Knowing that the salary cap for rookie deals was only slightly over $60 million for four years, Curry had played in just 26 gas last season, not to ntion his ankle surgery the previous sumr, making him a real glass man.
But this season, Curry was averaging 22 points, 4 rebounds, and 7 assists in the first six gas, ranking within the league’s top ten scorers.
Although it was still a small sample size, the potential Curry was showing faintly resembled the initial splendor of Hansen when he first joined the Grizzlies.
It was also around this ti that fans began to realize Curry and Hansen were from the sa draft class.
Coupled with Harden, who was racking up an average of over 25 points a ga with the Rockets, and Griffin, contributing steady 20 10 5 figures as the main guy on the Clippers,
fans suddenly discovered that the 2009 class, once considered a weak draft year, could actually rival the quality of the legendary 2003 draft!
So fans even dug up the mont when Hansen, after winning the three-point contest, told Curry, "The future is yours," undoubtedly adding more buzz to this matchup.
However, what no one expected was that the pre-ga focus wasn’t on Hansen or Curry, but on Warriors rookie Green.
This second-round pick had been keen on building his social dia presence since college, and now boasted a following in the millions.
Facing an upcoming match against the Grizzlies, he made a startling statent.
"The Grizzlies are an outdated team; their style of play is about to be eliminated by ti, while the Warriors represent modern basketball."
This comnt sparked huge controversy on social dia.
So felt that Green was simply talking nonsense since the Grizzlies had beaten the Lakers and swept the Heat with that very style last season.
And to ntion, they hadn’t lost a ga since the start of the new season.
Of course, others agreed with Green, observing that the Grizzlies’ ga pace indeed harked back to old-school, thodical half-court plays.
By contrast, the Warriors combined quick transitions with steady play, featuring lots of off-ball screens and three-pointers, creating more space on the court and playing a simpler, more efficient offense.
Since the Warriors hadn’t achieved anything significant yet, most people were just ridiculing Green.
However, for a second-round pick to manage to shift the ga’s focus onto himself, that was an ultimate display of personal ability off the court.
Hansen’s eyes lit up when he saw Green’s comnts.
Of course, it wasn’t the words that sparked his interest, but Green’s mouthiness.
During his ti with the Cavaliers, he grood Pierce to beco the leader of his haters; he later wanted Griffin to take on that role, but it didn’t turn out successfully.
Because this sort of thing is highly dependent on personality; Griffin seed tough at first but ended up showing just a brief flash of that toughness.
But Green was undoubtedly the perfect candidate for the role of chief hater.
As everything was falling into place for the Warriors, and their rise was imminent, with the Warriors fans joining in, a whole new group of haters would erge.
So now, not only could Hansen not ignore Green, but he also had to help boost Green’s social dia influence.
Realizing this, he logged into his own social dia account and started a verbal spar with Green from afar.
"Can soone tell which NBA team has won a championship with ’modern basketball’ yet?"
Hansen’s comnts struck a chord, given there was no such team at the mont.
Moreover, he wasn’t just stirring the pot for the sake of it; ’modern basketball’ itself was a vague concept.
You could say basketball is evolving towards more space and simplifying scoring efficiently, but if you equate pace with modern basketball, the Suns’ fast-break offense had existed well before the Warriors’.
To put it bluntly, each version of basketball has its gods, and the Warriors’ existence had much to do with continuous rule changes.
The Warriors’ celebrated "small-ball" lineup was predicated on a series of rulings that had nearly made the center position obsolete.
Imagine Yao Ming or O’Neal under the basket; how long could Green’s fra hold up against them?
In fact, the Warriors’ rise coincided with the season following the implentation of the NBA’s verticality rule.
Seeing Hansen respond to him, Green was instantly energized.
Although they had trash-talked each other on the NCAA stage and Hansen’s first $500,000 bet had been directed at him, their statuses were worlds apart now.
Hansen was the newly crowned FMVP, while he was just a second-round pick—he was actually worried Hansen would ignore him.
Now that Hansen had engaged, Green saw an opportunity to further increase his fa!
