I was determined to be bad, but I went straight to the Basketball Hall of Fame

Chapter 8
On the night of June 6, after the NBA rookie reception, Stephen Curry boarded a plane to Los Angeles with his father, girlfriend, agent team, and Clippers team.

Curry's heart was both lost, excited, and a little nervous.

The course of this draft will definitely make him unforgettable, and he has a premonition that his future destiny has been changed.

The plane took off on the runway of New York's Kennedy International Airport, flying higher and higher, watching the bustling New York night scene under the clouds, Curry sighed.

Before the start of the draft, he always thought he would stay in New York and become a member of the Nisk team.

When Stern read his name with the first pick, the New York fans at the scene booed, and the Clippers snatched the guard they wanted with the No. [-] pick.

Although the Knicks are now on par with the Clippers in terms of rottenness, the Knicks have made the playoffs once in eight years from 01 to now.

But in terms of team history, the Knicks are much more brilliant than the Clippers. They are one of the 11 founding veteran teams in the NBA. They have long been a strong team in the Eastern Conference. They have won two NBA championships. team.

The city of New York is the number one city in the United States, the birthplace of professional basketball, and is located in the center of the stage. Madison Square Garden is also a basketball Mecca, where superstars are proud to score high points.

In comparison, the history of the Clippers is much shabby, a bad team.

Although the foothold is in Los Angeles, the brightest metropolis in the west, the real masters are in Los Angeles Lake.

The Clippers are just outsiders in the Los Angeles ball market.

The gap before and after made Curry feel a little depressed. Before the draft, he imagined countless times that he would score one three-pointer after another in Madison, lead Nisque out of the predicament and return to the top, becoming the real king of New York.

Who knew that the Clippers didn't pick Griffin and picked himself away. He neither knew nor had any interest in the Clippers team.

The only advantage is that you can work in the same city as your girlfriend Ayesha.

Therefore, in Curry's draft team, Ayesha is the only one who is in a happy mood.

The rest of the agents, as well as the father Dell Curry, are all worried, and it is natural for their son to be happy to be the No. [-] pick.

But the higher the pick, the greater the pressure, the more attention you receive, and the more you can't tolerate failure.

Greg Oden is an example. In addition to his fragile knees, he was crushed by a mountain of attention and expectations from the media and fans.

Every year in the draft, there will be players who lose water, but only the number one pick in parallel imports will be mentioned again and again, and written in the history books as a negative teaching material.

Dell Curry still has confidence in his son, but he has little confidence in the Clippers.

The Clippers are not only bad, but the two top picks in history are not very good.

They drafted Danny Manning in 1988, who later became an All-Star forward. He was a talented player, but he obviously didn't meet the expectations of the No. [-] pick.

Ten years later, in 1998, the Clippers held the No. [-] pick and selected one of the most famous parallel importers in league history-"Sugar Man" Olowokandi.

For this "Olajuwon second", the Clippers missed Vince Carter, Paul Pierce, and MVP-level Dirk Nowitzki (produced by Nelson).

The level of this draft is really a dog shaking his head after seeing it.

The two No. 40 picks are just the tip of the iceberg. The Clippers' [-]-year history of the draft is not to say that it is useless, but it is also a mess, otherwise it will not always be so bad.

Now that the Clippers have selected his son, Dell Curry is a little worried. Is my son a parallel importer?
It can make the selected No. [-] pick suspect that he is not good enough. It can be seen how bad the Clippers' draft history is. The whole is a tool to eliminate wrong answers.

The old Curry sighed sadly, and looked at Gary Sachs, the player personnel director of the Clippers who was sitting diagonally opposite. Sachs happened to be looking at him too, and their eyes met awkwardly because they were not very familiar with each other.

Before the draft, the Clippers management did not consider any players other than Griffin at all, and naturally they would not contact other rookie teams.

Since the Clippers took Curry to the present, the Clippers have not communicated with the Curry team properly, and Sachs is also beating drums in his heart.

He knew that Curry wanted to play in New York. He was very worried that Curry's team would do what Francis did back then and refused to report to the team.

Francis was selected by the Grizzlies in 1999. Because he felt that the Grizzlies were too bad and Vancouver was too far away (the Grizzlies were still in Canada at the time), Francis refused to report to the team and claimed that if the Grizzlies did not trade himself, he would rather retire directly.

The Grizzlies flinched at the time, not wanting to waste a second pick, so they traded him to the Rockets, and later Francis and Yao Ming joined forces.

If Curry also comes out like this, then the Clippers really have nothing to do, either trade Curry, or blindly lose the No. [-] pick, no matter what happens, they will lose money.

Fortunately, the Curry team did not raise any objections after the draft, and boarded the plane to Los Angeles with Sachs.

From this point, it can be seen that Curry should not be particularly resistant to playing for the Clippers, and the two sides can talk.

Sachs took the initiative to exchange seats and sat with Dell Curry. He knew that the former top NBA shooter had important advice on his son's career development.

Sachs went straight to the point and revealed the real reason why the Clippers chose Curry.

"We...we got a new general manager, and his name is...his name is Smart, and he asked for Curry to be drafted."

"Smart? Keith Smart, he's the manager of your team? No wonder..."

"No, no, not Keith Smart. I don't know his full name. He was airborne. It is said that he is a Chinese."

"What? Chinese? You don't even know his name?"

Dell Currimon thought Smart was Warriors assistant coach Keith Smart.

If it is him, it is indeed possible to win Curry, because it is rumored that the Warriors have always been interested in Curry.

It turned out to be a Chinese who didn't even know his full name. The only Chinese Curry knew in the league was Yao Ming.

Where did this Smart come from?
"Sachs, you guys are taking a big joke." Dell Curry said in disbelief.

"I feel the same way, he called at the last minute and said, take Stephen Curry, and then hung up without a word of explanation."

"When did this person become the general manager of your team? Why haven't I heard any news?"

"Uh...Yesterday, and I only got the news today that boss Sterling has entrusted him with full responsibility for all affairs of the team..."

Hearing what Sachs said, Curry, who was sitting next door, also became interested.

He came over and asked, "Has he worked in the NBA before?"

"I don't know, probably not, very few Chinese work in the NBA."

"Has he seen me play?"

"I don't know, probably not, I haven't even seen it."

"..."

"Then do you know why he chose me?"

"I don't know, I don't even know what he looks like."

Sachs didn't know what to ask, it wasn't that he was unprofessional, it was so sudden that he really didn't know anything.

With a stomach full of question marks, Curry and his team arrived in Los Angeles in the early morning and stayed at the hotel arranged by the Clippers-it was originally booked for the Griffin team.

I got up early the next morning and originally planned to meet with the team management at [-] o'clock, attend a press conference, and officially announce Curry's joining to the media, and then discuss the details of the contract in the afternoon and sign the rookie contract.

As a result, Sachs called early in the morning and said, "I'm sorry, the general manager said that the time of the press conference was adjusted to two in the afternoon. He said that you have come from a long way, and you should take a good sleep to replenish your energy...I'm really sorry."

Curry and his son were really dumbfounded when they got this news. They couldn't even communicate well with the time of the press conference. The Clippers' management is really bad.

Dell Curry was a little shaken in his heart, whether to let his son play in the Clippers, after all, a good growth environment is very important for rookies.

And the reputation of the Clippers, a rookie, is really not very good.

Curry comforted: "It's okay, at least it shows that the general manager is still very concerned about the players' sleep health, and he is a gentle person."

(End of this chapter)