Inside the bathroom of the home team locker room at Phillips Arena, home of the Eagles.

Recalling the increasingly clear memories in his mind, Liu Mang stared at the mirror in a daze...

There was no doubt that the person in the mirror was him. Liu Mang knew his face better than anyone else after looking at him in the mirror for more than 20 years. He unzipped his pants and took a look at his second brother. The mole in the middle of his hair was still there. As for why he was so tall.

He has grown 20 centimeters taller and is now 1.93 meters tall.

Liu Mang, whose English name is Ace Liu, was given to him by his college coach, which means that his shots pierce the opponent like a skate. The newly added memory is that he was born on August 26, 1982, and is now 19 years old in China.

A college student studying in the United States, he participated in the NBA draft after his sophomore year at Georgia Institute of Technology. He was unexpectedly picked by the owner of the Eagles, who wanted to follow President David Stern's footsteps in exploring the Chinese market, and selected him fifth overall in the second round, 24th overall.

Selected with the 13th overall pick, his strengths in basketball are ball control and three-pointers. In this era, it is considered a non-mainstream style of play, and even the second round of the draft is difficult...

The time now is November 1, 2001. Liu Mang is a second-round pick of the Eagles. The game he just finished half time is the Eagles' home opener against the Rockets.

Liu Mang once thought about what would happen if he traveled back in time, but one day he actually traveled back in time and found that he knew nothing. It was even possible that even survival in this era without Internet and convenient transportation was a problem.

He now finds that apart from his two-year, non-fully guaranteed contract with the Hawks, he has no other capital to survive in this era.

In 2001, the Internet was not yet popular. The Internet only had one or two megabytes of broadband. Mobile phones had just eliminated Big Brother. The only online game in the United States was the web version of the first generation "The Sims." The only online game in Asia was "Legend of Blood."

》, when friends make an appointment to sing, it’s still the kind of karaoke where they line up to sing...

He is desperate now. He doesn't know any lottery numbers, and the method of making a fortune by buying lottery tickets doesn't work.

As for investing, it is nonsense. Even if he really remembers that before certain economic bubble periods, there would be a period of time when the stock market surged for no reason, but there was no money! Moreover, the bubble crisis in the 1990s had just ended, and it was at least five or six years away.

It will be the next round of story crisis!

As for the way to make money...the first thing that pops up in Liu Mang's mind is the team's salary. However, he is just a second-round pick, how high can his salary be?

It is now 2001, and the NBA salary cap has just exceeded 40 million. The team's top insider, the league's shot-blocking leader Ratliff, the team boss Rahim, the retired Kukoc, and the good old Muhammad have a combined salary of

It has reached 39 million. Other players have salaries ranging from hundreds of thousands to more than one million, and none of them has more than two million. Terry, who averages 20 3 6 per game and is now regarded as a future superstar, only has 1.5 million.

year contract.

Liu Mang's rookie season salary is US$460,000. Atlanta's state tax is not high, only 5%, but the federal tax rate for those with an annual salary of more than US$200,000 and less than US$500,000 is 28%.

Since there was no draft market for him before, no agent found him before the draft, and he still doesn't have an agent now, so he doesn't have to pay an agent's commission.

This is a good thing, because agents are usually closest to players, and if an agent is seen to be doing anything unusual, it will be troublesome to explain.

But after deducting 33% of the tax and 3% of the players union dues, the first year's salary of 460,000 is less than 300,000 US dollars. As for the second year's non-guaranteed contract, can I get it?

Still saying two things.

The purchasing power of US$300,000 in the United States is indeed not low, but is it possible that with US$300,000, it will be all in vain?

Play hard and get a contract?

Liu Mang responded with despair to this matter. Although his height has become that of a large NBA point guard at 1.93 meters, which is taller than most NBA point guards in this era, the draft in his memory

The evaluation says: Two strengths: excellent ball control and excellent shooting.

There is none at all when it comes to him.

Moreover, the original evaluation of this identity is that he has excellent ball control and excellent shooting, which means that his physical fitness is really average. He is a loser who has traveled through time and played in the NBA!

No one knows himself better than Liu Mang. Although he can play basketball and loves to watch the NBA, his playing skills are average. Playing three-on-three half-court games with his classmates in China is okay, but playing in the NBA? What nonsense!

