Chapter 141 Rookie, Welcome to the NBA
Rajon Rondo is short and thin, and doesn't look like a good person.

Seeing Zheng Yang at this moment, he was not very enthusiastic, he just stood up and nodded.

"Hey Zheng, I'm Rajon! I play number one!"

His eyes were always looking at Zheng Yang.

In fact, when Zheng Yang entered the stadium, he had been secretly paying attention to him. He was not very familiar with Zheng Yang, but he had a strong interest in this rising star in the league.

Or maybe he had some competitive spirit in him.

We are both young people. If he can do it, why can't I?
What Zheng Yang did after entering the stadium shocked him somewhat.

He knew that this was Zheng Yang's team and he was the boss of the team, but in his imagination, he thought that Zheng Yang was only the boss on the court. Off the court, because he was too young, it would be difficult for him to control the situation, let alone suppress those troublemakers in the team.

But from the respectful attitude of others towards him after he entered the stadium, it can be seen that he is not only the boss on the court, but also the leader of the team off the court.

Everyone respects him, including the head coach.

This made Rondo even more curious. What kind of person was this guy? How could he be so respected by others?
And when Rondo was looking at Zheng Yang, Zheng Yang was also looking at him.

I don't know why, but when Zheng Yang saw Rondo's eyes, he felt that this guy was a traitor. In Hong Kong dramas, he would be the kind of guy like Crow who would stab the boss in the back.

But even though he thought so, Zheng Yang didn't care too much. Given his current position in the team, what impact could a little Karami have on him?
Even if you want to secretly say bad things about him behind his back, you probably won't be able to find another person to say it with him.

"Hey Rajon, I really like your style of play, remember to pass me more quick passes next time."

"I will."

After a round of greetings, Larry Brown began to arrange training for everyone, and Zheng Yang also took this opportunity to see how these guys were doing.

As he expected, after an offseason, these guys were basically half useless, especially Eddy Curry, who couldn't even make an open shot under the basket, which made Zheng Yang so angry that he took off his shoes and threw them on his butt.

"Don't worry too much, Zheng. This is normal. After all, we won the championship last season. It's normal to be lazy during the offseason. There is still a long time before the regular season starts. This can help everyone get back into shape."

Worried that Zheng Yang would be pissed off by these guys, Larry Brown hurried over to speak for them.

Although Zheng Yang was a little angry, he was not furious. After all, he had expected this situation.

It is impossible for everyone to be like Zheng Yang. During the off-season, even if he does not do high-intensity training, he will do some simple training to maintain his condition. Especially after winning the championship, the tense string in his heart breaks, and he will experience retaliatory enjoyment.

But he didn't expect that they would indulge themselves to such an extent.

What worries Zheng Yang more is not their condition but their mentality. After all, the condition can be recovered slowly, but after winning the championship, without that strong desire to win, the morale of the team will decline seriously.

Why did the Heat, who just won the championship in the 05-06 season, decline so quickly? One important reason is that everyone lacked that strong desire to win the championship.

Championship? I already got it. What difference does it make if I win one or two?
Zheng Yang was worried that they would have the same idea, so he was a little emotional just now.

However, after adjusting his mentality, Zheng Yang no longer thought about it. What could he do about this matter?

We can only take one step at a time!

……

During the training period, Zheng Yang also found that Rondo always liked to carry his bag. At first, Zheng Yang thought this guy was kind-hearted, but later he felt that the other party was trying to please him.

People are complicated. Rondo has some competitive spirit towards Zheng Yang, but he also understands his position in this team. Therefore, in order to integrate into the team as quickly as possible, he can only do things like helping Zheng Yang carry his bag to gain his favor.

However, after a training session, Zheng Yang took the initiative to pick up his bag and said to Rondo with a smile.

“Thanks Rajan, but I’ll just take it myself.

I know you feel a little unfamiliar coming to a new group, but don't worry, just train well.

As for things like carrying bags for the team boss or veterans, we don't have such a habit in our team.

So you don’t have to get it for me every time.”

