Healthy basketball, starting from eating the old Lakers F4

After more than a month of chasing, the Bulls gradually climbed from 12th in the Eastern Conference to 8th in the Eastern Conference.

Everyone knows that since the 90s, the alliance has always been characterized by a strong West and weak East.

There are actually not many teams competing for the championship in the Eastern Conference in recent years, basically only four or five.

But today is different from the past.

Last summer, after some Eastern Conference teams confirmed that the Bulls had given up on Bridges, Dwyane Wade and Lowe and had completely given up the idea of ​​continuing to compete for the championship, they turned their attention to the free market for players and participated in the arms race.

On the surface, there are five Eastern Conference teams that have made drastic reinforcements in the summer.

Either change the change into whole money to further enhance the quality of the star players, or free up salary to recruit new players to increase the number of stars in the team, or strengthen the bench strength.

Some time ago, some of the star players of the Western Conference's worst teams also moved to the Eastern Conference through trades.

This has resulted in the Eastern Conference now being filled with talented teams, and even the teams in the play-off zone are not to be underestimated in their strength.

The Bulls were able to make rapid progress towards the play-off zone in just one month, which shows that quite good changes have taken place within the team.

Of course, the veterans who need to take care of their health are still doing so. Although the rookies can have a good performance from time to time, most of the time they still have to pay the price to the old hands in the league due to their lack of experience.

The Bulls don't have any particularly clear goals this season other than training their rookies, so they don't pay too much attention to it.

But at this time, Durant and Curry were not selected as All-Star starters, which makes people pay attention.

As early as 2017, the All-Star voting mechanism was reformed.

The original fan vote for the All-Star starters was changed to 50% fan votes, 25% media and active players each, and then a comprehensive ranking was taken, with the top two guards from the East and West and the top three forwards.

This also leads to the situation that some veteran superstars whose strength has declined, even if they still have high popularity in the league, will be out of the All-Star starting lineup or even fail to make the All-Star bench because they cannot get the recognition of the media and active players.

In the past two years, although Duane's strength has declined significantly, he is still recognized by the outside media and active players.

However, after several playoffs and finals, even though Duane had a few outbursts, the overall strength he showed was only at the level of an ordinary team's starting lineup.

Many young players and stars began to become disenchanted with Dunn.

Dunn did not emphasize in front of them - you must respect me.

Or stretch out your fingers and count the number of championship rings in front of them.

Perhaps it was because Duen didn't care about these things, so everyone started to get used to it and thought that Duen was really old, had become a mortal, and could no longer fight.

So in this All-Star voting, Durant ranked 2nd among Eastern Conference forwards in the fan vote, 13th in the player vote, and 8th in the media vote, which gives him a weight of 6.25.

Usually, if you want to become the starting forward of the Eastern and Western All-Stars, you need to get at least a comprehensive weight of 3.5.

If you are lucky, the top three will be 1.5, 2.5, and 3.5 respectively. Sometimes, if you are unlucky, there will be a 3.5 before 3, and you will not be selected as an All-Star starter.

Of course, if one of the division All-Star starting forwards is injured, he can be a substitute by chance.

Now Durant's overall ranking is 6.25, which is between sixth and seventh among Eastern Conference forwards. Sometimes he can't even get an All-Star substitute.

It is worth mentioning that Curry, who had a similar experience to Durant but was different, won the second place in the Eastern Conference guard fan vote, the fourth place in the player vote, and the fourth place in the media vote.

Curry's overall ranking is 3. Although he missed the Eastern Conference All-Star starting guard position by one step, he is almost certain to be selected as an Eastern Conference All-Star reserve.

They are both in the same team, a dynasty team. The team leader Yokic was selected as the All-Star starter as the first Eastern Conference forward. Although Curry was not selected as the All-Star starter, he still had an All-Star substitute.

As the No. 1 player in team history, the founder of multiple dynasties, and the recent founder of the Yoku dynasty, he suddenly fell out of the All-Star sequence.

When this happened, everyone inside and outside the league suddenly focused their attention on Duane.

And Duan himself felt a little bit upset about this matter.

"They say that when a person leaves, the tea gets cold. I haven't even left yet, how come it's cold already?"

In Duane's memory, James, who was the same age as him in his previous life, was still an All-Star starter even when his team was struggling in the play-offs and he had superstar teammates with better statistics.

“Why are other people’s player and fan tickets so expensive?”

Duen couldn't help but wonder if he played too much health-preserving basketball. Because he didn't have any stats, people were too lazy to take him seriously.

Things have come to this point, and Duan doesn't want to find other reasons.

We can only play a few good games and actively strive for more data before the All-Star reserve list is released.

The vast majority of people on the Bulls support this.

Duane is the big brother of the team after all. If he is really not selected for the All-Star game, it will be embarrassing and even shameful.

We are all on the same team, so we share the honor and disgrace!

However, the Bulls are ranked 8th in the Eastern Conference and have not even secured a playoff spot. They are just competing with weak teams in the play-in zone. Having three All-Stars on a team is indeed quite embarrassing.

The top three teams in the Eastern Conference also have something to say. We have more stars on our team and a better record. Why do you, the Bulls, have more players selected for the All-Star Game than us?
Is it just based on the honors you have achieved in the past?
Isn't the All-Stars held once a year?

The positions are all taken up by old men, so what future do young stars have?

The purpose of the league hosting the All-Star Game is also to provide young stars with more stages and opportunities to showcase their talents.

