NBA headquarters, office of the league president.

"Adam, you did a good job this time." David Stern was praising Adam Silva, but there didn't seem to be a smile on his face.

"I'm glad to receive your compliment." Adam Silva responded humbly. Adam Silva didn't know whether the work this time was completed to make David Stern happy or unhappy.

"You go and do your work first. I'll come back to you if anything happens." David Stern asked Adam Silva to leave.

Adam Silva left David Stern's office confused. While thinking about the weird old man, he was also thinking about where he had made a mistake this time, but after thinking for a long time, he returned to his office.

, but I didn’t expect where I made a mistake!

The job David Stern asked Adam Silva to do a few days ago was to help increase the attention of the Eagles. Compared with the previous two years, the attention of the Eagles in the United States has dropped significantly this year.

As long as they are not the championship, or the Lakers and Knicks, other teams, even teams that have reached the finals continuously, will count as reaching the finals continuously as long as they have not won the championship, or have not won the championship in recent years.

, it will not maintain its popularity for too long. Slowly, people discovered that this team seemed to be a runner-up at most. Over time, aesthetic fatigue appeared.

What's more, the Hawks are not the runner-up, but only the semi-finals of the playoffs. Except for local fans in Atlanta and Georgia, most fans in other parts of the United States are tired of the Hawks.

Coupled with the fact that the Pacers are an unexpectedly rising team in the Eastern Conference this year, people seem to have seen the Hawks two years ago. People like new things. People here have had enough of the Hawks and they all go there.

Pay attention to the Pacers. Just like the Hawks two years ago, the Pacers have become the focus of the league.

Moreover, there is a lot of news about the three-headed monsters and the Big Four in the Western Conference. Maybe Liu Mang's distinctive personality and the strength of the top stars among the league's point guards allow him to have good exposure.

, but the Eagles' exposure this year is indeed too low, not as good as last year's losing streak.

This made David Stern, who saw that the Eagles had not been affected by the introduction of Rasheed Wallace and had a good start, was very anxious. The Eagles were actually "out of date" and did not have the first two and three days.

The feeling of explosive popularity that made headlines on both sides.

Of course, this does not affect the market value of the Hawks or anything else. The popularity of the Hawks in China is basically the same as that of the Rockets, and because the Hawks are stronger, Hawks fans speak more on the forum than Rockets fans.

It’s tough, the Eagles’ local ticket sales are good, the local live broadcast ratings are high, the sponsorship fees in China are also high, and they also receive a share of the broadcast fees from the league, which makes them more profitable than last year. The market value of the Eagles is rising steadily.

But it’s not good at all for NBA officials. The Hawks jersey sales are not as good as before, the live broadcast ratings are not as good as before, the topic index is not as good as before, and all-round decline is causing a headache for the league.

Who does the league want to support in the Eastern Conference? The Pacers? The new Spurs that got off to a hot start, but defended their opponents for less than 83 points in six consecutive games and scored less than 90 points themselves?

Or the Pistons and Nets, the two ratings killers?

The other three teams, the Magic, 76ers, and Raptors, which originally had super-popular superstars, are now ranked third to fifth from the bottom in the Eastern Conference.

The Hawks were originally a team that the league strongly favored last year, but the Hawks were still too young and failed to reach the finals, which made the league regretful. When the Hawks introduced another thorn in the side this year, David Stern was heartbroken.

They are all twitching, but fortunately this year's Rasheed Wallace is unexpectedly calm. The Eagles are making steady progress, but they are "out of date". This gives David Stern a headache, so he calls the supervisor

Business operations manager Adam Silva found ways to help the Hawks create exposure.

Adam Silva did it quickly, but the method seemed too radical to David Stern.

David Stern looked at the news comments on the Internet. Whether it was the media, experts or fans, they all questioned the player strength rankings this time. Liu Mang played very well, but Garnett and O'Neal were obviously

They played better, both were 20-10, and the team's record was no worse than that of the Eagles, only half a game behind the Eagles.

Adam Silva only wants to complete the work and achieve the goal, and this radical work philosophy of not caring about the process or the negative situations that arise makes David Stern hesitate again whether to hand over the position of president to

This young man.

But the key thing is that Adam Silva is highly respected by the league's team owners, because Adam Silva has brought a lot of income to the league in the past few years since he has been working in the NBA. For example, in the summer of 2002, he signed a contract with TV stations

The seven-year broadcast agreement greatly increased the league's revenue last season. Coupled with the in-depth cooperation with China, the league's revenue last season increased by a full 10% compared to the previous season, and the salary cap also increased.

The projected salary cap for the next few years in 2000 increased by more than $4 million.

The owners all love Adam Silva, but David Stern doesn't like it that much. Just like now, the Eagles are getting more attention, but most of the attention they get is doubts. This is not David Stern.

The result Stern wanted.

…

…

On November 12, the Hawks brought a mouthful of poisonous milk poured from the league to the North Shore Garden Arena to challenge the Celtics away from home.

Most teams in the Eastern Conference are miserable this year. Except for the top five, no team in the Eastern Conference has a winning percentage of 50%. The Heat, who are sixth, only have 3 wins and 4 losses, and the Celtics, who have 2 wins and 5 losses, are ranked first in the Eastern Conference.

eighth……

This year's Eastern Conference wins were basically snatched away by the top three. Except for the Nets, who are really striving for 50 wins in the season, the top three didn't lose much at the start, while the Eastern Conference teams ended up with draws in most games.

The Eastern Conference teams are playing, no, there are a lot of teams with 0 wins or 1 win or at most 2 wins. From seventh in the Eastern Conference to fifteenth in the Eastern Conference, they are all in these three situations.

