Chapter 1046: Chapter 436: The Great Reshuffling Phase (Part 3)
Yao Ming replied, “Thank you, Sister Jing, but tonight our team is having a dinner gathering. On a day like this, I need to be with my teammates. We also had team activities yesterday; otherwise, Lili and I would’ve co yesterday.”
Zhang Yang, who was playing with little Wukong on the side, chid in, “I heard there were so issues within your team. Is that true?”
Yao Ming turned his head towards Zhang Yang and said in an exasperated tone, “Look at you, gloating over my misfortune. But indeed, there are so issues. Originally, like you, I didn’t care for this so-called ‘boss’ title, but unlike you, I wasn’t lucky enough to have soone with Felton’s leadership charisma. So I had to step in myself…”
Rumors of internal conflict within the Chicago Bulls had circulated before. It wasn’t as serious as a ‘civil war,’ but internal strife did exist.
The issue stemd from Ben Wallace. He wasn’t an old player in the Chicago Bulls; he hadn’t cented his roots. In 2006, he beca the leader right after joining because of his fourth Defensive Player of the Year award during the 05-06 season, and he was still at the tail end of his peak, so his teammates respected his prowess.
But after winning the championship again, Big Ben’s motivation to prove that it was a mistake for the Pistons not to offer him a high salary was gone. He turned 34 in September. Including this season, his big contract still had two years left. By the ti it ends, he’ll be 36, and a new contract didn’t look promising. Plus, at 34, he was indeed aging, leading to a drastic drop in performance and influence within the team since the start of the season.
The 2003 pick Hinrich and 2004 pick Luol Deng had both executed new long-term contracts and both wanted to beco the new leader of the team, forming cliques within, but neither could suppress the other. Both had ‘weaknesses’; Hinrich being white, and Luol Deng lacking team-leading skills on the court.
Their competition once affected the team’s performance, so Yao Ming chose to step up as the boss…the issue was quickly resolved. If asked to choose between siding with Hinrich or Luol Deng, every player would choose to stand by Yao Ming.
But this also ant Yao Ming lost a lot of personal ti. He had to frequently invite teammates for als and drinks, like Big Ben did before, and like Felton from the Bobcats, to foster camaraderie among teammates.
Yao Ming arrived at Zhang Yang’s place at 11 a.m. and left before 2 p.m. to prepare for the next Christmas Eve dinner with his teammates, becoming a very busy man.
Zhang Yang wasn’t idle either, being called out by Felton to go to the mall with him to buy Christmas gifts for their teammates, eagerly anticipating what gifts he might receive the next day.
They weren’t too concerned about the ‘value’ of the gifts they received nor should they be. No matter what quirky gifts they got, they’d be happy, at least soone gifted them.
But the things they bought needed to be extravagantly expensive yet impractical.
These were the lessons learned from years of gift-giving…
The two days of rest flew by, and December 25th, Christmas day, ca.
In the morning, Zhang Yang took little Wukong, drove his pickup, and hauled a car full of gifts to Tuhang Stadium to exchange Christmas gifts with his club colleagues.
Little Wukong played at the stadium all morning, gave a pile of gifts to Zhang Yang’s teammates’ children, and received a pile in return, happily taken away by his mom by noon.
Both Zhang San and little Fat Boss thought these activities were quite aningful, enhancing team communication and promoting team relationship advancent.
The gift Zhang Yang found the most thoughtful was a handmade wooden bicycle crafted by the new teammate Jamal Magloire; the workmanship was quite impressive!
One could say Magloire was really idle this year; he picked up his childhood woodworking hobby again, making almost all of his Christmas gifts for teammates by hand.
So far this season, Magloire only played 15 minutes altogether, benefiting from Perkins being out for three gas, causing him to gain so weight.
However, Zhang Yang learned from Jordan that the team’s managent and coaching staff not only didn’t dislike Magloire for this but instead liked this life-loving player, believing his presence is beneficial to the team atmosphere.
Zhang Yang didn’t feel this, perhaps because he was part of this ‘atmosphere,’ and the managent and coaching staff, from a third-party perspective, might feel it more strongly.
At 1 p.m., in Orlando, the first Christmas Day ga started.
This year’s Christmas Day schedule had a lot of gas, with the last one kicking off at 9:30 p.m. Los Angeles ti, making a total of five gas.
Since 1947, the second year after the NBA was established, the concept of Christmas Day gas erged. Generally, there were three gas scheduled, and in so seasons only one ga, like the OK ga after O’Neal’s move east in the 04-05 season, which was the only ga on Christmas Day 2004. These gas are typically the most anticipated matchups; a blockbuster like the OK ga ans one is enough.
Having five gas like this had only happened once before, in the 99-00 season, the second season after the lockout, where NBA arranged many gas on every major occasion to lure fans back to watching the gas.
After the lockout of the 98-99 season ended, NBA’s overall attendance and ga viewership hit a 20-year low; the new season had to co up with sothing to attract fans and sponsors.
This ti, it wasn’t due to last season’s revenue issues; in the 07-08 season, NBA’s attendance, ga viewership, sponsorship fees, and so on, all set new records in NBA history, defying market trends, and the league’s total revenue increased by nearly 250 million US dollars compared to the 06-07 season.
But this sumr’s season ticket pre-sales hit a four-year low, even lower than the sumr after the Spurs and Pistons finals in 04-05, which dampened fans’ enthusiasm to watch gas. Even for the top five like the Knicks, Lakers, Bulls, Nuggets, and Bobcats, season ticket pre-sales dropped more than 10% compared to the sumr of 07.
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