Replacing veterans with new stars is the only way for the NBA to develop.

However, as time went by, Duane's name was still on the All-Star reserve list released by the league. This happened because the Bulls had won one game after another and had already won two qualifying games, successfully rushing to the sixth place in the Eastern Conference.

In less than two months, the Bulls rushed from 12th in the Eastern Conference to 6th. Such progress and such a magnitude all indicate that the Bulls are about to start showing their power again, and the shadow of the Bulls dynasty is about to hang over the NBA again.

On the other hand, no matter how much Duan's strength has declined now, he still cannot erase his past achievements.

Duane is the best player in the league and he hasn't retired yet. He should be given the respect he deserves.

Moreover, it was the intention of the league's top leaders to retain Duane.

To put it another way, the league also hopes that Durant's fans will continue to pay attention to the next All-Star Game.

It's impossible that last year with 75 superstars, the NBA All-Star ratings returned to their peak, but this year Durant doesn't participate in the All-Stars, and the ratings are cut in half, or even less than one-third, right?
The league's top management also hopes that young stars can perform well in front of Durant in the All-Star Game and get a share of Durant's fan base.

However, on the day of the All-Star Game, most of the stars either did not play well or just came to shop.

The All-Star Game has undergone many changes in its format over the years, but it has never been able to return to the original level of star players competing head-on and masters exchanging blows.

The All-Star Game has become a fashion show, and even the performance element is not high. The intensity of the competition is not even as high as elementary school basketball.

How does this kind of game arouse the interest of fans?
How can a young star with this kind of attitude poach people from the Dunn fan base?

It has to be said that although Duane was selected to the All-Star Game as a substitute for the first time, it was the most boring and meaningless All-Star Game.

This seemed to make all of Duane's efforts before the All-Star Game go to waste.

After the All-Star Weekend, Duane returned to his health-preserving and slacking state, and the Bulls' record gradually stabilized, basically hovering between sixth and fifth in the Eastern Conference.

It’s not that the Bulls can’t continue to charge upward, but there is no need to do so.

The goal of this season is to hone the rookies, so it is necessary for Jokic, Curry, and Durant to give up some time and ball rights to the rookies.

The team just needs to keep its record stable, so that it can proactively control points and try to pick a tough opponent in the playoffs.

In addition, it can also protect the star player Jokic, as well as the two veterans Duane and Curry.

For the Bulls management, in addition to the main task of training players this season, there is another important task, which is selling tickets.

Reaching a playoff spot is to sell tickets, and giving up some away games to ensure Jokic, Durant, and Curry are healthy and can continue to play at home is also to sell tickets.

Therefore, fifth and sixth in the Eastern Conference are the most suitable positions for the Bulls.

Other teams in the league have noticed that the Bulls are interested in maintaining their current position and have probably guessed what the Bulls are thinking.

So I stopped paying attention to the situation on the Bulls side.

Time quickly came to mid-April and the regular season was about to end.

The Bulls remained in the same state as in the previous two months, and finally qualified for the playoffs as the sixth in the Eastern Conference.

However, they failed to control the points well. If they were fifth in the Eastern Conference and played against the fourth-placed Cleveland Cavaliers in the first round, their playoff schedule would be easier.

The Cavaliers have just risen this season and have little playoff experience, so they are easier to control.

However, being sixth in the Eastern Conference is not a big problem. The opponent in the first round of the playoffs will be the same as last year, the Philadelphia 76ers, who are third in the Eastern Conference.

"Don't come over here!" Embiid wanted to call the police.

But there is nothing you can do. What is destined to happen will eventually happen. You will encounter what you are destined to encounter.

4 to 2, the Bulls relied on Jokic to beat Embiid and advanced to the Eastern Conference semifinals relatively easily.

This time, the opponent in the Eastern Conference semifinals is different from last year. It is not the Bucks but the Celtics.

Although the Celtics were also defeated by the Bulls, the two rookies have made continuous progress year after year and have been continuously upgrading and evolving.

This also means that the Bulls' advantage in the starting lineup is basically equalized by the Celtics.

When it came to the bench lineup, they were doing fine against the 76ers in the previous round, but were beaten by the Celtics' bench in this Eastern Conference semifinals.

The Celtics are indeed a prestigious team with a long history. They have worked hard for the championship in recent years.

The bench lineup is basically made up of veterans with rich playoff experience, and some of the players are even championship pieces that left the Bulls.

Also because the bench lineup is so poor, it will be difficult for the Bulls to gain an advantage over the Celtics this time.

In the end, the tide turned and they were swept out by the Celtics 4-1, thus ending the season.

Not long after the Celtics advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals, another Eastern Conference powerhouse that had long been planning for the championship, the Bucks, also followed in the Celtics' footsteps and made it into the Eastern Conference Finals.

Over the years, it is not just the Celtics that have been baptized by the Bulls.

In order to win the championship, the Bucks star player Antetokounmpo did take responsibility.

In other words, do whatever it takes.

Antetokounmpo took a successful step, helping the Bucks beat the Celtics 4-3 and successfully advance to the finals.

In the following confrontation, the Bucks, who had already defeated a championship-level team, obviously played with more confidence and maturity.

After six games, Antetokounmpo, who has won the regular season MVP this season, held up the Finals MVP trophy and was officially crowned the king, becoming the new ruler of the league. (End of this chapter)