Chapter 110 Except Dirk, everyone else can be a commodity on the shelf
Among the three players in the championship club, who is the happiest person this offseason?
That must be Wade!
After all, the Heat have been active during the offseason and have been continuously strengthening their team. Now everything is ready and they are just waiting for the new season to start.

Wade can't wait to lead the team to win his first championship.

Zheng Yang was neither happy nor sad. After all, the team had the foundation and would not be too bad. However, defending the title was not necessarily a possibility.

After all, when it comes to winning a championship, strength is important, but luck is also important.

As for Anthony, this guy is probably the most depressed one. After all, the Nuggets did not make any big moves during the offseason and failed to find suitable helpers for Anthony. It seems that this guy's chance of winning the championship will be a long time coming.

However, the three of them made a lot of progress during the offseason, especially Wade. In order to win the championship like Zheng Yang as soon as possible, this guy really worked hard in training.

I wish I could practice 5 times a day!
As for Zheng Yang, he also trains very seriously. After all, his goal is not just one or two championships.

But there are so many of them...the kind that can't fit on one hand.

This offseason, Zheng Yang strengthened his shooting and defensive abilities. Although his shooting is already very good, there is still room for improvement.

Especially the three-pointer, he needs to become more stable, turn it into his regular weapon, and make himself a stable and terrifying scoring method from outside the three-point line to the basket.

As for defense, he feels that he has not yet fully developed the defensive potential brought by his physical talents, and his next goal is to be selected into the All-Defensive First Team.

Practicing offense is tiring, practicing defense is even more tiring. You need to keep training to speed up your lateral movement, and you also need to keep improving to make your defensive movements cleaner and neater.

Zheng Yang even hired a trainer for this purpose and conducted special training for a period of time.

So his defensive ability has really improved by leaps and bounds during this period, especially his one-on-one defense ability, which is one level higher than last season.

After all, there are two players with excellent one-on-one abilities around him, and he trains and plays with them every day, so it is hard not to improve his one-on-one defensive ability.

In mid-September, the three members of the championship club went back to their homes after a farewell dinner. After all, the training camps for the new season were about to begin.

It’s time for them to go back and prepare well!
……

The Mavericks' training camp opened in late September. Looking at the familiar stadium, but missing a few familiar people, Zheng Yang was somewhat uninterested.

The team's new head coach is Avery Johnson, a black uncle. He is only 40 years old this year, which is more than years younger than old Nelson.

He was originally an assistant coach for the team, and after Nelson Sr. left, he was promoted to the position of head coach.

He was quite familiar with this group of players, so there were no problems during their first meeting.

After a brief greeting, Avery Johnson began their training.

But during the training process, everyone found that something was wrong.

While practicing the team's tactics, everyone discovered that Zheng Yang, who was the team's offensive core last season, is not as good as Nowitzki in tactical position this season.

Avery Johnson specifically assigned many tactics to Nowitzki, but there were fewer tactics for Zheng Yang than last season.

Zheng Yang was also very puzzled by this, but when he saw that Avery Johnson was not prepared to give him any explanation, and Nowitzki also remained silent and expressionless, he understood what they meant.

They must have met before the start of training camp, and there was a high probability that the team owner Cuban also met. The purpose of the meeting was to make Nowitzki the team leader in the new season and make him the real and only core of the team.

Zheng Yang's face suddenly turned dark. No matter who it is, no one would be happy if they encountered such a situation.

He just won the scoring title and FMVP last season and helped the team win the championship, but now the team is weakening his tactical position for no reason and making him serve as a foil to Nowitzki.

If he is not as skilled as others, he will admit it, just like in his rookie season, he put himself in a very correct position and never overstepped the mark.

But they chose to suppress himself just to promote Nowitzki, which was something Zheng Yang could not accept.

The tactical position he has obtained today was not stolen from Nowitzki, but was earned through his own hard work in each game.

Last year's Western Conference Finals MVP and Finals MVP were not snatched from Nowitzki, but from the Spurs.

Without him, how could the Mavericks defeat the Spurs and the Pistons?

Now you're ready to get rid of it, right?

Zheng Yang was unhappy, but he did not choose to turn hostile on the spot. He was not a young boy who would show on his face what he was thinking.

He does want to find a time to turn against the team and put pressure on the head coach and management, but he will not put himself on the opposite side of public opinion.

He will get everyone on his side!

……

When the team took the final photo later, Nowitzki took the C position alone, while Zheng Yang stood behind him and became his background.

Da Chou really couldn't stand it this time. Although he and Zheng Yang were rookies in the same class, he always regarded the other as his big brother. Zheng Yang also always took good care of him and would ask him to show up in front of the camera whenever he had the chance.

He was not the kind of person who would be ungrateful, so he found the team's head coach Avery Johnson and said with a frown.

“Coach, I don’t think we should treat Zheng like this!

You know, he's given a lot to this team and he deserves the respect he deserves, you know what I'm saying."

I didn't expect that it would be Da Chou who would come to me to say this for Zheng Yang, Avery Johnson said with a frown.

"This is the decision of the management. If you have any questions, you can go and talk to them." "As the head coach of the team, shouldn't you speak for Zheng?"

"Josh, I think you should leave here before I get angry..."

Avery Johnson shouted, suppressing his anger. He felt that his authority as a head coach was challenged.

Da Chou is no longer the timid guy who first came to the team. In the past two years, as his skills have improved and he has seen various big scenes, he has become much more confident.

"Fuck you guys, you only care about money, you don't even know who brought you everything you have now!

Without Zheng, without this championship, who would care about you?
Fuck!

