The Pope of Basketball Community

\u003c"readability-styled" style=":inline;"xmlns=""\u003eThere are also people who have not experienced anything good all year, such as the Lakers' fringe Luke Walton.

Walton has been training with the team and rarely has a chance to play. He averaged 5 minutes per game and scored 1.2 points, 0.8 rebounds and 0.5 assists.

In order to increase exposure, Walton took the initiative to propose delegating to the Development League, but Yang Rui refused, on the grounds that he could not develop his skills in the Development League, so it would be better to stay with the Lakers.

Then Walton suffered a tragedy. He could only play a role in the team's appearance and could not play. Although a few female fans thought he stood out among the memes, Walton felt his future was bleak.

Without data, if the Lakers don't renew his contract in the summer, Walton guesses he will have to work hard in the summer league. If you're lucky, you can represent a certain team in a preseason game and compete for a basic salary.

He doesn't think he can stay with the Lakers next season. His offense is not as good as Iguodala and Diaw, and his defense is not as good as Ariza. Because of his height and speed, he is not suitable to play shooting guard and can only play forward.

After thinking about it, Walton decided to treat Yang Rui to dinner and give him gifts and bribes, just to get some performance opportunities during the garbage time of the playoffs.

This social phenomenon exists in every country, and it is often the poor who give gifts.

Because when a poor person goes to a rich person's house, he usually asks for something, and the rich person is in a favorable position. He will weigh the pros and cons whether he can help or not. The richer a person is, the more he will evaluate whether it is worth it for him to do something for you. In this case, the conditions of the two parties are not equal, the strong one has the right to choose, and the weak one can only be chosen.

Many people feel it is unfair, helpless and angry, but this is the reality. Some opportunities have to be fought for by yourself.

The Lakers only have Odom injured and cannot play in the first round, but Odom will definitely be on the roster and will play after he recovers from injury.

Walton's goal is to play more minutes than Brian Cook, a first-round pick who entered the NBA in the same year as him, Ariza, this year's second-round pick, and center Diop, and become the 10th man in the team's rotation.

Yang Rui and his girlfriend Stana Katic went to an appointment in the evening, and Walton also brought his girlfriend, University of Arizona women's volleyball player Bill Ladd.

After ordering, Wharton gave a small gift that he had carefully purchased and made his request.

Yang Rui smiled. "Luke, I will definitely give you a chance to perform in this year's playoffs. But not because of gifts, but because of your ability to help the team."

Wharton breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Yang Rui continued: "You don't have to worry about renewing your contract. I will ask the team to renew your contract in the summer. With a two-year minimum salary contract and a team option for the second year, you have enough time to prove yourself, but you must practice hard for three years." Distribute the ball, as long as you can guarantee the fixed-point three-point shooting rate, I will give you more playing time than Diaw, this is the direction of your training."

This is probably the best result, and Wharton has a smile on his face.

He was a little surprised because he was just a marginal person and had never been taken seriously in the team.

The reason why Yang Rui wanted to renew Walton's contract was because he knew it would be difficult for Diaw to stay in 2006. As long as he has the ring, Diaw will definitely not want to stay with the Lakers as a substitute. Then there will be teams that will offer high salaries to bet on his talent. Although Diaw's overall statistics this year are average, he has many highlight performances in a single game, hitting twice. Three pairs.

Walton asked: "Jerry, besides shooting, what else should I focus on?"

"With your ability to organize passing and confrontation, I hope you can strengthen your muscles and switch to power forward."

"Huh?" Walton never thought of becoming a "devil's muscular man" one day. He defined himself as a technical player.

"If you play small forward, you don't have any physical advantages. You don't move fast, you can't jump high, and your strength is average. You will suffer a loss when defending against swingmen who are good at breaking through. If you switch to playing power forward, your speed can keep up with 90% of power forwards. He can prevent breakthroughs, interfere with shots, and defend pick-and-rolls better than ordinary power forwards. He just lacks strength and is slightly worse at protecting the rim. On the offensive end, you still have technical advantages.