"The Warriors will be the first team, and I’m going to do it with Stephen Curry!"
Green’s claim of "Kobe and I scored 83 points together" fully showcased how shaless he could be, but it also reflected his skill level.
As long as he’s firmly tied to Curry, his place on the Warriors team is secured.
"I hope your modern basketball can keep you afloat for three quarters."
Hansen continued to talk tough on social dia.
It was unexpected for him to suddenly go after a second-round pick so aggressively, but this trash talk successfully raised the profile of the ga.
Of course, Green was the biggest beneficiary, although Mark Jackson put him in the rotation because of his outstanding defense, but his position in the rotation was way down the list.
But now everyone knows about Green, a character on the Warriors team.
So even dug deep into their history of grievances to find out that Hansen had faced Green in the past and even had a morable buzzer-beater scene.
TNT placed particular importance on this ga, sending The Big Three to comntate on the scene.
On the evening of the match, Oracle Arena, which usually didn’t have a high attendance, was full.
The online viewership was surprisingly high, too; it’s a rarity for a ga that isn’t the main focus to be hyped up like this.
But it completely made sense.
After all, Hansen is a big talker, and now the Warriors have their own. The two have history and grievances; regular season gas happen every day, but ones with this much topicality and storyline don’t.
During the pre-ga warm-ups, the live broadcast also alternated between close-ups of Hansen and Green. Green must have been feeling ecstatic inside his mind.
Especially since, like in college, Green also wore the number 23 in the NBA. Adding up the two players’ jersey numbers gave a total of 100, perfectly matching one of Hansen’s well-known catchphrases, maximizing the show’s effect.
Hansen ward up by himself, and Green wasn’t even a starter for the Warriors yet. If cultivating a head villain was like raising fish in stages, it was like Green had just been released into the pond.
After the opening ceremony, the starting line-ups of both teams were announced.
The Grizzlies still had their usual starting five, while the Warriors had Curry and Thompson on the periter, Barnes and David Lee at forward, and Azeli at center.
Bo Gote had surgery on his ankle in April and had not recovered to return to the ga by now.
Capitalizing on this, the Grizzlies went hard on the paint right after the tip-off, leaving the Warriors’ inside line defenseless except for trying to stop them with fouls.
The Warriors’ half-court ga was clearly struggling.
Hansen noticed sothing that was Curry, while being the highest scorer for the Warriors, didn’t hold the ball much in Mark Jackson’s tactical system.
Jackson used Curry more as an off-ball shooter.
This led to a very peculiar situation, wherein Thompson’s tactical status seed even higher than Curry’s.
Because when it cos to pure catch-and-shoot skills, Thompson, who is taller, obviously posed a greater tactical threat.
Hansen felt he could understand why Jackson was eventually fired. Even if you didn’t recognize Curry’s talent, you shouldn’t only give your number one scorer such a tactical position.
Jackson was resentful about being fired by the Warriors in "history" and thought he was cherry-picked by Cole, just like Carlisle, but now it seems there’s no comparison between him and Carlisle. If you must draw a comparison, he was more similar to Hollins.
Both built important systems for the team, but when it ca to coaching, their thinking was too outdated.
Five minutes into the ga, the scoreboard read 11 to 5, in favor of the Grizzlies.
At that mont, Lee got his second personal foul.
Though Jackson had already tried to use the stronger Azeli to guard the more powerful low-post scorer Randolph, now that the Grizzlies’ inside "Black and White" duo had both grown, Lee was at a disadvantage no matter who he guarded.
Just then, a cheer erupted in the arena.
Hansen turned his head and saw Green standing at the scorer’s table tucking in his jersey.
Who says the NBA isn’t a ragtag troupe? Because of the pre-ga trash talk, Green’s rotation spot moved up, signalling his early appearance.
—Divider Line—
①: The verticality rule refers to the fact that when playing defense, a player cannot turn sideways in midair to block an offensive player while jumping vertically to defend. This ans defenders are allowed to jump straight up without twisting in the air, and they can only raise their hands vertically, not push down.
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