The No.1 Anti-Fans in Basketball-Chapter 448 - 229: Start Nomadic Life? _2

"For role players, what they always consider is how to get a better contract, not championships."

In the end, the Heat Team decided to eat humble pie, signing Odom back on a minimum salary.

Odom was basically washed up in his two years with the Rockets, the most relevant news last season was him hitting the clubs with Harden.

Besides, they also signed back an old player, the second overall pick they originally chose, who also happens to be Durant’s good friend, Michael Beasley.

While all the teams were busy strengthening, on the latest episode of TNT, O’Neal finally started to fulfill his shampoo water bet.

For the past month, he’d been pondering how to fulfill it most appropriately.

And now he finally figured it out.

The production team arrived by a giant swimming pool.

Then, under the film crew’s cameras, Kenny Smith jumped into the pool in his saucy little briefs.

In a moment, O’Neal took a cup of bathwater from the edge of the pool and drank a mouthful.

Just like discussing toxicity without mentioning dosage is a sham, O’Neal was shamelessly playing the scoundrel.

Though it was diluted who knows how many times, just ask if that isn’t Smith’s bathwater!

Yet, the hardest moment to keep a straight face in the episode was O’Neal’s final jab.

"If you really want to drink Scarlett’s bathwater, it’s not that hard, you just need to host a swimming party and invite her over."

That’s pretty much saying, KD, that’s as far as I can help you!

Time flew to the end of July when the free agent signings were almost wrapped up.

It was then that ESPN dropped a bombshell that shocked everyone.

The Thunders and the New York Knicks reached a trade, sending James out and trading for Anthony and a future first-round pick from the New York Knicks!

Totally didn’t see that coming series.

James wanted to team up with Anthony, but instead, the Thunders just traded James for Anthony!

This caused social media to explode.

"Two years with the Heat, one year with the Thunders, 2014 player option, is he really going nomadic?"

"The outside world is just too scary, better go back to Cleveland!"

"Go back to Cleveland? Considering Gilbert previously exposed the trade of Han, do you think he could still go back?"

"Everyone has to pay for their choices; if it wasn’t for the player option back then, maybe he would have stayed with the Heat."

"For him, it’s a pretty good outcome; he’s back in the familiar East, in a big city, and it’s the Knicks, which he was interested in."

"Don’t say that, his teammates are really CBA now."

"Bullshit, did you forget Nash? LeBron said before that he wanted to team up with him, the Thunders are just making it happen, I’m moved for LeBron."

...

Hansen was also somewhat surprised when he saw this news.

It wasn’t that the Thunders would eventually choose to trade James, as James had refused to opt in early, this was a highly probable event.

What shocked him was the Knicks actually willing to trade Anthony and even throw in a first rounder.

After reading a detailed report, he found out that Anthony only had one year left on his contract with the Knicks.

So, if the Thunders couldn’t keep Anthony in the end, they’d still be at a loss.

But this was probably the best offer they were willing to accept.

With James having a player option next year, teams not in big cities wouldn’t dare to gamble.

The cost of trading for James would definitely not be low; if he opted out and left, that would mean swapping a year of his services, not many would be willing to pay that price.

Moreover, if the Thunders can keep Anthony with this trade, they wouldn’t lose out.

In fact, interestingly, right after the trade was completed, an amusing event occurred.

Before the Thunders officially welcomed him, Westbrook posted a welcome to Anthony on his personal social media.

"Melo is a warrior, I can’t wait to fight alongside him!"

Hansen couldn’t help but laugh out loud when he saw this.

The sarcastic tone was unmistakable to anyone.

Anyone pressed by the media for so long would get temperamental, not to mention that Westbrook was already known for his temper.

Next season, Thunders would be without James, but James was likely to frequently appear in their news, with or without his presence.

He couldn’t resist checking the current lineup of the New York Knicks.

Nash, Iman Shumpert, James, Stademeyer, Bargnani, Raymond Felton, JR Smith, Tim Hardaway II, Kenyon Martin.

To say this lineup was as good as the CBA was an exaggeration, but given how weak The East was... making the playoffs was definitely not a problem.

With the trade of James concluded, this free market, seemingly mundane, ended with some surprises.

The West, after this ordeal, had gone through a reshuffle.

In conclusion, the strength of Thunders had increased, Rockets had greatly improved, while Nuggets and Lakers had significantly declined.

This reshuffling was a good thing for Grizzlies because the teams that could trouble them were at the top, and the overall strength of The West last season didn’t seem to affect them much.

What really impacted them happened in August.

The League introduced a new rule, indeed, the "Verticality Rule" had come earlier than Hansen knew.

This rule, which seemed minor but had a significant effect, was vividly remembered by him as it was introduced after James elbowed Hibbert and the League decided it was Hibbert’s fault.

Now, the rule came earlier for one reason only: similar to the defensive three-second rule and the allowance of zone defense, it was aimed at blocking dynasty teams.

Just as Hansen said on the championship night, the strength of Grizzlies was not only due to Hansen, but also to the black and white bears.

It was tricky to impose on Hansen, but imposing on the twin bears was spot on.

And this was in line with the League’s direction of "encouraging offense."

It was much more substantial than any biased refereeing, a genuine attack through regulations.

Now, the challenge for the Grizzlies to build a dynasty was like setting a video game to hell mode, the difficulty maxed out before even starting.

The introduction of this rule also made Hansen start considering the next Talent he needed to exchange.

Players couldn’t change the rules, only adapt to them.

Going back to what he knew of "history," this rule helped Heat beat Pacers to advance to the finals that year, but they ultimately lost to Spurs.

That was the most direct impact, but right after came the arrival of Cole, who abandoned Jackson’s traditional gameplay, adapted to the new rule by playing small ball, and unlocked Curry, ultimately propelling Warriors to soar.

However, the lineup of Grizzlies was clearly different from that of Warriors, and that path was definitely not viable.

The path Grizzlies needed to take had to be characteristic of themselves.

What was distinctive about Grizzlies?

Defense.

The detailed explanation of the rule was that when a player in the paint jumps to defend, they cannot rotate their bodies in mid-air to defend.

Generally, when defending against another post player, there’s no need to rotate the body in mid-air, mainly necessary against perimeter players breaking in.

Thus, its essence was similar to the no-handcheck, both rules encouraged perimeter offense.

The principle was simple, if your team could hold the opponents on the perimeter and reduce their drives to the paint, that was the way to cope with this rule.

Because as long as the pressure was high enough, even if the opponents broke through, they wouldn’t have the space to jump, thus even with this rule, it wouldn’t be much help.

Therefore, the next Talent Hansen needed to exchange was a First Gear defensive Talent.

As a Second Gear Talent, Star Catcher combined with his other talents had produced remarkable effects, if it were a First Gear Talent, he might indeed reach Jordan’s level of defense.

Previously, because Wade was injured in the finals, he faced a lot of backlash from the fans who believed that winning the championship was due to luck rather than strength, earning him quite a few negative followers.

Following that wave, his negative follower value in the system had reached over half a million.

But that was still somewhat short of exchanging for a First Gear Talent.

Just as he was thinking about what to do, not much later, an incident at East University saved him the trouble.

At the Manila Asian Championship, the East University Men’s Basketball Team, in a huge upset, was defeated by the East University Bay Team in the quarter-finals with a score of 78 to 96, losing by 18 points.