Chapter 990
The opening battle begins! Lin Tian faces his former master again!
With the end of the training camp, the fans' wait throughout the summer has finally come to an end. They can finally go to the stadium to see their favorite teams and their favorite stars!
Although there are still a few preseason games to play and the regular season won't start for another 20 days, fans can at least watch some preseason games to whet their appetites.
In particular, preseason games cannot tell how strong or weak a team is, nor can they tell what kind of record a team can achieve or how far it can go.
But it allows fans and industry insiders to get a general idea of the team's strength.
Even if the main players only play half a game or even a quarter, that's enough for insiders to get a general idea.
The Lakers only scheduled six preseason games this time, after all, one of their two core players is older and has just returned from injury, and the other suffered from knee injuries last season and played with injuries for almost the entire season.
Therefore, the Lakers should minimize their preseason games and avoid unnecessary travel and away games.
All six of the Lakers' opponents are teams from the same division.
They will play three games against their crosstown rivals, the Clippers.
They didn't even need to take a bus; the players drove themselves there.
The only thing to be careful about is not going to the wrong locker room. These three games include home and away games, and although they are in the same stadium, the locker rooms are different.
Then they play one game each against the Suns, Warriors, and Kings, who are all very close by. The Suns, the furthest away, is the Lakers' home court.
The Lakers' preseason strategy focuses on short-term, convenient tactics.
Then, the quality of the Lakers' six preseason games...
It's completely insignificant.
In six games, Jackson fielded six different starting lineups, even including Kobe and Lin Tian, who were all benched.
In six preseason games, the Lakers used a total of six different starting lineups and 11 players in total. No one averaged more than 20 minutes of playing time or more than 15 field goal attempts per game.
This chaotic rotation, playing style, and roster are enough to leave anyone who watched the Lakers' preseason games completely bewildered, unable to guess what they're going to do or how strong the team really is.
The public has been full of praise for this, saying that Phil Jackson truly deserves to be called a top coach. He started the game with a diversionary tactic and a smokescreen to confuse the opponent and keep his team mysterious.
But Lin Tian said of Jackson's move: What's the point! The old man is just messing around when he has nothing better to do.
No matter how fancy you are in the preseason, you still have to play well in the regular season. There are a full 82 regular season games. If your opponents really want to study you, even if you have 30 players, let alone only 15, it's enough for them to figure you out completely.
What's the point of playing like this in the preseason? Giving your opponents a week's delay in figuring you out? The regular season is 82 games, which lasts half a year! What good is it if you delay being figured out by a week?
Therefore, Lin Tian was certain that the old man was just indulging in some kind of perverse hobby, messing around and having fun.
Even though it was just fooling around, the fact that Jackson could do it like this shows that he was incredibly confident!
Only when he has absolute confidence in the roster and the team's strength, and has absolute control over how to rotate players and how to play games in the new season, will he dare to experiment with different lineups in the preseason.
Because he doesn't need to carefully try and research here; he already got everything sorted out during his training camp!
With Jackson's attitude, the Lakers' preseason winning percentage was naturally negligible, with a record of 2 wins and 4 losses, which at first glance seemed like the record of a weak team.
However, no team in the entire league dared to underestimate the Lakers. Anyone with a brain could see that they didn't take the preseason seriously at all; they were just playing around.
But everyone knows that if you want to see the true strength of the Lakers, the team that received the most attention and traffic this summer, you'll know once the regular season starts.
They can even see the Lakers' true strength in the first game of the regular season.
Because Stern also indulged in a wicked sense of humor when arranging and adjusting the schedule for the new season.
This guy is going to send the Lakers on a long drive across most of the United States to Charlotte, North Carolina, for their first game of the new season, to challenge the defending champions.
That move was quite outrageous.
The defending champions and the most popular team in the entire league.
Lin Tian went from coach to player and met his former team again.
In a sense, this is the first time in NBA history that a player has been able to face off against his former coach on the court.
Aside from those chaotic, poorly regulated, and loophole-ridden small leagues and amateur leagues, there probably isn't anything like this in any of the world's top sports leagues.
Countless players choose to become coaches after retiring from the league, and many of them actually reach the top level in the league and become renowned coaches.
But to become a coach and then a player, especially one who has led a team to a championship before switching back to playing...
That sounds outrageous!
But that's exactly what happened.
Of course, and most importantly: this is Lin Tian's first time stepping onto the NBA court in a formal game in three years, and this is his comeback game!
Furthermore, this was also the flag-raising ceremony for the championship banner and the awarding ceremony for the championship rings. So, although this game fully demonstrated Stern's wicked sense of humor, it also proved Stern's vision and business acumen.
