(Sorry, it's late today)

For Trail Blazers' general manager, Szeto Inman, the current situation for the Blazers makes him both optimistic and disheartening.

In 1984, the newly appointed NBA commissioner, David Stern, introduced the pay cap system, which was also an important step in standardizing the NBA pay system.

For NBA general managers, this means they can no longer arbitrarily offer players contracts, such as Magic's 25-year, $25 million contract, which is not only unprecedented but also unprecedented.

Therefore, Inman will start to effectively manage the assets of the players on his opponents, thinking not only about the present, but also about the future of the team.

After three high-quality drafts in 1983, 1984 and 1985, the Trail Blazers already had a good enough group of young players, including Gan Guoyang and Drexler are cornerstone superstar players.

This came as a surprise to Inman, who was a 14-round pick at the time of Drexler's selection in 1983, with questionable shooting skills and not showing the same dominance potential as his teammate Olajuwon, but two years of training had made him an expected all-round defender.

In 1984, the Portlanders' top target was Drexler's college teammate Olajuwon, and the Trail Blazers asked citizens across Portland for advice on which side of the coin they were going to choose.

While in the end, the Portlanders chose the wrong side and gave the Houstonians their city hero, the Trail Blazers were also a blessing in disguise and took Gan Guoyang.

This choice is naturally controversial, not because of Gan's potential, but because of his skin color, and no one thinks that a yellow man can show dominance in the NBA, even if he kills in the NCAA and wins the NCAA National Championship.

After a year of trials, Gan Guoyang showed enough talent to prove that he can definitely become a historical player.

As a result, Inman had to start thinking about the future contract renewal of the two new stars.

Both of them performed well above the team's expectations, much to Inman's delight and annoyance, as it disrupted his plans to build the team.

The big trade in the 1984 offseason brought the Trail Blazers a powerful attacker, Van Dewicki, with the veteran Sampson, Valentin in his playing year, plus the growing Gan Guoyang and Drexler, this will be a very competitive lineup.

But Gan and Drexler have grown so fast that they will soon become one of the best players in the league and take control of the Trail Blazers as the true core of this team.

However, Vanderwich is not a veteran in his twilight years, he is in his prime, in the prime of NBA players, which is a good thing for the team, but it is a problem for the team management.

In the off-season, Van de Veric has already requested Inman to sign a contract extension, and he wants a long-term contract to show his value as the team's leading scorer.

If there is no Gan Guoyang, if the Trail Blazers still choose the medicine jar Sam Bowe, then the Trail Blazers will choose to renew the contract with Vanderwig and use a high salary to keep the efficient outside scorer.

But now, for Inman, Van der Wicki, a white man with injury concerns and defensive flaws, is no longer his first choice, and how to keep Gan Guoyang with a contract this summer is the first task given to him by the boss.

Of course, the Trail Blazers could go beyond the salary cap and sign either Van der Wiew or Sampson to a contract due to the Celtics Bird clause in 1984, but that would undoubtedly significantly increase the Trail Blazers' salary bill, which is not something their owner, Larry Weinberg, would like to see.

He's not a world-renowned billionaire, Larry Weinberg was just a real estate developer before he took over the Trail Blazers, and he was just one of the owners of the Trail Blazers at the time (Inman was also the founder of the team), and he was willing to pay money to build a championship team – provided that the money would go back to his pocket exponentially in the future.

According to Inman's analysis of the team, signing Van der Verkiw with a big contract is not a good option, as it will increase expenses and lock up the team's operating space – a concept that did not exist before 1984 and is now relearning these complex rules.

Sampson's problems are similar to Vanderwicki's, and perhaps even more troublesome than Vanderwicki's, because Sampson was a player selected and developed by the Trail Blazers themselves, and he and Portland already have an inseparable friendship.

But he never became one of the best players in the league as the Trail Blazers had hoped, he just worked hard to do what he had to do and then clocked in with the Trail Blazers for nearly a decade.

In contrast, Paxson is a little more manageable, and the shooting guard, also developed by the Trail Blazers, was gradually excluded from the Trail Blazers' future blueprint as the conflicts erupted in the playoffs last season.

However, compared to the other problem, none of these problems seem to be a big problem, including Colt's drug use, and in Inman's view, the problems that can be solved with money are not a big problem.