Da Chou's furious voice attracted the attention of the people around him. Others came over to pull them apart. The media who were originally here to interview heard the news and quickly ran over with cameras to record the scene in front of them.

The next day, an article titled "Internal strife! Zheng was suppressed, Josh stood up for him" appeared in the Dallas Sports Daily, and many other sports newspapers and magazines also published the news.

You know, although the current Mavericks' traffic popularity is not as high as that of a traffic-rich team like the Lakers, thanks to last season's championship and Zheng Yang, their popularity in the league is also at an upper-middle level.

Such a big internal conflict will certainly attract everyone's attention!

However, everyone's attention was not focused on the conflict between Da Chou and Avery Johnson, but on the suppression of Zheng Yang.

The fans are still unclear about the team’s tactical position. After all, the new season has not started yet and they don’t know the coaching staff’s arrangements.

However, everyone is aware of the makeup photos, because the Mavericks' makeup photos have been published in the newspapers today. Everyone noticed that Zheng Yang not only did not stand in the C position, but instead became Nowitzki's background.

Let a scoring champion and finals MVP serve as a background player... if this isn't suppression, what is?
Zheng Yang's fans began to feel dissatisfied. They used newspapers, the Internet and other channels to put pressure on the team. They needed an explanation from the team management as to why Zheng Yang was just a background player.
Is this how they treat their title-winning players?
"This group of management don't know shit. They thought last season's championship was their credit, so they fired Michael and forced coach Don Nelson out, and now they're trying to force Zheng out!
Without Zheng, they can't even beat the Suns. Damn these guys who use their asses as their eyes!"

A fan wearing Zheng Yang's No. 19 jersey angrily shouted during an interview with the media, and other fans around him expressed their agreement.

Zheng was the biggest contributor last season, and Dallas fans will never allow him to be treated unfairly!

Zheng Yang already has a lot of fans, and his image in front of the media has always been very good, so even passers-by have some good feelings towards him.

Therefore, after Zheng Yang arranged for his agent Eric Fleischer to use the media to exaggerate the fact that he was suppressed by the team, the Mavericks management began to feel tremendous pressure.

They thought that suppressing Zheng would cause dissatisfaction among some fans, but they did not expect that so many people would stand up and speak for Zheng Yang.

In particular, some NBA stars came out to speak for Zheng Yang, such as Anthony of the Nuggets, who publicly stated in front of the media: "If the Mavericks feel that they don't need Zheng, they can consider trading him!

I'm really looking forward to having him as a teammate!"

The general managers of other teams also began to wonder whether the Mavericks were really going to trade Zheng Yang. They knew that the Mavericks would not be stupid enough to trade him now. They would definitely wait until the new season was over, renew Zheng Yang's contract, and then trade him.

That's the only way to maximize his trading value!
But it doesn’t matter. They can talk to the Mavericks in advance and prepare for Zheng Yang’s arrival, and then they can prepare to win the championship.

So they began to communicate and inquire about prices from the Mavericks.

Whether it is a championship-contending team or a struggling team, they all inquire about the price.

A 20-year-old scoring champion, Finals MVP, who can attack and defend, has no obvious technical flaws, and has leadership qualities. Who wouldn't be jealous and want this!
They always thought that Zheng Yang was not for sale by the Mavericks, but who would have thought that he was not!
The Mavericks were dumbfounded, but they were not dumb!
The Mavericks were also confused by the fact that other teams came to inquire about the price. When did we say we wanted to trade Zheng? We still wanted to rely on him to win the championship!

Why are people saying we want to trade Zheng now?
The team's head coach Avery Johnson felt that this matter had really become a big deal, so he quickly found his boss Cuban and asked for his opinion.

Cuban also did not expect that a mere makeup photo incident would cause such a sensation, but this instead intensified his rebellious psychology, so he snorted and said.

"Don't worry about what the media says. Once the new season starts, no one will care about it anymore."

"So are we...really going to trade Zheng?"

Avery Johnson asked uncertainly, now he didn't know what Cuban was thinking.

Originally, he thought that the other party just wanted to promote Nowitzki and suppress Zheng Yang to the second in command, but now the rumors outside have made Avery Johnson doubt whether Cuban really wants to trade Zheng Yang.

Hearing this, Cuban's face turned completely dark and he said coldly.

"In this team, except for Dirk, everyone else can be a commodity on the shelf. You don't have to worry about so much. Just ensure the team's performance in the new season."

In fact, Cuban had no intention of trading Zheng Yang. After all, he just wanted to control the team. He was not stupid. He certainly knew how important Zheng was to the Mavericks.

But now the public opinion is saying that without Zheng Yang, the Mavericks will not be able to do well...

This statement made Cuban very unhappy. This is his team, not Zheng Yang's team. Without him, this team can still make it to the finals and win the championship!
In fact, there is another reason why Cuban doesn't like Zheng Yang, that is when Nelson wanted to trade Zheng Yang, he strongly opposed it.

He didn't like this yellow man at the time, nor did he believe in his potential.

But everything that happened later kept slapping him in the face. Every time he saw Zheng Yang achieve one achievement after another, he felt a little uncomfortable in his heart.

The existence of this guy proves that his vision is not that good!
Avery Johnson was a little shocked when he heard what Cuban said. He didn't expect that Cuban actually wanted to trade Zheng Yang.

He is the youngest scoring champion in history. With him, as long as the team's basic lineup is maintained, there will be a possibility of winning the championship in at least the next ten years.

No team can resist such temptation!
But now Cuban is actually thinking of trading him away, and he can't help but wonder, is it really the right choice to promote Nowitzki?
……

No matter how exaggerated the outside world has been, the Mavericks have never responded to it.

And the new season's games are about to begin!
(End of this chapter)