Originally, players like Eddy Curry and Big F liked to bully newcomers and make them carry their bags and buy water for them.

But after Zheng Yang came here, he changed this habit.

Even the team leader carries his own bag to buy water, how dare you let others carry it for you? Don't you know your own weight?
It is also under the influence of Zheng Yang that the atmosphere in the Knicks' locker room is quite harmonious, and there is no bullying of newcomers or forming cliques and small groups.

Rondo nodded in a daze, and slowly began to understand why Zheng Yang could attract so much respect from so many people at such a young age...

Carl on the side suddenly realized something and shouted, "The rookie has to help the veteran carry his bag and buy water, how could I forget that!"
No wonder this kid Rondo always helps the boss carry his bag. I thought he was kind and enthusiastic, but I didn’t expect that he is actually a scheming bitch.

He helped the boss carry his bag to please him without reminding me. How cunning of him!
Rondo didn't know what Karl was thinking, but he felt speechless when he saw him.

This guy actually dared to ask me to carry his bag a few days ago. Doesn’t he have any idea of ​​what’s going on?
How dare you make such a request?
I'm already giving you face by not asking you to help me carry the bag!

……

NBA07-08赛季的常规赛在10月30日正式开打，不过尼克斯的第一场比赛等到11月2日才正式开打，他们的对手是去年的东决对手骑士队。

This offseason, the general manager of the Cavaliers should have given himself a long vacation. He did not make any valuable trades during the long offseason. For example, their starting lineup has not changed at present.

The Knicks' starting lineup has not changed. Larry Brown once considered letting Rondo start, after all, his ability to connect the team is definitely better than Quentin Richardson. However, on the one hand, Quentin Richardson is good at three-pointers and defense, and on the other hand, he is a contributor to the team and his strength has not declined. It is somewhat unreasonable to directly remove him from the starting lineup.

Players still take it very seriously whether they start or not!
So Larry Brown finally let Quentin Richardson continue to start.

During the offseason, one team's strength remained stagnant while the other team strengthened. Logically speaking, based on the strength gap from last season, the Knicks should be able to easily beat the opponent.

But that was not the case. Since the Knicks players were in such bad shape today, the score was very close until the last three minutes when Zheng Yang scored five points in a row to kill the suspense of the game.

Although the Knicks were in average shape, the Cavaliers were not in great shape either. It wasn't that they had a bad touch, but they simply had no fighting spirit. Except for James, everyone else looked like they were still asleep.

As for the reason... we can only say that Zheng Yang directly broke their faith in the playoffs last season, so now when they see Zheng Yang, they surrender first without thinking twice.

You said we are behind? Relax, this is normal!

Are we ahead? Don't worry, Zheng Yang will overtake us sooner or later!
Except for James, everyone on the team is ready to go!
As for James, he actually wanted to start fighting when he saw Zheng Yang. After all, he had been abused by the opponent so many times. Since he couldn't resist, he could only choose to enjoy it!

But the pride of being the chosen one in his heart still prevented him from giving up completely. He still wanted to give it a try. Maybe the bicycle could turn into a motorcycle!
But the final failure made him realize that it was all God's will!
She was born to be his nemesis.

This rematch of last season's Eastern Conference Finals was not the most eye-catching of all NBA games today. Everyone's attention was focused on the Celtics' home game against the Wizards.

This is the first game of the new season for the Celtics' Big Three, and everyone wants to know what the chemistry between these three guys is like.

The Wizards are not a strong team. When facing the Celtics, they were able to fight back and forth with the opponent only in the first quarter. From the second quarter onwards, the gap between them and the Celtics widened by 22 points. In the end, they failed to achieve a big reversal and were easily defeated by the Celtics with 83:103.

In this game, Pierce scored 28 points, 5 rebounds and 4 assists, and Garnett made 17 of 9 shots and scored 22 points. The scary thing is that this guy actually got 20 rebounds. Although there were only 2 front rebounds, it also showed how well this guy protected the backcourt rebounds.

