Zhang Yang: "He has a good dad. The Spurs were originally planning to sell Nesterovic for a good price, but when Colangelo made an offer, Popovich gave him a father’s face, handing over a first-round pick swap right, a second-round pick, and $600,000 cash to the Toronto Raptors."
"Humphries, such a solid defensive buffer forward prospect, was almost given away for free to the Raptors by the Jazz Team."
"With these two joining, the Raptors’ weakness of not having a strong frontline was remedied."
"Parker, who played so well in Europe for a few years, when the Magic heard the Raptors wanted to sign him, they directly gave up his renewal rights. Returning to the NBA he was able to start, averaging 12 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists, and 1 steal per game, good on both offense and defense, and with a 44% three-point shooting percentage. His addition to the Raptors made up for the weakness at shooting guard left by Carter’s departure."
"The Magic probably don’t regret it... after all, they didn’t even fancy O’Neal."
"And Jones, Garbajosa..."
Listening to Zhang Yang recount this, his teammates realized that since the son of the chairman of the American Basketball Association, the chairman of the NBA Rules Committee, the vice chairman of the Continental Basketball Association... Brian Colangelo joined, the Raptors had essentially changed into a different team, with only core players like Ford, Calderon, and Bosh remaining unchanged.
Having a good dad really saves you years of struggle!
When little Colangelo went to the Suns, they also got whatever they wanted, winning Executive of the Year in his first season; when he left, the Suns’ recruitment started stumbling, fumbling with incessant muddled moves.
Felton complained, "Colangelo is probably going to get the Executive of the Year again this year, Jack, do you think if he was to manage Yao Ming and McGrady, would they have a chance to topple the Spurs, Suns, or Mavericks and take the championship?"
Zhang Yang: "I remember Colangelo’s salary is $10 million, Aleksandar definitely wouldn’t want to pay that much, I remember Van Gundy’s salary is only $2.3 million, not even higher than Chip’s."
Okafor, seeing the topic was veering off, promptly steered it back: "We don’t have to be too wary of the Raptors, just keep a level head. Although their roster structure has no obvious flaws, apart from Bosh, they don’t have players with particularly outstanding abilities, the overall strength isn’t strong enough."
The topic successfully returned to focus, and they continued the discussion, no longer talking about the other team’s roster and system flaws, but analyzing which positions were more vulnerable to being broken through.
After a night’s rest, on February 21st, the Bobcats came to the Air Canada Centre to challenge the Raptors.
During the pre-game meeting, Bickerstaff was both happy and troubled. Felton and Rondo were exceptionally active today, bringing up many ideas, making the pre-game meeting discussions deeper. However, the two also posed many unsolvable problems... Retire! He wanted to retire!
But as for finding a successor, the first attempt had been thwarted...
After the morning’s preparation work was finished, Bickerstaff called Zhang Yang over to inform him about the failure of recruiting a coach.
Zhang Yang, surprised, asked, "We offered next year’s first-round pick, and Riley still didn’t want to release Van Gundy to us?"
Bickerstaff nodded helplessly.
During the All-Star weekend, Jordan got the Miami Heat owner’s agreement to meet with Van Gundy, who prepared thoroughly for the ’interview,’ developing a defensive system around Gerald Wallace and Okafor.
The meeting result pleased Jordan, and he initiated the official recruitment, but since Van Gundy was still under contract with the Miami Heat, Pat Riley refused to release him. After Jordan personally spoke with Pat Riley, Riley was even less willing to make the trade.
The God of Basketball was puzzled, wasn’t he a die-hard fan?
Zhang Yang was also puzzled. Although there were many other options... he remembered the mastermind trading Van Gundy to a rising Magic team. If they were concerned about their Bobcats getting a coach capable of creating a solid defensive system, why not worry about the Magic?
Or did the mastermind have great faith in the Magic management’s brains, confident they would not pose a real threat in the future?
Bickerstaff continued: "The trade failure for Van Gundy is not the main reason I called you here, there’s another matter. We plan to trade for a ball-handling scoring guard before the trade deadline. After internal discussion with the coaching staff and communication with other teams, we have two options: Trail Blazers’ Jarett Jack or Grizzlies’ Juan Dixon. You..."
Zhang Yang, startled, blurted out: "Dixon! If we’re making a trade, don’t even consider it, Dixon!"
Bickerstaff, surprised by Zhang Yang’s reaction, said, "We also prefer Juan Dixon. Jarett Jack’s isolation scoring zones are too similar to Raymond’s. His joining would hardly create more variability for us, and he doesn’t perform well enough as a shooting guard... But Jack, it seems you really don’t want Jarett Jack to join?"
Zhang Yang calmed down, his earlier reaction had been a bit too intense.
He replied, "If Jarett Jack comes, when you guys shout ’Jack,’ I’ll be confused if you’re calling me or him. Since we have other options, let’s choose someone else."
That made-up reason was truly lame!
But without Zhang Yang saying more, Bickerstaff didn’t feel like asking further about it, and instead asked, "Jack, aren’t you curious about who we are considering as trade bait?"
Zhang Yang: "I’ll find out after the trade. I don’t want to know in advance who’s going to be traded away, only to show a reluctant face. If it’s really an important teammate who’s leaving, you would have already communicated with me."