First in scoring

Chapter 526 525. The new season begins
On the 24th, all the preseason games were completed. The Bobcats played two home and away games against the Hawks, played against the Magic away, faced the Bucks and Nets at home, played against the 76ers away, and played against the Raptors at home, winning all 7 games.

Zhang Yang played an average of 19 minutes per game, scored a total of 72 points, averaging 10.3 points and 2.3 assists per game. With little playing time, he put all his energy into shooting training.

During the preseason, he accumulated a shooting value of 10, and first took the talent points, and randomly got the three-point talent. He originally thought that if he could randomly get the mid-range shot, then the upper limit of his three measurements would be 96, and he would develop in a balanced way, for good luck, and be more like the 80-tier "him".

It's just a three-pointer, but it's not bad. The upper limit of the three-pointer talent has been raised to 97, and the speed of reaching the historical three-pointer of 95 will definitely be faster.

By the end of the preseason, his shot value had accumulated to more than 3. Based on the situation during last season, he should be able to accumulate more than 6 shot value by mid-to-late November.

After the preseason, the Bobcats only had two days to prepare.

Carlisle ultimately didn't sign either Adam Morrison or DeSagana Diop to add depth to the frontcourt, as he despised the players who tried out for the program.

Due to the failure to recruit Iverson and Iverson's decision to return to the 10ers on October 20, Carlisle finally chose to sign Tyronn Lue again.

Coach Lu retired once in 08 and worked as a scout for the Bobcats for a while. He later received an invitation from the Magic to return. At this age, he still feels that it is more fun to play with the players.

Carlisle is interested in Tyronn Lue's experience in the triangle offense, and if there are special circumstances, he can also serve as a backup point guard...

After two days of rest, it was October 10th, the first game day of the Bobcats' regular season.

This season, each team's regular season opener is 2-3 days earlier than in previous years, and the Bobcats are no exception.

This is the 'Player Burden Reduction Plan' agreed upon by the NBA and the Players' Union in 05. In addition, the regular season end time of 3-4 days of retirement was continued at the end of the season. Compared with the 06-07 season, a small number of teams have an extra week of rest in the regular season. The Bobcats are one of them. The NBA only arranged one game today, and they are the defending champions.

One week may not seem like a long time, but this was achieved after three years of negotiations between the NBA and the owners of each team and stadium.

This is because most stadiums have more than just NBA games as their business. For example, the Staples Center, in addition to the Lakers and Clippers games, and the NHL Kings, also has a full schedule of concerts, award ceremonies, and large-scale events every year. Professional teams cannot even use the training facilities in the stadium except on game day, otherwise the Lakers would not have spent that much money to jointly build a training hall.

Sterling was not as considerate as old Buss. He directly rented an abandoned textile factory more than 40 minutes' drive from Staples Center and converted it into a training hall, spending only the money for decoration.

The Bobcats' Turkish Airlines Arena didn't have any other business before 07, otherwise Jordan wouldn't have bought the team and the arena for just over 3 million. At that time, singers and event organizers preferred to hold events in Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh, which correspond to the largest stadiums in North Carolina, Duke, and the Carolinas.

But after winning the championship in 07, the business of Turkish Airlines Arena increased, and the business was very busy during the prime time before winter and midsummer.

Only a few stadium owners, such as the Army Airlines Arena in Rutherford and the Target Center in Minneapolis, are hoping that the NBA season will be extended. As long as the season is in progress, there will be more tourists in the stadium and consumption may be higher.

As far as Zhang Yang knows, Jordan supported extending the season when NBA Vice President Stu Jackson first convened a meeting of team owners and players' union representatives to discuss the matter in 06. However, after several famous singers added concerts to their schedules in Charlotte from late June to early July 07, Boss Jordan stood against the players' union and firmly opposed it.

Originally, the NBA and the players' union decided in 05 to extend the schedule by 10 days to two weeks. Now it has only been extended by 5 to 7 days. This is the result of a compromise between the owners of each team. In addition, part of the time was compressed in the preseason, and the training camp did not start in advance. This has brought certain negative impacts on the renewal of the labor-management agreement that will expire in 11 and has already begun negotiations.

Actually, this is a problem left over from the 21s, when there were only 5 NBA teams at the least. Teams from the same Eastern or Western Conference often played two consecutive away games. The number of flights was far less than it is now, and the schedule pressure was much smaller. It was enough to play 82 games in and a half months.