With a stronger ability to escape, you can consider playing like Jordan did in the 2003 season. "

"Don't think about it, I'll listen to you." Thinking of Jordan, who won the championship with the Wizards at the age of 40, what is Walton still hesitating about?

He is 203cm tall and weighs 106kg, which is taller than Jordan. He has no problem being a short power forward. Diaw is similar in stature to him, and he mainly plays power forward on the team. There are examples.

In the 2003 playoffs, Jordan's guest appearance as a power forward was a highlight. Defending the penalty area was not a problem because his teammates were there to cover for him. The Lakers have Yao Ming, so it doesn't matter if someone is missed on one side. Yao Ming can block most of the penalty area when he stands under the basket.

Many players have an almost blind trust in Yang Rui, because he has cultivated too many outstanding rookies, and undrafted rookies can all become All-Stars. Walton's goal is also to become a star, and he is ambitious.

Walton's father, Bill Walton, is a star. He has been a second-generation star with a halo since he was a child. Now that he is playing like this, he can't live up to his reputation, but he has the motivation to move forward.

In Yang Rui's previous life, Walton's performance on the basketball court was mediocre, and he was lucky enough to experience two consecutive championships with the Lakers; after retiring, he became a Warriors assistant coach with his high golf IQ, and won a championship with the Warriors. In 2016, he also became Head coach of the Lakers.

Yang Rui knows the future, so he is more optimistic about Walton. Letting him switch to power forward is an attempt. He doesn't know what level Walton can achieve. It is certain that his upper limit is not high when playing small forward. At his peak, he scored 11.4 points, 5 rebounds and 4.3 assists. Moreover, the Lakers were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs that year.

Playing as a small forward, Walton's wing defense is not very good, otherwise the Lakers would not use a premium contract to poach the Sonics' "ski man" Radmanovic.

Later, Walton signed a 6-year, 30 million long-term contract, but his position with the Lakers was marginalized and became a bad contract. He could not compete with Ariza and Artest at the 3rd position.

The power forward is different. Now the Lakers have two strong men in Rasheed and Odom. But Rasheed can't maintain his form for a few more years, and Odom wants to leave after this season because his tactical status in the Lakers is too low and his data has dropped significantly.

Odom is a high-ranking rookie, he was favored as soon as he entered the league, and he is not very old. As long as he has a ring, he will definitely hope to go to a team that can better utilize his own strength, strive to be selected as an All-Star, and sign another big contract in the future.

Stay with the Lakers? Odom can't even become the third leader. In two years, he will be a pure substitute, not even the fourth leader.

Yang Rui has been causing a butterfly effect, and the main reason why Odom wants to leave is Iguodala. After winning the dunk king, Iguodala's popularity has greatly increased. Many experts are optimistic about his future and believe that he is worth cultivating.

In short, from all aspects, the Lakers have to renew Walton's contract to buy cheap insurance for the future, and he also has certain potential to be tapped. As long as Walton can practice three-pointers well, Yang Rui will consider asking the management to renew his contract in 2007.

He also wanted to see if he could develop a reliable star based on his own ideas.

On the 22nd, the Lakers confirmed their 13-man roster for the playoffs.

The veteran Divac was excluded. He did not feel pain about it. He was self-aware that he was waived by the worst Bobcats team and he could no longer keep up with the rhythm of the game.

Even if Divac wins the championship due to his efforts in his late years, he will not receive high praise from the media, but having a ring is better than not having one, which is enough for some veterans to envy.

Center: Yao Ming, Diop, Odom.

Power forward: Rasheed, Diaw, Cook.

Small forward: Iguodala, Ariza, Walton.

Shooting Guard: Kobe Bryant, Hoiberg.

Point Guard: Damon Jones, Mo Williams.