Mountain Peak System: a Path to NBA-Chapter 547 - 181: Trade Deadline, The Troublemaker Wizards (5K - , Please Subscribe and Vote!)_3
But during the game, with Curry replacing Nash as the team’s starter, he made a total of 8 turnovers, which led him to become the target of collective criticism from Warriors fans after the game.
In the large-scale criticism meeting held post-game, Warriors fans, unable to understand why Curry always inexplicably loses possession, even initiated an online poll titled "Should Stephen Curry take off his No. 30 jersey?"
The result, deeply hurtful to Curry, showed that over 80% of Warriors fans wanted him to stop wearing the No. 30 jersey.
To this, Qin Yue was puzzled and said, "Only 80%? Could the remaining 20% not vote because they don’t have keyboards?"
Being experienced, Qin Yue knew that even in the future, Curry’s style of play would never be associated with steadiness.
Therefore, especially during this phase when he must pay his dues?
However, when it came to critiquing Curry, Qin Yue did not go easy on his nephew.
"Stephen, if you hand over possession like this again, I will kick your butt hard, got it?"
"Oh..."
The young Curry was gradually getting used to this dynamic with Qin Yue.
Although Qin Yue was always particularly harsh with him, the more Curry understood Qin Yue, the more he knew that Qin Yue was only harsh with those he valued.
Like Danny Green, whom Qin Yue had given up on this season.
Now, Qin Yue’s demands for Green were so low that as long as he didn’t randomly pick things up from the ground and eat them, it was enough.
February saw the Warriors, despite unexpectedly losing two games, remain highly probable in the eyes of the world to break the Bulls’ myth this season, thanks to their solid foundation.
However...
This February, Qin Yue and the Warriors were no longer the main focus.
Because, before the trade deadline, the attention originally belonging to the Warriors was taken by league teams busy strengthening their rosters.
The Magic traded Rashard Lewis for Gilbert Arenas from the Wizards.
In this life, "Grand General" Arenas was lucky.
Because last season, the Cavaliers traded Iverson to the Wizards in exchange for Jamison, triggering a series of chain reactions.
Due to Iverson successfully taking Crittenton, who would have been involved in a future gun scandal with Arenas this season, under his wing while Arenas was recovering from an injury...
So, when Iverson prepared to return to the Philadelphia 76ers on a minimum salary last summer, Crittenton, following his big brother’s steps, also actively applied to the Wizards’ management for a trade, hoping the Wizards would let him reunite with Iverson in Philadelphia.
The Wizards’ management agreed to the trade.
Then, without Crittenton, whom Qin Yue remembered as a major criminal sentenced to 23 years in prison for charges like murder and drug dealing in later years, the historical gun scandal didn’t erupt.
Arenas escaped this catastrophe as a result.
Only, after returning from a severe injury, his capabilities could no longer compare to the past, leading the Wizards management to officially decide to tank and rebuild.
The Magic’s GM, Otis Smith, had always been fond of Arenas.
Smith wanted to gamble that Arenas still had fuel left in his tank, especially with Courtney Lee’s growth, Lewis had gradually become redundant in the Magic’s lineup....
Thus, after quickly reaching an agreement with the Wizards’ management, Smith resolutely sent off Lewis and a future first-round pick to acquire Arenas from the Wizards.
And the Wizards?
Now, focusing solely on tanking and rebuilding, they became the biggest variable before this year’s trade deadline.
In February, besides sending Arenas away, the Wizards also accepted a future first-round pick from the Mavericks as they swapped Caron Butler and Drew Gooden for Eric Dampier and Marquis Daniels from the Mavericks.
Interestingly, after acquiring Dampier, the Wizards immediately amnestied him using the Amnesty Clause.
Historically, if Qin Yue remembered correctly, the Wizards would have amnestied Big Z in the Jamison trade to allow him to return to the Cavaliers post-trade.
But now, in this era without a "Big Z Clause"...
With the Wizards’ management amnestying Dampier, and Dampier announcing in an interview that he would return to the Mavericks after the trade cooling period...
The league executives suddenly realized there’s such a bug hidden among their mountain of crappy codes.
Unsurprisingly, this life’s "Big Z Clause" is likely to be replaced by the "Dampier Clause."
In fact, as early as back then, the Cavaliers had already performed a similar operation with Eric Snow and alerted the league executives.
Unfortunately, Snow’s significance wasn’t enough to make the league realize the magnitude of the bug in their current version’s rules, so it wasn’t until the Wizards amnestied Dampier that the league executives reacted.
Qin Yue was well aware that after these two trades, the Wizards, already solely focused on tanking, had successfully disrupted this season’s situation.
Firstly, irrespective of whether Arenas, who had been severely injured for the past two consecutive seasons, still had fuel left in his tank, his knack for shooting threes would certainly allow him to seamlessly integrate into Stan Van Gundy’s One Star Four Shots system.
Furthermore, with "Martial Saint" Jackson and "Urban Cannon" Turkoglu on the Magic’s front line, Magic GM Smith’s understanding of the team roster was spot-on.
In comparison to the increasingly marginal Rashard Lewis, Arenas was indeed the urgently needed player.
As for Butler and Gooden whom the Wizards sent to assist the Mavericks during their team teardown?
In March, Qin Yue, eager to lead the Warriors to break the Bulls’ myth, would soon personally experience how different this increasingly complete Dallas Mavericks team was compared to the past.
Because on March 2nd, the Warriors hosting at home, their first opponent in March was none other than the Mavericks, who had just been strengthened via trades.
In a flash, looking at the Mavericks’ roster...
Qin Yue realized that, except for Tyson Chandler, this Mavericks team had basically assembled the champion foundation from his memory that once crushed Shituo Ridge.
"Fate is really something wonderful."
That day, Qin Yue silently marveled in his heart.
...
PS: My body really can’t take it today, so I can only update 5000 words for now.
①: Historically, the BRI split ratio that the players’ union eventually conceded to was between 49% and 51%.
②: The so-called veteran rule refers to the stipulations under the NBA max salary terms: players with 0-6 years can have a max contract that accounts for at most 25% of the team’s salary cap, players with 7-9 years at most 30%, and players with over 10 years can occupy 35% of the team’s salary cap.
