In the wild 1112 season, Kobe and Paul Howard reunite in Los Angeles!

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Ultimately, the workers and employers themselves are rivals on different levels. Although the league lockout had a huge economic impact on both sides, even the poorest among the 30 team owners in the league are billionaires who can fully endure the financial losses caused by the shutdown, even if it hurts.

But the players on the labor side are different. The league's top superstars like Wang Chong, James, and Kobe can certainly withstand it, but over 80% of the more than 400 players in the league are ordinary role players with an annual salary of about one million. The income of these players is only enough to support their families. Once the NBA is suspended, there will be no work and the source of income will be cut off, and many will even struggle to live. How can they negotiate with the employer?

In this case, even if the players' union still wants to resist, the conditions no longer allow it. When players cannot reach a unified concept, concessions become inevitable.

On November 26, 2011, the workers and management met again. After 15 hours of negotiations, they finally reached a unified labor agreement and the league's lockout officially ended.

This news made all NBA players breathe a sigh of relief and rush back to prepare for the new season.

In the past, by the end of November, the first full month of the NBA season had ended, and each team had played at least 15 regular-season games.

But now the league had just ended its lockout, and there was still much to prepare for the new season. No matter how efficient they were, it would probably take around a month to start the regular season. The 2011-12 season would be shortened, with fewer games and a compressed schedule.

There is no doubt that games in the shortened season are much more difficult than those in a normal regular season. It is a big test for the physical reserves and recovery capacity of the team's players. Therefore, it is especially hostile to teams with mostly veteran players. Various teams in the league want to gather their players as soon as possible to make use of the time to train and prepare for the shortened season.

At the same time, the free agency market opened in early December, and teams could finally start signing and negotiating activities.

Wang Chong left Los Angeles for Chicago, officially ending his honeymoon vacation in early December.

The Bulls gathered all team members, excluding the role players who only signed one-year short-term contracts. A total of 9 players officially reported, namely the point guards: Stephen Curry, Chauncey Billups, Danny Green, Marcus Thornton, and rookie Isaiah Thomas.

Forwards: Wang Chong, Kevin Garnett, Jimmy Butler.

Center: Marc Gasol.

O'Neal had officially announced his retirement before the league was suspended. Winning the sixth championship of his career with the Bulls completed O'Neal's career, although in terms of personal honors, he is not as good as Jordan or even Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Russell in the same position. There is a big difference, but at least in terms of the number of championships, O'Neal, with six championships, definitely has a place among the top ten or even top five in history.

Of course, the sixth championship as a substitute player didn't add much to his legacy, but even five championships were enough, especially the three consecutive championships and the four FMVP trophies during his time with the Lakers, which made O'Neal the most dominant center in NBA history.

McGrady, another player who won the championship with the Bulls in tow, did not opt for retirement.

When he joined the Bulls, he wanted to gain some popularity by relying on the Bulls to win the championship and see if he could perform well again and continue playing in the NBA. After all, McGrady was only 32 years old. In the 2011-12 season, external players were far from being old.

But it was a pity that although he won the championship as he wished with the Bulls, he played very little time in both the regular season and the playoffs. He averaged less than 10 minutes per game and his stats were only 4 points and 2 rebounds. He was completely reduced to a pure bench player.

The one-year veteran minimum salary contract had expired, and the Bulls had no plans to renew McGrady's contract. The latter was ready to try the free agency market, but very few teams were interested.

The Bulls needed to gather a roster of at least 12 players before the start of the new season, so they also needed to find players to join the team in free agency.

Since the team's salary currently exceeds the salary cap, except for a mid-level exception worth around $5 million, the rest of the Bulls' players can only choose veteran players with minimum salaries, making it difficult to select capable players.

Wang Chong had paid special attention to free-agent players earlier. Unfortunately, the free agency market in 2011 was relatively slim. There were only a few cheap, high-quality players, and even fewer renowned ones. The ones that were slightly better included players like Chandler, Jamal Crawford, Nene, and DeAndre Jordan.

Among these players, the one Wang Chong was most interested in was forward Shane Battier.

Shane Battier originally chose to join the Heat in the 2011-12 season, and over the next three seasons, he played for the Heat, winning two championships with the team.

Although he mainly served as a backup for the Heat, he was a very important player for them. With his defensive skills and high basketball IQ, he greatly helped the Heat establish a fast-break system.

In reality, the Bulls were not lacking in forwards, but according to the idea that the Heat would lose much of their strength without Battier, Wang Chong still asked the team to offer a contract to Battier.

However, what Wang Chong did not expect was that Battier rejected the Bulls' offer and chose the Heat.

"This guy is really smart."

Both teams could only offer mid-level contracts. In theory, the Bulls, who had won four consecutive championships, should have been more attractive than the Heat. After all, who doesn't like winning championships?

But Shane did not see it that way.

It was possible to win the championship with the Bulls, but the Heat was the team that needed him most. Battier would definitely have playing time with the Heat, and the Heat did not have a superior defender like Garnett for their defense. They depended more on him, and his tactical status in the team would never decrease. These were things the Bulls could not guarantee him.

Just considering this, the Heat was more suitable for him than the Bulls.

After failing to intercept Battier, Wang Chong lost much interest in other players in free agency, so he left it to the general manager to handle.

His main focus shifted to training before the season began.

Since he had been on a honeymoon vacation as a newlywed, Wang Chong had basically not trained much, but this was actually not a big problem for him.

