast the game live, . T's interviews were okay and didn't ask any sensitive questions, but when it came to an exclusive interview with Sports Illustrated, a subsidiary of Time Warner, the Lakers' sponsor, the troublesome questions came.

After the interview began, the reporter of Sports Illustrated first chatted with Sun Ce about some of the opinions on the Lakers, Kobe's performance in the last quarter of the game between the Lakers and the Mavericks, whether Gasol Da Gasol has a chance to squeeze Durant into the lineup, who is stronger Bynum or Gasol Jr. and so on.

These are all easy to answer, but as they asked, Sports Illustrated threw out a very sensitive topic: "Lord, your rookie contract is about to expire, have you made a decision about where you want to play next?" ”

Grizzlies management and coaching staff don't want to put pressure on the team and Sun Ce, so they haven't talked about the contract all the time.

But the playoffs are getting closer and closer, and because the playoffs are "compulsory play", that is, they are getting closer and closer to the end of Sun Ce's contract, and some media who want to do things are almost unable to hold back.

So far this season, the Grizzlies and Lakers have a 1-1 record against each other, and Sports Illustrated, as a media under the Lakers' sponsorship, has taken the lead in jumping out to do things.

This question...... Sun Ce looked at the fierce female reporter in front of him, stared at the other party's eyes and asked, "What factors do you think I should consider when choosing a team?" I haven't considered this yet, and I'd love to hear your advice. ”

The answer...... The fierce female reporter felt that Sun Ce was so smart in this regard, but she was prepared, and said: "I think the team market and salary, these two points are very important, and the Grizzlies should not be able to satisfy you in these two aspects." ”

"Team market and salary?" Sun Ce smiled: "Yes, you are right, these two are the focus of my consideration, but you may have misunderstood one thing." ”

"Why? Are you trying to say that you don't care about the ball market and salary to stay with the Grizzlies? "A fierce female reporter is an army.

If Sun Ce admits this problem, then when he changes teams in the future, he will not be less criticized than James, and now no player dares to say such things.

Sun Ce shook his head and said, "Ball market? Wherever I am, I have the best basketball market! ”