In the afternoon, I arrived at the office of my first manager in the NBA, and as soon as I walked through the office door, he walked up to me with the excitement of winning the mega jackpot and a big smile on his face.

I looked at him very strangely, in fact it was the first time I had seen Kobe Bryant since he was reborn in his body, and my mind was actually full of several question marks about this agent who also didn't look very old.

"You know what, very soon you'll be able to become a multi-millionaire."

He said in a very affirmative tone, as if there was already a mountain of gold deposited in my bank account in Los Angeles, but I wondered why he said I was going to be a multi-millionaire with only three years and $3.5 million in my rookie contract.

"Don't look at me with such a suspicious expression, sit down and let me tell you what's going on."

It turned out that there were several very good sneaker brands that were very optimistic about my development prospects in the NBA, so they were willing to sign a large sneaker endorsement contract with me, and the two largest contracts came from Adidas and Nike, of which Adidas's contract is 6 years and 48 million US dollars, and Nike's contract is 10 years and 60 million US dollars.

I was silent, my mind wondering which of the two shoe contracts would be better.

"Well, this money is enough for you to buy a big mansion in Los Angeles or even a private jet, you think about it, these two sneaker brands are currently the most powerful sneaker brands in the United States."

"Then choose Adidas' six-year, $48 million contract, I don't want to sign too long a contract that will put me in a passive position for a long time."

"I can't see it, you are not young but you already have such a good economic mind, it seems that the future is really limitless, and I also believe that you can grow into a real superstar in 6 years, at least a contract of hundreds of millions of dollars at that time can match your value."

"You're doing a great job, I'll leave the rest to you, and as for the other small brands, you can do it yourself, I have to focus all my energy on basketball."

"Wait, there's a state-of-the-art Motorola flip phone with the most advanced technology in the world, and you can use it to contact me if you have anything."

"yes, you still have such a nice thing here, by the way, in that case, you can help me get the same set of mobile phones, the cost will be recorded in my account, and the time will be settled for you, preferably sooner, before I go back to Los Angeles next time, can you?"

"Are you in love, hehe, no problem, leave this little thing to me, if you have the opportunity to bring me your new girlfriend next time, let me refer to it."

"We'll talk about it then, you guy."

I held this Motorola flip phone that looks relatively small, what I didn't expect is that there is such a small mobile phone in this era, I also knew about the history of the development of mobile phones in the previous life, 1996 happened to be the time when the U.S. government liberalized the telecommunications field, and then many mobile operators will spring up like mushrooms after a rain, and the whole world will soon enter the information age.

Of course, there are many, many years before the world really becomes dominated by smartphones, but this style of mobile phone is a very huge step forward for people in this era.

The reason why I wanted my agent to give me another phone was naturally for Jessica, in fact, I was a little worried about her mental state, what happened when I was with her recently was difficult to fully explain with science and common sense, but I didn't want to associate all this with the ghosts, as long as I could contact her at any time, it would make me feel a lot more at ease.

Then I stepped into the car to the airport, where I would fly with the Lakers to Houston for a hard-fought battle with the Rockets, and then immediately after the game I would leave for San Antonio to face the Spurs back-to-back, especially against the Houston Rockets, a tough opponent that we could very likely face in the playoffs, and we had to try to win and build a certain mental advantage.

As for the Spurs, if I'm not mistaken, they're trying to get a good deal this season in preparation for next year's No. 1 pick, and their target is naturally the eternal No. 21 rookie, Duncan, known as the big fundamentals, stone Buddha, nerd, and all-time power forward, maybe the other side will not want to win games when facing us back-to-back.

I haven't been able to fall asleep smoothly when I was on the plane, whenever I close my eyes and want to fall asleep, there will be some inexplicable thoughts in my mind, which makes me very restless, and there is nothing too worth seeing above the clouds at night, but I have to say that the sky in this era always makes people feel starry, and after many years we seem to be less willing to look up at the starry sky, and the starry sky at that time does not seem to be as beautiful as it is now.