This chapter is not over yet, please click on the next page to continue reading the exciting content! Among them, the Magic are at the bottom, with 0 wins and 7 losses. How miserable it is.

The Celtics are also a very miserable team this year. They sent away Antoine Walker. The "genius high school student" they selected this year, Kendrick Perkins, was selected by themselves but soon after signing the contract.

His rookie season was reimbursed, and a large number of high-quality role players left last season...

Fortunately, Vin Baker is in his contract year again this year. When Perkins is no longer on top of him, he has a sense of coming back and helped Pierce win two games.

For such an opponent, the Eagles can easily come to the North Shore Garden Arena to play.

After the game started, the Eagles easily won the right to attack first. Liu Mang and Rasheed Wallace, who was very excited today, started a pick-and-roll game.

Rasheed Wallace was endlessly unhappy with the Celtics. Although he was not willing to play in Boston. The fans there mocked him for looking like he had never read a book, but the Celtics actually refused.

To get him, it took two late first-round picks, which made Rasheed Wallace feel that his pride was hurt.

So this time Rasheed Wallace took the initiative to ask Liu Mang, Stockton, and Jason Terry to help him beat the Celtics.

Liu Mang bombarded the Celtics together. In the first quarter, Liu Mang scored 11 points and 4 assists. Rasheed Wallace scored 14 points, 3 rebounds and 2 blocks. The two teamed up to win the Eagles' first victory.

25 minutes of the quarter's 28 minutes.

Not only on the offensive end, the two men who played the entire first quarter also tried their best on the defensive end, leading their teammates to defend the Celtics by 18 points in a single quarter. The Eagles led by 10 points in the first quarter.

In the second quarter, Rasheed Wallace continued to play. When Stockton and Boozer were playing pick-and-roll offense, they specially passed a lot of balls to Rasheed Wallace. After Stockton took a break,

, Jason Terry, who took control of the game, did not come by himself today and provided the ball to Rasheed Wallace, who continued his offensive performance.

Rasheed Wallace played a crazy first half today. After scoring 14 points in the first quarter, he scored 21 points in the second quarter. His 35 points and 7 rebounds in the half set a new record in his career.

Scoring record! 5 blocks in half, also a career high!

In this half of the game, Rasheed Wallace tried his best on both offense and defense, trying to beat the Celtics to death.

The Eagles led the Celtics by 18 points 57-39 after halftime!

Everything seemed to be going so smoothly for the Eagles. After the halftime break, the Eagles sent a backcourt combination of Stockton and Jason Terry. The two took turns controlling the ball, leading the substitutes.

They fight.

Liu Mang saw that he had only played one quarter and was about to clock out. He felt very sad. He finally reached fifth place in the league in terms of points per game. Although, it was because the stars in the league averaged almost 5 points per game this year.

Even though their numbers have declined significantly, and they were even put on the legendary poisonous milk list by the league, who doesn’t want their data to look good?

It's just that the Celtics obviously didn't have the tendency to struggle in the first half, so Liu Mang could only look at his 11 points and 4 assists in silence, which had to lower his scoring average again.

This fate always seems to like to go against people. You have to accept the reality and it will suddenly give you a "surprise"!

After the second half of the game started, Stockton and Jason Terry brought Barnes, Boozer, and Kwame Brown to play, while Muhammad, Willie Green and others were also ready to rotate at any time.

The Hawks were all queuing up to take advantage of them, and suddenly the Celtics exploded.

Perhaps this is the year when a player named James becomes famous. The Celtics' backup point guard Mike James, who was undrafted in 2001, scored a three-pointer, a mid-range shot and a layup at the beginning of the second half, scoring 7 consecutive points.

points, plus Pierce also hit a three-pointer and a cutaway dunk, together they beat the Hawks 12-2!

The score difference was suddenly chased by the Celtics to 51 to 59. The Eagles' lead was only 8 points, and only more than three minutes had passed!

At this time, Stockton waved his hand, saying there was no need to rush and he should play slowly as he still had a lead.

It is true that Stockton has experience and can control the situation, so that the Eagles' substitutes did not panic. They steadily continued to open up the offense and defense, and the scoring began to increase.

But on the defensive end, the Eagles still played very poorly. Pierce dribbled the ball on the outside, took his time, and threw it out with a flip shot. Without the wingspan of Prince or Rahim, there was no way.

The limit is, you can only bet on whether Pierce's touch is accurate, and Pierce, who came up in the third quarter, had an amazingly accurate touch today!

As for Mike James, it was no longer a matter of accuracy today. He went completely berserk! He scored 19 points in the third quarter!

Even Pierce's explosion was driven by Mike James. The initial three-pointer made by Pierce and the dunk on an empty cut were all opportunities provided by Mike James' breakthrough points. Pierce made these two shots.

After entering, he regained his confidence in shooting, and the two teamed up to plan a counterattack.

In the last attack of the third quarter, Mike James hit a three-pointer at the buzzer, scoring his 19th point in the third quarter and all 19 points in the game. After not scoring a point in the first half, he scored 19 points in the third quarter.

A strong explosion!

Who would have thought that in 2001, when he was 25 years old and came back to the United States from the Israeli league to participate in the draft, he suddenly broke out in the third quarter!

For the Eagles, Liu Mang was already chatting and laughing with Rasheed Wallace, Raheem and others. Who knew the situation would suddenly change!

During the halftime break, they all started discussing where to go after tonight's game. The nightlife in Boston was still very good, but as they were playing, they suddenly realized that there seemed to be a problem here.

At first, Coach Kruger was still sitting on the Diaoyutai because Stockton was on the court, but he couldn't hold off Mike James and beat Stockton with 19 points in a single quarter!
Chapter completed!