Wang Chong, who had just celebrated his 27th birthday in July, was still at the peak of his career, and the system fully digitalized his skill values. Unless he suffered an injury or did not train for a long time, his skill values would not experience any particularly obvious decline.

Additionally, the points accumulated during the last season were still stored in the system, ready for Wang Chong to activate the training module bonus effects at any time.

After the total number of activated badges reached 30, Wang Chong had no intention of activating the badges in the short term. Instead, he first wanted to improve his skill values.

The 2011-12 season would start in mid-December, with preseason games from December 16 to 23, and the regular season officially starting on December 25, Christmas Day.

This means each team still had about half a month to train before the preseason started.

Wang Chong's plan was to include preseason games. In the last month, he would spend all his points in the training module to enhance his skills.

This time, Wang Chong's main focus for strengthening was physical fitness. Considering the intensity of competition in the shortened 11-12 season, strengthening his body would definitely not be a problem.

After formulating a complete training plan for himself, Wang Chong also didn't forget to take care of the other players on the team, especially Curry and Billups, who had suffered serious injuries in the original 11-12 season.

Although he didn't know if the two would suffer serious injuries as before in this timeline, which had changed so much, just in case, he still tended to ask the assistant coach to arrange lighter training for them to avoid increasing the load on their bodies.

However, this type of situation is a blessing, not a curse, but a curse that cannot be avoided.

Surgery for Curry's ankle sprain was inevitable. Even if it didn't happen this season, it would happen sooner or later in the coming years. Considering this, Wang Chong was even a little hesitant about intervening too much. After all, the butterfly effect is impossible to predict. What if, due to his excessive intervention, Curry, instead of rising like a phoenix after the injury, ended up like Rose and couldn't recover after a fall?

As for Billups, the situation wasn't much better than Curry's. He was destined to have this obstacle, while Billups simply couldn't withstand the high-intensity competition at his age.

James, at 39, could still soar like an animal, but Billups, at 35, could no longer keep up with the intensity of the NBA competition.

Starting from the 2011-12 season, for three consecutive seasons, Billups played only about 20 games each season, to the point where he would get injured after playing a little. He was destined to no longer be the main force of the team.

On the other hand, Garnett, as an interior player who needed more physical confrontation, was in better physical condition than Billups. He could still perform well in the 11-12 season, but his condition began to deteriorate significantly in the following years.

In any case, in the 11-12 season, the Bulls' situation was probably not particularly good, and defending the title would be extremely difficult.

——Meanwhile, as teams began training, the free agency market also began to emerge.

Although there were no big names among the free agents whose contracts had expired, this didn't mean no teams wanted to make big moves.

The first to take action were the New York Knicks.

The Knicks spent 4 years and $58 million to steal the hardworking center Tyson Chandler from the Dallas Mavericks.

Although Chandler is not a superstar player, for the Knicks, who have Anthony, Stoudemire, and Rose, full of offensive power but lacking defensive ability, he seemed like manna after a long drought.

With Tyson Chandler, the Knicks would essentially not need to worry about defense in the new season. The Big Three could fully showcase their offensive talents. The Knicks' strength in the new season would undoubtedly be even greater.

But this was just an appetizer.

On December 9, a deal involving Charlotte Hornets' key player Chris Paul was announced, immediately sparking violent reactions.

In this deal, the Los Angeles Lakers waived key players Pau Gasol and Lamar Odom and acquired Chris Paul from the Hornets. The Hornets got Odom, Kevin Martin, Louis S. Cora, Dragic from the Rockets, and a 2012 first-round pick. Meanwhile, the Rockets received Pau Gasol.

But for the Lakers, this deal wasn't finished yet. After finalizing the trade, the Lakers immediately packaged center Andrew Bynum and point guard Jason Kidd, along with first-round picks for the next two years.

At this point, the Lakers sent most of their main players, except for Kobe, and exchanged for Paul and Howard, forming the Super Big Three, which shocked the entire league.

The first person to be shocked by the news was Wang Chong.

He never imagined that this scandalous trade that had once made Lakers fans regret it would actually come to fruition! Yes, in the original 2011-12 season, the Lakers almost managed to get both Paul and Howard at the same time.

However, when the deal was about to be implemented, it was stopped by NBA President David Stern.

Of course, even the league president isn't qualified to forcibly stop trades between teams, but the Hornets were in a special situation. Since the team had no owner, it was under the official custody of the league. When the 28 team owners of the rest of the league objected, Stern stopped the deal on behalf of the Hornets' interim owner.

The Lakers' deal was stopped for many reasons. The first was that the value of the deal for the Lakers was too high, not only because they got star player Chris Paul, but also because the Lakers sent Gasol and Odom. After completing the deal, the contracts of these two players were still very long, and the Lakers could save over $40 million in salary over the next three seasons.

At the same time, getting Paul without giving up any draft picks would also help the Lakers continue to pursue Howard through trades.

The last time this kind of trade was almost a trap was when the Lakers traded for Gasol in 2008. It was a trade when the Lakers traded for Gasol from the Grizzlies, paying the same amount of chips as the Celtics did with Garnett, but it was not at the same level.

Otherwise, Spurs head coach Popovich would not have compared the trade to a "robbery."

But what Wang Chong never expected was that this deal would actually go through now!

Obviously, the Hornets were still under custody, just as in their original history. How could Stern and the other team owners allow such a trap to happen?

But after calming down and thinking carefully, Wang Chong probably guessed why.

The answer is simple, thanks to Wang Chong and his Bulls.

End of this chapter

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