I couldn't sleep, so I simply began to count the number of stars in the sky through the window of the plane.

"One, two, three...... One hundred, one hundred and one. ”

Eventually, my eyelids slowly became very heavy, and when I woke up again, the plane had landed on the runway of the airport.

Houston, the largest city in Texas and the fourth largest city in the United States, has a very developed energy and aviation industry, but the enthusiasm of the fans here for the home team is relatively low, which is true at least many years later, and I will know tomorrow if this is true in this era.

Of course, there may be another reason to explain this phenomenon, that is, Houston, a very modern industrialized city, has no shortage of wealthy people, who tend to buy season or monthly tickets for the team, but when the game is played, these people may not necessarily appear in the stadium, on the one hand, because they are busy with work, and on the other hand, because there are many things in the big city of Houston that are more popular than the NBA, such as baseball and football. If there were games at the same time, the Houston Rockets would often be the one to be sacrificed.

I slept very well that night, and after several road trips, my body seemed to have finally begun to adapt to the room layout of different hotels, sleeping on different beds and quilts was no longer as unbearable as it was at the beginning, and the short sleep on the plane was not enough to make me feel refreshed.

This time, it took less than 10 minutes to lie in bed and fall asleep, but it was clear that the night's dreams were so light that when I woke up, I couldn't find even a trace of the dream.

In the morning, the team had a small training camp, the intensity of the training was not very large, just to give us some reminders about the Rockets' alignment and tactics, the real training was almost nothing, after all, we are about to play two games in a row for two consecutive days, which is a very big physical challenge for us, although the season has only just begun, but any back-to-back away games are a huge challenge for the physical reserves.

Coach Silver Fox Harris focused on introducing the Houston Big Three that we are about to face, they are the famous Big Dream Olajuwon, the flying boar Charles. Sir Barkley, and Dragler the Glider, there is no doubt that all three are Hall of Fame-level existences, and even Olajuwon is the kind of superstar who can compete for the top 10 players of all time.

But in fact, there is really no need for the silver fox Harris to mobilize against Olajuwon, after all, we have a superstar in the team who has been 0 blocked by Olajuwon in the finals, this guy is naturally the big shark O'Neal, Shaq has always been eager to prove himself again and prove that his team can defeat Olajuwon's team.

Although Shaq's interior dominance is undoubted, his team has been swept by the opponent in many playoff games, which also shows that there are many monsters that can compete with such a powerful monster as Shaq from another perspective.

Whether it's the big four centers or Jordan, the glider, the Utah twins, or the Flying Pig Barkley who was still with the Suns before, there are so many great gods in this era that they have overshadowed the glow of Shaq's youth.

What we're most desperate for this year is to be able to snatch a ring from Jordan, and if that happens, it will be the most glorious moment of our lives, both for the Lakers as a whole, and for us players, given that the dominance of the Bulls last year is absolutely unprecedented, even unprecedented.

If someone wants to say that the Warriors' 73-9 is better than the Bulls' 72-10, then I can only say that you don't know much about the game, why do you say that, because in fact, the Bulls obviously relaxed in the second half of the regular season last season, and the last few games were more strategically abandoned, and if they also went all out to hit the record, I think this record would probably be 75-7.

In addition, I have to say that the reason why the later Warriors were able to achieve such good results was also inseparable from a particularly bad atmosphere in the NBA at that time, that is, the team was bad and grabbed the top pick, of course, this kind of thing also exists in this era, such as this year's Spurs, but in terms of the atmosphere of the entire league, it is obvious that the opponents faced by the later Warriors will be much weaker.

Even if Jordan is about to turn 34 years old this year, he is still in his prime, and it can even be said that Jordan is stronger than James in terms of dominance at the same age, imagine the scene of James in the playoffs in 2018.

In fact, for the tactics that the silver fox Harris has assigned to us, as far as I am concerned, I am quite disdainful, where does he have any practical tactics, many tactics are suspected of being too complicated, and the only tactics that can be effective are to hand the ball to Shaq alone, and he has a big problem with the deployment of the whole team.

