Leon's decision to sign Wang Zhizhi was not purely emotional, although in the deepest part of his heart he still cherished the love of the players who grew up on the other side of the ocean, but this did not affect his judgment of player ability and team needs, and he would not give him a job because he was emotionally biased towards a certain team.

So what he threw to Anji was not only a sentence about signing Wang Zhizhi, but also a thick scouting report about Wang Zhizhi and a plan for how to use the player, which was the reason why Anji finally decided to give Wang Zhizhi a contract. In this regard, Angie and Leon are very similar, they both have strong personalities, but they do not affect the final decision because of personal likes and dislikes and emotions, they always pursue the principle of "business-is-business" to run their own basketball philosophy.

However, the biggest problem Leon has to face is not to persuade Anji to sign Wang Zhizhi, but how to deal with the storm of public opinion that Wang Zhizhi is about to face. Wang Zhizhi's non-return incident still left an impression in Leon's mind, because he remembered that during that time, the news related to Wang Zhizhi that was originally overwhelming on TV disappeared without a trace in an instant, and news reports related to him, including the live broadcast of his team's games, evaporated from the Chinese media. For a while, Wang Zhizhi's evaluation was also "traitor" and "unpatriotic".

Leon couldn't remember exactly how this incident ended in his mind, but he knew that this kind of thing must have a lot of psychological damage to a player, and this kind of damage can only be understood by Leon, and Americans can't understand it. After all, in the United States, players play for themselves, there is no such thing as a country or a collective that has cultivated you, even a club is just a place for players to work, and players are responsible for their own training in the offseason, and it is up to them to move forward or fall. They have no way to understand. Why does a player have to go back to China to compete, and why does he have to sign an agreement with the club and the Basketball Association?

Now, Leon has a more detailed understanding of the cause and effect of the whole incident, because the Mavericks' Roland Beach and Leon worked together on the scouting team and learned the ins and outs of the matter through him, so Leon took the opportunity of Schwartz coming to Boston to negotiate with the Celtics for Paul Pearce's new contract, delivered him a fax, and asked him to hand it over to Wang Zhizhi.

However, Leon did not think that a fax could change Wang Zhizhi's mind and solve the problem, he could see from this incident that Wang Zhizhi was a relatively indecisive person who was easily affected by the sound in his ears. Especially the guy named Chen Weiming, who relied on his Chinese identity to win Wang Zhizhi's trust, but he is completely American in his bones. Regardless of whether his starting point is good for Wang Zhizhi or not, he has no way to put himself in Wang Zhizhi's shoes, Xia Song could have been, but because he has not been in front of Wang Zhizhi for a long time, his relationship with Wang Zhizhi has broken down.

The draft is just around the corner, but Leon has no draft assignment this time, so he decided to invite Wang Zhizhi to New York on the day of the draft. Have a serious meeting there, solve the current problem, and prevent Wang Zhizhi from falling into the situation of betraying his relatives, whether it is in the emotional or practical situation. This is not what Leon wants to see, after all, in Leon's team building plan, Wang Zhizhi is really a more useful chess piece - if he can listen to Leon's development advice.

……………………

New York, 26 June 2002. The annual NBA Draft will be held at Madison Square Garden, the third draft that Leon has ever experienced, and he had booked a room at a hotel near Madison Square Square three weeks earlier. And on the 26th, he arrived in New York, and was greeted at the airport by his friend Woj-Wojnarowski.

"I was expecting you to have some creative ideas at the draft to give me some useful material, but now it looks like you didn't care about the draft at all, and you came to New York on the 26th." On the way to the hotel, Woj counted Leon Road.

Leon, who has just become the head coach of the Celtics, has no intention of getting involved in the draft this year, but ******** focus on solving internal problems and recruiting for his coaching team. While the return of Dave Cowens, the poaching of the Nuggets' strength and conditioning coach, and the recruitment of a Celtics veteran as a shooting coach are also news, readers are not interested in reading this kind of boring news with the smell of old papers, they just want to see which team picks up the freshies who are ready to step into the league, which talented players don't meet expectations in the draft, and look forward to pulling the draft process out and stomping on the face in the future season.