In addition, he also had 3 steals and 3 blocks, and he is worthy of his reputation as an all-around warrior.

Ray Allen made 5 of 2 three-pointers and scored 17 points and 4 rebounds. Although it was not outstanding, as the team's third scoring point, this performance was still OK!

The debut of the Celtics' Big Three can be said to be quite perfect. Everyone played his own role and performance, and the chemistry between them was very good. It didn't look like this was a newly formed team at all.

It was after this game that the media officially confirmed that the league had come to an end.

Before this, everyone could still hold onto hope, thinking that if the chemistry between these three guys wasn't good, 1+1+1<3, then there would be nothing to be afraid of.

But the Celtics' outstanding performance in the first game made everyone understand that if you want to compete for the championship this year, you must treat this team as your imaginary enemy and keep looking for their flaws, otherwise you will eventually be defeated by them.

……

The Knicks' second opponent is the Timberwolves, who just lost their king and entered a rebuilding phase. After losing their king, the team completely lost its competitiveness and became a bottom-ranked team in the Western Conference.

The Timberwolves fans were mentally prepared for this, so they came to this game for Zheng Yang. They didn't care about home or away games at all. They cheered for Zheng Yang when they saw him score a goal.

If many of them weren't wearing Timberwolves jerseys, everyone would have suspected that they were fans from the Knicks.

In this game, the Knicks performed very well, dominating their opponents throughout the entire game and leaving them with no chance of fighting back.

郑阳砍下35分8篮板5助攻，克劳福德砍下18分3篮板3助攻，昆廷.理查德森砍下14分4篮板3助攻，大本拿到6分10篮板，埃迪.库里拿下10分6篮板。

Not only did the team's starting lineup perform well, but the performance of the team's substitutes was also remarkable.

希尔12分2篮板，隆多5分5助攻，大卫.李6分3篮板……

With the addition of Rondo and Hill, the Knicks' current bench lineup is not an advantage, but at least it is not the team's weakness.

In the future, when we meet some strong teams competing for the championship, Zheng Yang will be able to get more time to rest.

In the team's third game, they faced the Supersonics. Durant was still very weak at the moment, and had not yet perfected his unstoppable mid-range shot. In order to protect this young guy, the head coach of the Supersonics did not let him play as a small forward, but put him at the shooting guard position.

When Crawford saw that the guy facing him actually had the height of a center, he was dumbfounded!
Am I playing the second position?
Shouldn't this guy be fighting for rebounds with Eddy Curry in the paint?
I know that everyone in the NBA has weird talents, but no one has ever told me that their talents are this weird!
It was difficult for Crawford to accept this fact, but he had no choice but to accept it.

At the beginning of the game, Durant held the ball and played against Crawford. At this moment, Crawford did not take the opponent seriously. After all, he was a championship guard after all. Although the opponent was a talented monster, this was only his third NBA game.

I guess he hasn't fully adapted to this stadium yet!
But what happened next shocked Crawford. The opponent swung the ball left and right, shifting Crawford's defensive focus, and then suddenly changed direction, with the basketball moving from his left hand to his right hand.

Crawford, who had defended various players, felt that the player was going to break through to his left, so he moved sideways, thinking of taking advantage of the opponent's high center of gravity when dribbling to steal the ball from him.

But who would have thought that this two-meter-one big guy would suddenly change direction and rush directly to Crawford's left.

The latter's brain reacted, but his feet did not, so his upper body moved but his lower body did not, and he fell directly to the ground.

Durant was just about to accelerate and jump for a gliding slam dunk, but who would have thought that Zheng Yang would appear on the side.

The latter also jumped high and slapped the basketball out of his hand. At the same time, the physical confrontation caused Durant to fall to the ground after landing.

"Rookie, welcome to the NBA!"

After landing, Zheng Yang smiled and said as he looked at Durant lying on the ground.

　I would like to recommend a new basketball book "NBA: The Second Generation of Flying Pigs". It is very good and readers who are interested can go and have a look.

(End of this chapter)