This body is not the kind with particularly good physical fitness. It is not even considered excellent. It can only be described as mediocre. Coaches when playing in the NCAA generally pay more attention to technology and tactical execution, so Liu Mang remembers

Only the "self" can perform reasonably well in the NCAA. Georgia Tech unexpectedly reached the top 8 in March Madness this year, and it only became famous in Atlanta.

As for being able to enter the NBA, it is purely because the drafts in the past two years have been really bad. There are only a few worth watching. Especially after the devilish 2000 draft, the second round pick in 2001 is equivalent to selecting someone to guard the water.

Chances are, it’s not Popovich. It’s impossible to guarantee that someone with real ability will be selected outside this year’s lottery area. We can only gamble because the talent in the past two years has been really bad. Kobe, Tracy McGrady and others were in high school.

Entering the NBA after graduation has ruined the trend to some extent. No, this year's Wizards' top pick in the summer league couldn't beat the undrafted college students.

This makes Liu Mang happen to be because Stern is vigorously developing overseas ball markets, especially the Chinese market, and there happens to be a local Chinese college student participating in the draft. His fixed-point three-pointer is not bad. The Eagles spent this for some reasons.

He was selected back in the second round of the super draft.

This chapter is not finished yet, please click the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Now Liu Mang doesn’t know whether he is occupying the magpie’s nest or something went wrong when he traveled through time. He has grown so much because of his appearance and even some aspects of his body.

"Birthmark" is the same as his original self, but one thing is for sure, he did not "inherit" the two abilities of ball control and shooting that this body originally had. He even got a "smaller" basketball because of his taller stature.

I'm a little confused and not used to it at all.

With this feeling, Liu Mang knew very well that his shooting was definitely extremely unreliable. Maybe it would be because he had become a "giant" close to two meters tall and had stronger strength than before and a completely different vision now.

The angle throws the ball away directly...

The halftime break was not particularly long. Liu Mang had been thinking wildly in the bathroom for a while. The break time had passed, and he had already heard the voice of the team staff calling his name to tell him that the game was about to start.

Liu Mang responded, tidied up his jersey, and prepared to go... then guarded the water fountain...

The Eagles' lineup is not bad. They couldn't get a second-round pick like him during regular time. Moreover, he was a second-round pick in a young year of the draft. As expected in the second half, he continued to defend his life from the water dispenser.

He already knew it during the halftime break. The reason why he had a chance to play in the first half was entirely because the Rockets had a very strong point guard. It could even be said that he was the first such strong point guard in history.

Point guard, there has never been such a powerful point guard in NBA history - Steve Francis.

Francis can be called an epoch-making point guard. Although he may not be comparable to those MVP or best team-level point guards, his emergence is epoch-making, letting people know that point guards can also play like this.

There were roughly three types of point guards in the past. The most common ones were Kidd and Stockton. Point guards organized the offense and controlled the rhythm. They may not necessarily have good statistics, but those with good statistics must be super point guards.

Wei, this was the consensus of previous eras.

The second type is scoring point guards like Allen Iverson, Havlicek, Isaiah Thomas, Marbury and others.

There is only one person in the third type-Magic Johnson...

Francis is different from these three types. He can organize offense like Kidd, although not as good, but he can also get six or seven assists per game. He can score like Iverson, although not as powerful.

But he can also score more than 20 points per game, and he can be as versatile as Magic. He can also get six or seven rebounds per game, but it is difficult to get a triple-double.

He has a body as strong as a small forward, and the ability to dominate in the air like Jordan, Carter, and James Worthy.

Use a word that will appear often a decade later to describe Francis - combo guard!

Francis is the first true combo guard in the history of the NBA. Unlike Iverson, who was moved to the shooting guard position by Larry Brown last season in the 2000-2001 season, Francis changed from the starting point to the shooting guard position.

He "occupies" all the work at the shooting guard and point guard positions, leading the team's rhythm while also being the team's scoring leader.

Francis wants to do this, and Rockets head coach Rudy Tomjanovich is willing to let him do this, which shows his strong strength.

Francis' impact is unprecedented in the point guard position. Now no one in the entire league can match him. The two point guards of the Hawks did not finish the half and both committed three fouls. In addition, the shooting guard position

Jason Terry committed two fouls. Francis faced the Hawks' woefully weak defensive line and carried out critical attacks again and again. He gave the Hawks 8 outside fouls in the half...

Against such a cruel opponent, Liu Mang felt that it was impossible for coach Lon Kruger to send him on the field.
Chapter completed!