The viewership for this game is absolutely off the charts! It's likely that ESPN and TNT will break their viewership records again!
With so many buffs combined, this match will definitely be a perfect start to the season!
In fact, to prevent the attention from being diverted from this game, or rather, to prevent other games from being completely ignored because of this game, Stern only prepared this one game on the first day of the new season!
Just this one match.
The other matches won't start until tomorrow.
On the very first day of the season, there's only one opening match. The level of importance and the sheer number of players involved are absolutely off the charts!
And just as Stern predicted, the game garnered an overwhelming amount of attention!
For example, the Bobcats' average ticket price last season was $78, which was among the lowest in the league. The highest average ticket price during the regular season was $110, which coincidentally was also against the Lakers.
And what about this season? The average ticket price for the Bobcats' opening game has skyrocketed to $230, more than double the highest price last season. Of course, this is partly due to the team's championship flag-raising ceremony and the celebration of their first championship in franchise history.
But frankly, this kind of competition happens every year. Every year, there's this episode in the opening game, and every year, a team raises a championship banner. Other championship teams also raise ticket prices on this day.
The fluctuation range is between 10% and 20%.
But a surge of over 100% like tonight is absolutely unprecedented!
Even so, all the tickets sold out almost instantly, and the entire Spectrum Center was sure to be packed tonight. Outside the arena, countless fans were wandering around the plaza.
They hoped to buy a ticket to enter the stadium at the last minute.
And closely following these fans were undoubtedly scammers and gang members from all walks of life, who wanted to see if they could take this opportunity to make another fortune.
Of course, these were only a very small minority. Most fans showed great enthusiasm and primal excitement, cheering and shouting loudly. They couldn't wait for the game to start and wanted to unleash their passion and hormones as soon as possible.
After all, tonight will see the first championship banner raised in the arena, the first decoration on the entire Spectrum Center ceiling.
With the ring awarding ceremony and Lin Tian's return, it's no wonder that Charlotte went crazy like this.
As for the Bobcats players, they were equally excited and eagerly anticipating tonight's game.
In short, Charlotte was bustling with activity tonight.
But the Lakers players were clearly not that excited or thrilled about it.
"Playing an away game on the first day of the season? How have you been managing this team for the past few years? Are you even capable? Weren't you supposed to be playing in the Los Angeles Big Market and the Mets? Why are you flying to the East Coast to play for others on the very first day of the season?"
Lin Tian sat in the last row of the team bus, complaining to Kobe next to him, "Claire is waiting for me to tell her a bedtime story."
"So what if someone doesn't have a daughter?" Kobe said impatiently to Lin Tian. "I have several daughters!"
"Besides, if it weren't for you, you bastard, coming here, would we even be able to play an away game in Charlotte for our first game of the new season? It's all because of you dragging us down." "Wow, you're so shameless!" Lin Tian said, shaking his head and pouting. "If I hadn't come, you wouldn't have been qualified to be on the opening game stage, understand? If I hadn't come, you would have had to wait patiently until everyone else had finished their games before finding a gap to play one."
"Prestige? Do you even know what prestige means?"
Kobe didn't yet understand what "prestige" meant, but he did understand what shameless double standards meant.
Just a minute ago, Lin Tian said that the team was bad at playing away games, but a minute later it's all thanks to you?
shameless!
"Without me, you wouldn't even be able to play away games." Lin Tian said to the silent Kobe, as if he could see right through him. "Do you understand what I mean? If I'm a 10, you're a 4. Now I've brought you to a 7."
"You've dragged me down, do you understand now?"
"I understand." Kobe nodded. "It means if I had a gun, I would definitely blow your head off."
"Are you sure that if you had a gun, it wouldn't be you or me getting your head blown off?" Lin Tian looked at Kobe with sarcasm and said, "Think it over carefully, are you sure?"
"You can be faster than a gun?" Kobe asked incredulously.
"Give it a try, what if?" Lin Tian shrugged, his face full of mockery and provocation.
Of course, he couldn't be faster than a gun. As the Chinese proverb goes: "From seven paces away, a gun is faster; within seven paces, a gun is both fast and accurate."
If it were truly about speed, Lin Tian wouldn't have started his fight in the bar with, "Are you guys trolls?"
If the other side really pulled out a gun, Lin Tian would immediately declare that they were all on the same side and could sit down and have a proper talk, instead of kicking them in the face with a spinning kick.
But Kobe had obviously never heard that before; he was genuinely frightened by Lin Tian.
This guy actually remained silent and didn't say another word to Lin Tian. Kobe turned his head to look out the window, seemingly lost in thought.
Lin Tian guessed that this guy was probably really researching how to be faster than a bullet, and he was probably already simulating in his mind how Lin Tian would disarm a pistol with his bare hands and snatch the gun before the bullet was fired...