The biggest problem facing Inman is how to say goodbye to Ramsay, the brains of the Trailblazers, and find Ramsay's successor.

Ramsey and Inman, Weinberg, and the Trail Blazers spent 10 years together, and were fortunate to win the NBA championship in their first year together, in 1977, and stood on top of the world.

Unfortunately, in the days that followed, they climbed the Glory Peak they had reached, never touching it again, and their closest season came was the just-concluded 1984-1985 season, when the not-so-complete young team made it to the Western Conference Finals.

According to common sense, in the new season, the Trail Blazers' goal should be the finals or even the championship, they should strengthen in the summer, and they should sign new players, but Inman did not do that.

Years of manager work have made him realize that such a multi-headed team structure cannot be sustained, and the contradictions between Gan Guoyang and Sampson, Drexler and Paxson last season have affected the team's performance, even if everything is eliminated in the end, who dares to guarantee that next, the twin wings will become harder and harder, and will there be new conflicts with the old members?

Rather than wait until things get out of hand, he should nip all the cule in the bud, and he doesn't want a repeat of what happened to Wharton, the injury and conflict that ruined the Trail Blazers' decade of strength.

And to uproot the old forces within the pioneers, Ramsay, a respected old leader, will inevitably become a victim.

One of the reasons why Inman wants to remove the assistant coach is to limit Ramsey's power and gradually empty his voice in the team's tactics, although Bellman is not aware of this, but Adelman is aware of it.

At the same time, Inman has long been impatient with Ramsay's idea of building a team, which he successfully implemented in 1977 now seems to be outdated, and Ramsey still holds this "ideal country" to select talents, build his championship division, and relive the dream of the past.

In fact, Inman has smelled a hint from the recruitment of other teams and the reform of the NBA - he knows that the future NBA is about to become faster and stronger, and team basketball will gradually be replaced by more dazzling superstar basketball.

This makes Inman, who has two high-quality resources, have to cut off the old feelings of the past, and for the future of the Trail Blazers, he has made it clear in the summer that the team will not renew his contract, and this season will be Ramsey's last season.

If the team's record is not good, Ramsey may even be left early and left behind the Trail Blazers' moving ship.

Judging from the first three games, the current state of the Trail Blazers is not bad, and the new assistant coach really has some skills, and it is not exactly a pawn used by Inman to suppress Ramsey, of course, it may also be because the opponent is too weak.

According to Inman's understanding, in the third game against the Clippers, Ramsey has lost control of the team a little, which has actually appeared since last season's playoffs.

Inman is happy to see this, his ideal state is that Vanderwich and Sampson will not play well because of the lack of contract security, and Ramsey will definitely not be able to control these two veteran players, and the team's results will naturally decline.

Ramsey's resignation is the best outcome, and if he could, he would trade Van der Vicky or Sampson in exchange for a younger potential player or a more obedient veteran to complement the two future stars.

Others such as Cauchy, Potter, Valentine, and Paxson are all players who are easier to deal with, anyway, Inman is not in a hurry, he has enough time to wait and observe, Drexler and Gan Guoyang are still very young, and the days are still very long.

Among them, Drexler has signed a two-year 800,000 contract with the team in the summer, the price is not high, but the life is also very short, so to keep the outside glider in the future, Inman still has to make a lot of preparations.

And Gan Guoyang is Inman's real headache, he knows that this guy's agent is a famous vampire, and his Michael Jordan has finalized a two-year contract of 1.7 million with the Bulls, so Inman judges that Gan Guoyang's contract will definitely not be less than two years and 1.6 million, which is already bigger than Vanderwicki's contract.

Inman prefers to sign a contract with Gan Guoyang for a longer period and a lower average salary, but how to convince his agent and this basketball kid from China will be Inman's biggest problem.

"Two and a half million in four years, I hope such a contract can make him feel excited...... By the way, I gave him not only a contract, but control of the whole team, and he would definitely not refuse......" Inman thought as he sat in his office and looked out the window at the Willamette River.

It's just that he will never guess that in Gan Guoyang's heart, there is too much information that he can't touch at all, and Inman's wishful thinking was wrong from the beginning.

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