The Celtics' draft picks over the past two seasons have been talked about, and Woj, who is a good friend of Leon, has repeatedly mentioned the Celtics' beautiful operations when writing columns for Espn, praising Leon as if he were a flower. This also contributed to Leon's rise to fame in professional basketball, and as a result, Leon began to focus on team building this year without playing in the draft, which made Woj not know how to write Celtics news.

"We signed Wang Zhizhi." Leon responded to Woj, and Woj returned Leon's helpless smile and said, "Wang, that Chinese, if you took him in 2001, he still has some newsworthiness, now?" Base salary or use of space? That's the only thing I care about. ”

In Woj's eyes, Wang Zhizhi has faded from the aura of Asia, but he is just a marginal player in the NBA, and players like this are signed and laid off, which cannot be called news at all, and of course cannot be entered into Woj's eyes.

Leon gave Woj a roll of his eyes in return, then said, "Do you know how to be a great journalist?" It's not enough to have the breadth of the message, you also need to have enough depth. Now all eyes are on the draft, who is the most eye-catching in the draft? Handsome! I'm 80 percent sure that the Houston Rockets will pick Yao first. As a result, the attention of fans to Chinese basketball will skyrocket, and the same will be true for Chinese fans, and the Chinese market will be opened. And Wang is Yao's teammate and opponent in China, and this Wang's non-return incident will cause a lot of waves in China, and Americans will not understand why a player's reluctance to play for the national team can cause such a big negative effect. It's about the differences in the sports systems and cultures between the two countries, and I bet if you dig deeper into the subject, Journalist of the Year will be in your pocket. ”

What Woj admires most about Leon is that he is always able to swear to others with great confidence, which is considered braggart when others say it, but Leon has the power to believe that he is not lying. In fact, Woj has never suffered in several collaborations, and last year he was named the 2001 Sports Reporter of the Year for predictive reporting on Jordan's comeback and in-depth analysis, and the news was based on Leon.

This time, Woj was moved again, and he decided to use his media power to cover the incident, and until then first-hand coverage of the incident had focused on the Dallas media, including the sensational "treason" news.

The two had already arrived at the hotel, and Leon told Woj that he had asked Wang Zhizhi and his agent and assistant to meet at 7 p.m. in the hotel room, where they would watch the draft and discuss matters related to the non-return incident and the signing.

"Why didn't Darryl come with you? What about this heel? Woj suddenly thought of Morey, who had been Leon's henchman since Wallace resigned for the Grizzlies.

"He's gone to Minnesota and we're going to have an important signing."

……………………

At half past six in the afternoon, Leon received a phone call from Schwartz, who had already arrived at the hotel where Leon was staying with Wang Zhizhi and Chen Weiming. Schwartz, Leon, has also dealt with him, a cunning agent, compared with those old-school famous agents who are good at dealing with superstars, Schwartz is known for being proficient in rules and negotiations, Leon felt it in Paul Pierce's contract renewal negotiations this year, but fortunately, everyone has no doubts about Pierce getting the maximum salary, so everything is going well.

However, Leon is not worried about Schwartz, precisely because he is a person who is proficient in rules and negotiations, so he will not be too entangled in the issue of Wang Zhizhi whether he should return to China, and he himself can't squeeze any oil and water from Wang Zhizhi, purely out of the capitalist spirit that no matter how small a mosquito is, it is still meat and becomes Wang's agent. If Celtic are willing to offer a solid contract, then Schwartz will also agree to let Wang Zhizhi play in Zimbabwe.

The real obstacle may come from Wang Zhizhi himself, as well as his assistant, Chen Weiming. Leon had already investigated this person through his friends in Texas, a Chinese American from New York, who met Wang Zhizhi because of entertainment interviews, won Wang Zhizhi's trust because of his yellow face and not fluent Chinese, and finally encouraged Wang Zhizhi to stay in the United States to play summer league. For Wang Zhizhi, he has resigned from his original job and become Wang's full-time assistant, Wang Zhizhi will be the only focus of his work, and Wang Zhizhi's interests are his interests.

If Wang Zhizhi returns to China, Chen Weiming will definitely not go back with Wang Zhizhi, he grew up in the United States and is an authentic American, when Wang Zhizhi returns from China, will Chen Weiming still have a place next to Wang Zhizhi?

Leon had already considered all this, and he already had a full grasp of how to deal with Chen Weiming and draw Wang Zhizhi to his side to listen to him. (To be continued.) )