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Chapter 614: Public opinion environment being too favorable is not necessarily a good thing.

Chapter 614: Public opinion environment being too favorable is not necessarily a good thing.

Zhang Yang watched as Jarett Jack and Millsap stretched the lead to 40 points... his teammates were really ruthless!

He only played for 25 minutes tonight, 9 in the first quarter, 8 in the second, 8 in the third; shooting 8 for 12, including 1 for 2 from the three-point line, and a perfect 4 for 4 from the free-throw line, scoring 21 points with 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block.

He set the tone in the first quarter, scoring 6 points in a row and after a quick 6-0 run against the Knight team, the situation spiraled out of control.

Setting aside his initial streak of 3 baskets, he actually shot 5 for 9 afterward, performing efficiently but not explosively.

The lead kept widening, with his teammates showing absolutely no mercy to the visiting team. Even in garbage time, when the opposing players seemed to have given up and stop running their plays, Jarett Jack and Millsap kept hammering them mercilessly.

Jarett Jack shot 8 for 15 tonight, including 3 for 5 from beyond the arc, plus 4 for 5 from the line, scoring the team’s highest of 23 points along with 6 assists.

Millsap came off the bench for 26 minutes, shot 7 for 12, and with 3 for 5 from the free-throw line, scored 17 points and grabbed 8 rebounds, the team’s third highest.

Zhang Yang remembered how Rondo dissed the Knight team, dissed James, and dissed James’ fans before the game... Didn’t Jim Carrey emphasize repeatedly before the match that they couldn’t be careless tonight?

Playing against the Knight team, even someone with Rondo’s temperament didn’t hesitate to trash talk, revealing how irritated the rest of the team were by that small group of die-hard James fans and how much they wanted to beat them down hard.

Like Felton and Perkins, who talked about treating guests with respect but were really vicious when guarding James, it seemed they didn’t care about anything else, focusing solely on targeting James...

The Knight team had come a long way to watch the Mavericks receive their championship rings, only to be routed by 40 points; Zhang Yang felt somewhat embarrassed about it.

But seeing the fans so thrilled... he could only put the Knight team and James through some suffering.

After the game, Zhang Yang celebrated the victory with his teammates and the fans, using Rufus’ cannon to launch their autographed jerseys into the stands.

These jerseys were signed one by one during their rest time in the afternoon, prepared in advance as gifts for the fans in case of a victory in the season opener... What if they had lost? They would simply not distribute them then and wait until the next win to do so, especially since it was just against the Knight team—they were so confident they didn’t bother to hold an extra practice session. Instead, they were all signing jerseys, even paying extra to the staff to work overtime and help package them.

At the visitor’s team tunnel, a No. 23 player, who wished to remain unnamed, watched the scene feeling very aggrieved and resentful.

He envied the likes of Felton, reputedly the top point guard of the 2005 class, and Okafor, hailed as Duncan’s successor...

...

After enjoying the ring ceremony celebrations, Zhang Yang arrived home in the early hours of the morning, already a new day, and he completely turned the page on the championship victory.

Just because they had a smooth victory against the Knight team didn’t mean their future games would all go smoothly.

Still a bit excited, he showered and lay in bed but couldn’t sleep, so he brought his laptop into bed to surf the web.

He first opened the NBA’s official page for the Knight team.

The 40-point thrashing tonight wasn’t just because his teammates wanted to hammer the Knight team into submission; it was also due to most Knight players quickly losing morale after being outplayed, and importantly— the Knight team had declined a lot in strength!

Zhang Yang felt that the drop in the Knight team’s strength compared to last season might be far greater than when the Mavericks lost Gerald Wallace.

Looking at the salary details of the Knight players, Zhang Yang didn’t know how to describe it.

For the past two years, the Knight’s total salary was around 70 million, paying over 5 million US dollars in luxury tax one year and over 3 million the other.

Back then, Zhang Yang’s comment on the Knight’s owner’s spending was that the money was thrown on the back of a knife.

This season, with the expiry of rookie contracts for James, Pavlovic, and Varejao and the commencement of their new contracts, despite the expiration of two bulky mid-level contracts, the total salary soared to over 82 million, ranking fourth this season in wages, behind only the Mavericks, Knicks Team, and Nuggets Team.

Among them, Hughes, James, and Big Z, the core players earning over ten million a year, together accounted for over 35 million. That means the Knight’s role players’ combined salaries were an astounding 47 million!

But the performance of the Knight’s role players in the opener... did they look worth 17 million combined?

The Knight team scored 83 points tonight. Among these, James had 30 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, 3 steals, and 2 blocks; Hughes had 10 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists, and 1 steal; Big Z contributed 12 points and 9 rebounds with 2 blocks. Together, these three accounted for 52 points, an acceptable showing for a trio of stars.

This means that the Knight players earning 47 million in salaries combined for a mere 31 points.

The best performer among them was Daniel Gibson, a second-round pick from the ’06 draft, shooting 4 for 9, including 2 for 5 from three-point range and 1 for 2 from the line, scoring 11 points.

And Gibson’s salary was 690,000 US dollars... implying that the remaining 20 points were scored by players earning the rest of the 46 million.

Gooden and Varejao weren’t bad, with above-average skills, but each had a salary as high as 6.5 million. However, those two were barely worth a mid-level exception on the free market—meaning the Knight would have been unlikely to retain them without offering more than the mid-level.

The Knight had spent nearly 8.75 million over two years to retain Pavlovic, almost twice his market value.

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