But in the mid-to-late 80s, the number of teams increased rapidly to 27, the game arrangements became much more dispersed, and the pressure of the schedule began to emerge. In the early 90s, after years of dominance by the Magic, Birds, Gods and Bad Boys, the influence of the NBA continued to increase. The NBA, which originally relied on singers and actors to liven up the scene, became a place where singers and actors could ride on the popularity. Now, the number of NBA teams has reached 30, and 5 and a half months is obviously overloaded... If the issue of extending the schedule could have been considered before entering the 90s, it would not have been so difficult later.

But Stern is also a human being, and there are always omissions. Moreover, when he took over the NBA, the league had just experienced the nightmare of the 70s, with a lot of internal problems and had to compete with the ABA. Although he successfully annexed the ABA and unified the North American basketball market, when Stern became the president, the league could be said to be in ruins and needed to be rebuilt...

...

At 7:20 p.m., the entrance ceremony began at the Turkish Airlines Arena. The Bobcats' opening opponent was the Miami Heat.

No. 3 VS No. 3, this hot topic has continued for several years and is still popular now.

Veteran Iverson returned to the 1ers with a one-year minimum salary before the start of the season. Even if he didn't say it, everyone knew that this was his last season. Given his average of 76+20 per game last season, this season is still highly anticipated.

In the seventh year of his career, Wade is at the end of his Mesozoic era and has one foot in the ranks of veterans. Wade is about to turn 7 and is at his peak. During the preseason, the three major media lists all ranked him in the top five in the league.

Paul and Zhang Yang, who had just entered the ranks of Mesozoic players, both made their mark very early. Zhang Yang won FMVP in his sophomore year and double MVP in his fourth year, while Paul almost snatched away Kobe's MVP in his third year.

Among them, Zhang Yang only looks at the new generation in terms of age, but the youngest No. 3 is ranked first in the player rankings of the three major media!

Paul, who ranked relatively low, also made it into the top five in Sports Illustrated, and was third after Zhang Yang and Kobe.

The fans of these four players cover almost all age groups. The media has been hyping this up for several years, and the fans' enthusiasm remains high, making this a classic showdown.

Therefore, in the first game of the new season, Stern arranged the drama of Zhang Yang VS Wade. The Flash and the Big Shark, this pair of former championship combinations, became opponents, which is also one of the highlights.

The first team to appear was the away team, with the Heat, Beasley, Big Q, O'Neal Jr., Arroyo... entering the court one after another.

Zhang Yang's sights are on Arroyo, who returned to the NBA a year after leaving the NBA to seek fortune in Spain.

The 30-year-old Puerto Rican Arroyo, who is still capable of fighting, is Carlisle's key recruitment target this summer. Arroyo's style of play, no matter who is defending him, makes him very suitable to be the Bobcats' backup point guard, but he was rejected.

It's not a salary issue, the Heat also offered the minimum salary, but the Bobcats could not satisfy Arroyo's desire for a main rotation role with at least 20 minutes of playing time per game, so the Heat directly promised him a starting position.

The Heat's five starters, plus Chalmers, Haslem, Alston, James Jones, Daequan Cook and five other players form a 5-man rotation. Zhang Yang's evaluation is that the formation structure is good. If they replace Big Q with James and O'Neal with Bosh, they can compete for the championship.

Big Q's salary is 935 million and O'Neal's is 2300 million, which together are higher than the starting salaries of the two maximum salaries. Both of their contracts are expiring. Haslem, who was on the bench, also got a one-year, $1 million contract extension during the offseason, and his performance last season meant that his salary had to be cut in half... By the summer of 700, the Heat had no other contracts except for Wade and Beasley, who together made $2010 million. They don't even have a rookie this year.

After Wade was the last to enter, it was the home team's turn.

Okafor, Millsap, Hill, Felton and Zhang Yang ran into the court one after another amid the crazy cheers of the fans.

Seeing Okafor replace Felton as the first to run out and Millsap as the second to enter, the commentator lamented that O'Neal was no longer the first choice for the center position in the championship team, and an era had completely ended.

After the entrance ceremony, the Bobcats held an award ceremony, where Boss Joe gave a proud championship speech, raised the championship banner, and presented rings.

Of the 15 players who won the championship, only 8 left the team, and the remaining rings will have to wait until they visit Charlotte as guests to be awarded.

When Hill received the ring, he didn't burst into tears like he did at the Staples Center, but laughed non-stop. This was the ring he got because he was a starter, defended Kobe for a long time, occasionally had to switch to defend Garnett, and tried his best to play a big role. No one said he was sucking up to others this past summer!

However, the opponent's star players were not envious at all at this award ceremony.