Lin Tian didn't bother with Kobe, who was deep in thought. It was better to let him calm down and think about this nonsense than to have him constantly bothering him.
But to Lin Tian's surprise, before the bus even stopped, Kobe suddenly looked at Lin Tian.
"I want to learn."
"What?"
"I want to learn how to catch bullets."
"What the hell is this bullet-catching?"
"You know how to catch bullets, don't you?" Kobe looked at Lin Tian with a sincere expression, as if to say, "If you don't teach me today, you're not leaving."
"Get lost, you lunatic." Lin Tian was too lazy to pay attention to him. He was just bragging about action movies, and this guy was jumping straight into a sci-fi movie. Wasn't that a bit too much of an imagination?
"I don't care if you don't teach me, let's give it a try! I want to see." Kobe then looked at Lin Tian with a sincere expression: "I'll go get a gun, let's find a chance to try it out!"
"Get lost! Who the hell wants to try with you!" Lin Tian swallowed hard; he was a little scared.
I wonder if one day I'll just show my face in the parking lot and Kobe will rush at me with a gun.
If it's done face-to-face, at most I'll just admit defeat.
I'm afraid this guy might really have a mental breakdown and pull off some kind of surprise attack...
Lin Tian felt a little regretful, regretting that he had just boasted too much.
Fortunately, the bus finally arrived at the entrance of the Spectrum Center and stopped. The Lakers players rushed off the bus.
Before getting out of the car, Lin Tian suddenly looked at Kobe and asked, "You really want to learn?"
"You really can?" This time it was Kobe's turn to be stunned. He was just trying to scare Lin Tian, but this guy can really catch bullets?
FUXX!
Lin Tian cursed inwardly.
Luckily I asked one more question, otherwise I would have been fooled by that bastard Kobe.
Thank goodness! By asking that question, my reputation has been preserved.
"Anyway, you won't." After saying that, Lin Tian stopped talking to Li Kebi, turned around and got off the bus.
You're no match for Master Lin!
Lin Tian noticed that Kobe didn't say anything as the team walked towards the locker room, clearly intimidated by Lin Tian.
If Kobe was just putting on an act to scare Lin Tian, then this guy has completely gone down a rabbit hole.
Even when the Lakers players had changed and finished their pre-game preparations and came out of the locker room, Kobe still seemed a little distracted, clearly still preoccupied with the matter.
At this moment, the Spectrum Center was packed with nearly 20,000 fans. Both teams' players had already entered the field, and the fans were not holding back their cheers and shouts, releasing their passion early on.
Unlike other away games, the Charlottes hardly booed the Lakers tonight; instead, they cheered and shouted for them.
And soon, the cheers turned into unified chants.
"Lin, welcome home!"
The simple and heartfelt cheers fully demonstrated the Charlottes' love and welcome for Lin Tian, and also illustrated Lin Tian's status and popularity here.
The people of Charlotte all treat him like family!
They are the real family members who don't require you to like, comment, buy, send gifts, or follow!
Shortly after Lin Tian and the other Lakers players entered the arena, the Bobcats' on-site staff, who seemed to be eager to get started, immediately turned off the arena lights and then turned on the large screen directly above the arena.
Needless to say, a tribute video!
Although Lin Tian only stayed with the Bobcats for a year, almost all the team's noteworthy moments and records are related to him.
The only difficulty is that Lin Tian didn't play last season, so the Bobcats have very little material to make a video of him, unless they're willing to use footage of him from his Bulls, Pacers, or Knicks periods to fill the gaps.
But what day is tonight? It's the day our Bobcats raise the championship banner! How can we let images of other teams appear here?
Besides, since you, Lin Tian, are a manager with the Bobcats, it doesn't matter whether the tribute video shows you playing basketball or not.
As a result, the Bobcats' tribute video almost turned into a music video!
Hmm... MV!
The images are all of Lin Tian from last season, dressed in a suit and tie, calm and collected, effortlessly and confidently directing the games.
He's a top-tier handsome guy, definitely Hollywood leading man, wearing a full high-end suit, and commanding the battle from the sidelines. How good would that look?
Just listen to the crazy screams and cheers of the girls in the stadium, which completely overwhelmed the male fans.
The girls said: This is exactly what we wanted!
"Dude, you're so handsome! Aren't you? So handsome!" Lin Tian put his arm around Kobe's shoulder, looked up at the video, and said with a look of utter admiration, "If I looked like that, I would have no regrets in this life!"
"Go to hell, you idiot." Kobe cursed, then ignored Lin Tian, turning away to do what he was doing. "Your tribute video, you can watch it yourself!" (End of Chapter)