CHAPTER 1249: CHAPTER 507: REFUSE TO SHOOT? I’LL SHOOT ANYWAY! (PART 3)

Hill: "I don’t quite understand this either..."

Zhang Yang interjected: "I guess, Stern might be trying to leave a legacy for his successor? So that they can immediately achieve something? He’s already 67 and won’t be around for many more years."

Hill suddenly realized: "Jack, now that you mention it, I remember, there are still many areas in the NBA that could be improved, which Stern hasn’t addressed. Although he still has the crucial task of globalizing the NBA, not dealing with areas that already have directions for improvement seems unreasonable. From your perspective, it makes sense..."

Felton listened to the conversation between the two, glanced at Okafor, then at Millsap and Afflalo... It seems they all understood? Then I got it too.

Zhang Yang was originally just chatting with his teammates post-game. The pressure from the previous two games was indeed high, and now he could slightly relax. But he noticed some teammates seemed overly relaxed, thankfully Okafor was around...

The next morning, Zhang Yang was up by about 8 AM. He had to go to Los Angeles in the afternoon, so he seized the time to study some footage.

The person delivering the footage for the team hadn’t arrived yet, so Zhang Yang and his buddy had some food together and went to the study to browse the news.

They couldn’t suppress their grins; it was another day of dominating the headlines!

The hottest topic was naturally his post-game repetition of Kobe’s words.

Kobe said those words implying that the Lakers would soon win 4 straight games to claim the championship.

The Lakers lost in Game 2, and according to the Finals schedule, winning the championship at home was certainly impossible, and Kobe was embarrassed.

Zhang Yang repeated those words live on nationwide television post-game, and it was quite bold.

Fans once again witnessed the broad character of "bad boy" Jack.

Besides this, another unexpected hot topic was Zhang Yang’s ’behind-the-back fake pass’ flashy dunk, rated as the ’Best Dunk of the Year’ by ESPN.

He felt ESPN was messing with him.

That dunk wasn’t particularly difficult; he used it back in high school playing dunk competitions with DeRozan, but was soundly defeated by Dero with various through-the-legs switch-hand dunks.

The news comment sections, related forum posts indeed brimmed with ridicule, reigniting interest in several brilliant dunks by star dunkers this year.

Nonetheless, many also supported the ’Best Dunk of the Year’ claim!

In the Finals, key shot, ’one vs. two’ toyed with two opponents with superior jumping ability... these elements greatly elevated the dunk’s value.

Most of those outstanding dunks came during the regular season, and the majority were uncontested fast-break open dunks. The tougher ones were simply poster dunks...

After browsing these trivialities for a while, Zhang Yang opened the columns of well-known journalists and analysis experts to read something professional.

Indeed, there were many worthwhile points in those column articles, and some expert analysis was quite good.

ESPN’s data analysis expert Hollins’ article caught Zhang Yang’s attention.

Hollins analyzed the Finals from another angle:

In terms of the completeness of offensive and defensive systems, the Bobcats don’t have the perfection that the Lakers have after ten years of honing the Triangle Offense.

Regarding head coaches, the Zen Master has more experience, while Carlisle brings more innovation—difficult to directly distinguish superiority.

On the star players’ clash, Zhang Yang is younger, with more explosive short-term bursts, but Kobe has greater overall abilities, sustaining throughout the game. Zhang Yang’s highlight moments seem more frequent, but overall scores in a game are similar to Kobe’s.

Hollins considered the Bobcats’ biggest advantage was after losing Gerald Wallace in the summer of ’07, when the team’s remaining 3 talented players were still on rookie contracts. At that time, the highest-paid player on the Bobcats, Mike Miller, was under 9 million, while others were either on rookie contracts or base salaries, totaling slightly over 30 million, leaving nearly 20 million in salary cap space. They decisively acquired Pietrus and Brad Miller, two powerful players during the mid-season trade market, followed by continued growth from Zhang Yang, Okafor, and Felton, and with ’06 rookie Millsap and ’07 rookie Afflalo also gradually rising, forming an intimidating roster depth.

Millsap, possessing starting lineup abilities on ordinary strong teams and even being cultivated as a core player on weaker teams, could only serve as the fourth interior player behind Okafor, Perkins, and Brad Miller in the Finals—purely as a substitute.

On the outside, guys like Mike Miller were directly benched due to psychological issues, not affecting the rotation of the Bobcats lineup. Pietrus fell to third choice in the small forward position.

Hollins derived a new concept from this—the ’rookie dividends.’

After reading Hollins’ analysis, Zhang Yang peeked at the comments section, finding the article quite popular, having over a thousand comments since being published at 8 AM.

He remembered the concept of ’rookie dividends’ emerged years later during the Splash Brothers era, maybe around 2013? When Curry held a 11 million per year ’child labor’ contract, Thompson, Barnes, Green were still under rookie contracts, allowing them to sign Iguodala without any cost and 25 million for two years. Meanwhile, they had room to trade Ellis at an 11 million annual salary for Bogut at 13 million, forming the 2015 championship core.

Iguodala was traded by the Nuggets Team in the summer of ’12 using Afflalo, who had proven himself worth the high price after five years of training, plus first-round picks.

During Duncan’s fourth peak era, the Spurs Team also enjoyed Leonard’s rookie dividend, thoroughly utilizing it. Winning the championship in ’14, Leonard’s rookie contract expired at the end of ’15; the Spurs Team first offered the qualifying contract at 150% of ’14-’15 salary, occupying less than 4.5 million space to retain the rights for home renewal, and then signed Aldridge.