Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters-Chapter 1142 - 630: Decades of Hatred
Chapter 1142 -630: Decades of Hatred
After signing Beasley, the Clippers didn’t make any other moves.
In terms of the roster, they are already saturated.
They have enough depth in both the front and back courts, now the goal is to stay healthy and charge full speed into the playoffs.
However, just because the defending champions decided to play it safe, doesn’t mean the rest of the UIS will do the same.
The biggest mysteries of the trade deadline involve Kyrie Irving and DeMarcus Cousins.
Three years after Yu Fei left Seattle, Irving proved himself to be merely a sharp weapon, and not a leader capable of driving a team forward.
Of course, fans love his style of play, hence the Supersonics will try their best to build a team around him.
However, the Supersonics have had underwhelming player acquisitions over the years.
They are still paying off the debt for dismantling the SuperSonic Empire.
If a team couldn’t even retain the Greatest of All Time, how could top free agents consider them a priority?
Therefore, although the Supersonics have been putting on the act of going big in the free market every year, they never achieve satisfactory results.
And Irving gradually grew tired of the status quo.
Seattleites hoped he could be Yu Fei, but he couldn’t.
So they lowered their expectations, hoping he’d become the next Roy – surely that wasn’t too much to ask?
As a result, Irving’s emotions crumbled. He didn’t want to end up like Roy.
So, Irving kept hinting he wanted a change of scenery.
Initially, he signed a 2+1 short contract with the Supersonics, similar to Fei’s. Now, the first year is nearly over, and the next season will be his contract year.
If Irving decides to leave, the most beneficial plan for the Supersonics would be to trade him.
But after all, it’s not the last moment yet.
There’s still time.
The Supersonics have the whole summer to persuade Irving to change his mind. Thus, despite the ripples in the trade market, they chose to keep Irving, both to sell tickets and to rely on Irving’s “stable” leadership to advance toward the lottery section.
The 2017 draft is hailed as the year with the highest overall talent since 2014, making it an ideal time for tanking.
Then there’s Cousins.
Cousins is problematic to the point that the team cannot bear him.
When stable, Cousins might be the best active center, but his major issue is that he’s unable to maintain that stability most of the time.
Foll𝑜w current novels on fɾēewebnσveℓ.com.
Yet, under these circumstances, trading Cousins is no easy task.
The first to approach the Wizards were the Miami Heat, from the same division.
The Heat clearly took James’ words about “lacking inside depth” to heart and pounced at the chance to reinforce their frontcourt.
But strong teams from the same division usually don’t want to empower a rival at their own expense, especially since the Wizards don’t want to tank; they just want to get rid of the problem.
Even though Cousins is problematic in their hands, they can’t be sure that sending him to the Heat wouldn’t present the final piece of the puzzle to the opposition.
In the end, the Wizards conducted a trade akin to “giving 10 dollars to get 5 dollars,” sending Cousins to Chicago in exchange for DeAndre Jordan and an exchange of first-round picks for 2017 and 2018.
It’s hard to say who got better after the trade, the Wizards or the Bulls.
The Bulls are a team that seems brilliant on the surface but riddled with internal issues.
Their main issue is infighting, Wade’s arrogance, DeAndre Jordan’s laxness, and the conflicts between these veterans and the younger and reserve players are the main sources of problems.
Putting Cousins into such a team, could it really not exacerbate their problems?
DeAndre Jordan is gradually becoming a player left behind by time.
When he left Seattle, he was among the league’s best defensive big men, just as the era of dominant big men was fading. He, along with Noah, the Gasol Brothers, and an aging yet effective Yao Ming, were the most outstanding big men of the time.
But now, his contemporaries have developed shooting skills to adapt to the changing times, while DeAndre Jordan is still living off his past reputation.
Since his rise to fame in Seattle, his skills don’t seem to have improved at all.
Like Dwight Howard, those who can’t keep up with the times will be discarded by time. A few years ago he was a premier big man in the league, now he is just a defensive role player.
Perhaps, this is why both the Wizards and Bulls were willing to make the trade, because they felt giving away their bad hands would only make the other side worse.
Once the two big fish in the trade market found their destinations, the strong teams began to scramble for those veterans that had been bought out.
The first to be fought over was Louis Williams, who played for the Bucks for many years, and this season, for the Mavericks.
Nowitzki’s aging is irreversible, and the Mavericks’ path to rebuilding has begun. They no longer need a scene-stealing scorer like Williams.
After some pursuit, Williams made an unexpected decision—he chose to join the Lakers.
His reason sounded grand: “I’m going to lead this team into the playoffs!”
In reality, everyone understands that choosing the Lakers doesn’t require a complex reason; the city of Los Angeles is reason enough.
Next was Deron Williams.
Once ranked among the top three point guards in the league and having landed in Milwaukee, Deron has now deteriorated to the point of losing trade value, and the team had no better way to deal with him than to buy him out.
Although a player like Deron is only a shadow of his former self, many teams are still willing to sign him as a safety net.