Big Cheeks: Among the four No. 3 superstars, I am the first one to get a ring!
At 8 o'clock in the evening, the first game of the 2009-2010 NBA season began.

At the beginning, the Bobcats' starting five, who had worked together for two years and won the championship, pressed the Heat. In the first 4 and a half minutes, the score was 14 to 7, and the Heat were beaten. After entering the rotation, the Heat's situation improved a bit and they had the strength to fight back.

Marion and O'Neal, who rotated for the Bobcats, were in average condition. The former is still in the recovery period, and although the latter's weight is not as outrageous as the 160-plus kilograms of the Heat in the later period, he has grown to 155 kilograms this summer. He lost a little bit during the preseason, but is still overweight. There is no problem with offense, but he does not do a good job in defending the rim.

Another thing is that the Heat's second lineup is stronger than last year, with Big Q and Arroyo as starters, Beasley moving to the power forward position, and Chalmers and Haslem, two players with starting ability, playing as substitutes, making the second lineup much more complete.

Wade also benefited from this, with his playing time significantly reduced.

Originally, Zhang Yang thought that the fortune teller signed Wade for a one-year contract worth more than double the market price, at $1 million, in order to block up the space and save it for 935, in case he was tempted to sign any quality player who came for a tryout. Now it seems that one of the goals was to reduce the burden on Wade.

If the magic calculator offers an annual salary of four or five million to recruit Harden, the Knicks will most likely match it. If they have given Harden three years and $3 million, then the $900 million for two years won't make much difference to Dolan. But if the salary is higher and Dolan wants to use a long-term contract to let Harden play as a substitute for future stars, that will be impossible. It will affect the Knicks' plan to free up maximum salary space next summer. If they only keep Harden for one year, it would be better to let Harden play more... The magic calculator has accurately grasped Dolan's thoughts.

In the later stages, although the Heat were not as suppressed as they were in the opening stages and their scoring efficiency was only half of that of the Bobcats, they were still at a disadvantage. There was not much suspense throughout the game. Wade tried his best but just managed to prevent the game from being ruined.

The two teams' strength on paper is not at the same level at all, not to mention that the Bobcats have a complete tactical system. The Heat's system has been gone since O'Neal was traded, and it's just Wade running the show alone.

And tonight is the Bobcats' defending season opener, everyone played very hard, even the slow-moving O'Neal, played with all his might during the offense, not giving the Heat any chance of an upset.

The most interesting stage of the game was when rookie Collison bravely challenged Wade, was intercepted by Wade continuously, and was dunked by Wade after a strong breakthrough... The scene was so miserable. In the end, Zhang Yang stood up to save the rookie, and confronted Wade head-on, and they had a big fight with each other.

Wade played for 34 minutes, made 25 of 12 shots, including 6 of 1 three-pointers, plus 15 of 13 free throws, scoring 38 points, plus 4 rebounds and 6 assists, getting the highest points of the game.

张杨打了37分钟，24投13中，其中三分球6中3，加上6中6的罚球，拿到全场第二高的35分，外加7板3助攻。

His scoring is not as high as Wade's, but his efficiency is higher. He once made a turnaround three-pointer with his back to the basket from within the three-point line, which made Wade lose his temper at all.

However, Wade's efficiency is not as good as Zhang Yang, mainly because he wanted to catch up, so he forced several three-pointers and missed. He only focused on scoring at close range. His playing time was reduced to 34 minutes, and he was able to maintain his output throughout the whole process, which made him one level stronger than Zhang Yang. However, physical strength is also part of strength, and a very important part at that.

O'Neal's first attack looked as domineering as Yao Ming, and he slammed the ball into the basket through O'Neal!

But it was just that one round, and the second ball was scored by squeezing through the crowd and catching the ball and shooting high.

109 to 97, the Bobcats beat the Heat by 12 points!

...

By winning the opening game, the Bobcats kicked off their title defense season.

第二天下午，张杨随队离开夏洛特，开启了连续客场之旅，29号打活塞队、31号打76人队、11月1号背靠背打雄鹿队、11月3号打魔术队。

When Zhang Yang returned to the team and saw the schedule in the team manual, he knew that they would not be the league's main team in the new season.

It's not that they are no longer valued by the alliance, but that the alliance has changed the way they are used.

Looking at the schedule, after these four consecutive away games, there will be no back-to-back games in November. Together with the four games at the end of October, there are only 4 games in the 11 days of the first match month. In terms of the density of the opening games, only the Lakers are as relaxed as them.