In 2012-2013, the Lakers had a super starting lineup of Nash, Kobe, Artest, Gasol, and Howard, but in the end they only managed to make the playoffs and a first-round tour.

The reason for such a tragedy is that although objectively speaking, injury is the biggest enemy, but what really made the Lakers completely fall is D'Antoni's tactical system, although the Lakers' starters at that time are famous and strong, but they are not young, Kobe, Artest, Gasol are all players in their 30s at the end of their careers, and Nash is even close to 39 years old, and the youngest Howard is also a relatively traditional interior player.

D'Antoni's run-and-gun tactics should still be okay if these players who are 5 years younger to play, but it won't be particularly strong, because here except for Nash, who matches the run-and-gun tactics, several other players are completely unsuitable for running and bombing tactics, although Howard is very athletic, but he does have enough range, which is very limited in the change of tactics, and the real core of the team should actually be Gasol, he belongs to the kind of strategy type of inside, But this is at odds with Nash's style of play.

So no matter how strong the players in your team are, and no matter how good your coach's tactical system is, the most important first point is that there must be enough chemistry with each other, otherwise some players with conflicting characteristics are destined to not be able to work well together.

In fact, at this point I also thought about my relationship with Shaq, in a sense, the two of us also belong to the kind of incompatible existence, there are some personality conflicts between us, but from another point of view, we are very complementary on the court, because we can have enough dominance in our respective positions, although I can't fully show my full strength because of the playing time now, but soon I will make the Silver Fox Harris completely admit that I am better than the team's current starters.

Sure enough, Shaq's mental state today is particularly good, even better than when he beat Uncle Mu in the last game, he seems to be the kind of guy who likes to fight against particularly powerful opponents, but he can't play mentally when facing not too strong opponents, to put it bluntly, this guy's talent is too strong, and he needs a strong opponent to stimulate him.

I smiled at that, but I was looking forward to the peak showdown between Shaq and Olajuwon, and I would play the Rockets' bench after I came off the bench.

After the team's training camp, I got some time for myself in the afternoon, I was going to take the car around Houston City, but I quickly changed my mind and finally decided to go to the Toyota Center, the home of the Houston Rockets, and then quietly practice on my own.

I don't know if Jessica will come to watch me play in those two games, but my gut tells me she shouldn't come, and to be honest, I'm really worried about her right now, and I think about where she's going to be now, who she's going to be with, what she's going to do, what she's going to think.

But when my hand touched the basketball, the only thing in my eyes became the basket, and all the worries about Jessica gradually fell behind, maybe the time I focused the most was when I was playing basketball, for me, basketball is not the whole of life, but at least it can be regarded as the most important part.

In my previous life, I was already a ball idiot, but I couldn't reach a high level of basketball due to my physical talent, but when I had Kobe's body and his memory, I gradually understood what basketball meant to this man.

Bryant's memories are filled with memories that are actually not so good, those lonely times, those times when he was alone in the cold eyes of others, the man who followed his father to Italy at a very young age, he was able to score fifty or sixty points against his peers when he was a few years old, he liked to go head-to-head with his father as a professional footballer since he was a child, and defeated his father for the first time at the age of 13.

He once set a scoring record for a high school player in the United States, this guy who only has baskets in his eyes, this guy who used to have his only friend is basketball, for him basketball is faith, what he doesn't know is that he will become the faith of many people after many years, he may have long been used to the time of practicing alone in the basketball arena, those lonely and glorious memories.

When I saw all this clearly in my mind, my heart was naturally deeply integrated with this body, and I began to understand that the talent of this body is not just from God's gift, there is so much loneliness behind it, so much effort, so much sweat and blood, I can't let this body be wasted, I must tap the potential contained in it as much as possible.

This time I came too early, so there was no shooting trainer from the team, in fact, the whole stadium was empty, and I was alone facing the basket and shooting again and again, picking the ball back again and again, repeating those shooting movements again and again, so that these actions were engraved more deeply in my mind.