When Zhang Yang was talking about the schedule with his parents and little Bitch, he thought that Stern felt that their popularity could not be pushed any higher. 70 wins + championship, the size of this city is so big, and the limitations of the city's influence were already seen in the playoffs last season. The popularity has reached its limit.

Therefore, the league changed from arranging a bunch of popular games to promote them in the early stages to letting them drive the popularity of other teams.

For example, the Pistons, some people still remember their 'Old Bad Boys' and 'Five Commoners'; the Bucks have Reed, a contender for 'the league's fourth point guard'... These teams will definitely boost the market when the Bobcats go on away games.

There will also be some popular matchups in between, such as the 76ers and the Magic, both of which have popular stars, Iverson and Howard.

But the real focus battles, that is, the games with both superstars and championship competition, only have two of the 17 games in the first game month - an away game against the Bulls on the 15th and a home game against the Cavaliers on the 23rd.

The Magic, with Howard, Carter, and Nelson, are seen as the strongest contender for the regular season's top spot, even beating the Bobcats, who won 70 games last season, and the Cavaliers, who made a big splash this summer and outwitted the Wizards. However, they are no longer seen as a championship contender by the media. It seems contradictory, but no one thinks the media's statement is wrong.

Perkins + Okafor + O'Neal, Tianzun + Big White Bear + Little Giant, are in the same division as these two teams. If Howard is not given a super outside player of Kvetlana's level, the Magic will have no hope for the playoffs.

In fact, many fans think that the situation of the Cavaliers and the Magic is similar. It was reported that Jamison was so upset when he was traded to the Cavaliers that he could not get high scores in the Wizards instead of complaining in the bar.

But the media treatment of James and Howard is not a little bit worse, and the Cavaliers are still the favorite to win the championship.

In December and January, when the NFL was at its peak, the Bobcats were given a lot of hot matches and focus matches. In February, when North American sports fans returned to the NBA, their schedule returned to the beginning of the season. In March, they were given a wave of intensity. In the end, in April, there was only the final match against the Chicago Bulls, the "big drama of the year in the Chinese market"...

Regarding this, Zhang Yang thinks it is actually quite good, as their rotation lineup has been almost completely updated, and they need time to get used to each other at the beginning. It is just right that they can start with strong intensity in December.

Moreover, only the order of playing against other teams has changed. The games that need to be played still have to be played. Putting aside market factors and only looking at the game itself, the top teams are coming too frequently, and their performance may be affected by physical strength, health and other factors.

In 4 consecutive away games, Zhang Yang led his team into the season's progress, winning the first 3 games without any bloodshed.

After Tianzun left, the Pistons completely entered into a tanking mode and continued to sell Hamilton. Last season, the team did not tank enough and failed to grab the hottest inside and outside rookies. They only picked up Jordan Hill with the 6th pick and Gerald Henderson, who had decent fighting power, in the middle of the first round. Hamilton could not be sold for a good price, so they had to continue to tank.

The 76ers signed Iverson, but lost Andre Miller, and the lineup was not built around Iverson, so their strength declined instead of increased.

The Bucks are quite special. Last season, Reed was injured and out of action. The media generally believed that since he was only 28 years old, it should not have a big impact. However, his strength plummeted after his comeback. The title of "fourth point guard contender" became a joke. He was even put on the bench to replace Stackhouse in the opening game.

But the starting lineup of Jennings, Stackhouse, Delfino, Ilyasova, and Bogut, coupled with the bench lineup consisting of DJ Augustin, Ridnour, Reid, Hakeem Warrick, Charlie Bell and others, is quite strong and started with 3 consecutive wins!

However, the Bobcats did not have a difficult time against the Bucks, because Zhang Yang played very hard, scoring 53 points! He won the first single-game 50+ in the league this season!

He wanted to see how powerful the 'Rookie 50 Points Man' was in the original time and space... In the end, the opponent failed to respond, and he went on a rampage in the middle of the second quarter, scoring three three-pointers and a counterattack dunk 3+2, defeating the opponent... Zhang San said frankly that he was a little disappointed with Jennings after the game.

After this game, O'Neal truly recognized Zhang Yang. This feeling is even more exciting than when he partnered with the little blacksmith!

Before the game, he said, "I want to shoot tonight," and then he made 7 three-pointers and 50+ points in a single game!

The only difficult game in the 4-game road trip was the last game against the Magic. However, after the official timeout in the final quarter, O'Neal forced Howard to foul twice, and Howard was fouled out with six fouls. In the end, the team won the game 98-91, starting a 5-game winning streak!

(End of this chapter)