After the NCAA Championship ended in April, the eyes of the public turned to the NBA again, and the playoffs were about to begin.

The Los Angeles Clippers, New York Knicks, and Memphis Grizzlies ended up being the three teams with the worst regular season records, with the Clippers having a 25% chance of winning the top pick, and the remaining two teams having a 15% chance of winning the pick.

The NBA Draft Pick was a new player introduction system that was born around the same time as the league and went through three main periods of development.

The initial draft pick ranking is completely determined according to the team's regular season record, and the team that did not enter the playoffs will automatically get the champion sign with the worst record, and the second worst will get the list eye sign, so there was no draft draw at that time, basically the last game of the regular season is over, and the draft pick has been automatically born.

The drawbacks of this draft mechanism can be seen by current NBA fans at once -- in order to automatically get a good draft pick, teams are competing for the worst, not the worst, only worse. In the big year of the draft, the intensity of the teams competing for the first place is even more "exciting" than the competition for the first place.

This irrational system continued for 20 years until a new policy was introduced in 1966.

During this period, it is worth introducing a special draft lottery, called the territory lottery.

Territory Signing allows teams (whether they make the playoffs or not) to have a chance to select a player each season as long as the player's college is in a 50-mile (80-kilometer) radius of the team's home arena.

Implementation of this provision. It is closely related to the marketing promotion of the alliance at that time. The league wants to attract more local fans to the game. The local basketball star is undoubtedly a golden sign, and this strategy did play an important role in the promotion of the game in the early days.

After several important adjustments, the current lottery ushered in the most crucial step in 1900, in order to remove the interference of the human factor as much as possible, the 1990 lotto draw the game of random table tennis.

The specific lottery process is to place 14 balls in a small sealed transparent box, marked with numbers 1-14. Four balls are randomly rolled out at a time. Then there will be 1,001 permutations, of which the 1,001st case (11, 12, 13, 14) is excluded, i.e. 1,000 cases will be assigned to the 14 lotto teams.

Before the draw begins, the 14 teams that did not make the playoffs will be ranked according to their regular season records, and the computer will randomly assign different combinations of numbers, such as the Clippers, who have the worst record this year, will be assigned 250 combinations, while the Suns, who have the best record, will only have 5 combinations. This also means that the Clippers have a 25% chance of getting the top pick, while the Suns only have a 0.5% chance of getting the top pick.

When the draw starts, the first ball lands, and every 10 seconds thereafter, a ball falls. When the fourth ball lands, a combination of numbers is formed. Which team has the first combination of numbers to be drawn. won the champion lot.

Then the four balls drawn were put back into the "lottery machine", and so on repeatedly selected the list and the flower lottery. When the top three picks are "shaken", the remaining 11 teams will no longer be drawn, and will be sorted from low to high according to the regular season record, and the No. 4-14 picks will be determined respectively.

According to this rule, the three teams with the worst records this year, even if they are unlucky, can basically lock up the top four draft picks, and this lottery method is relatively fair.

The NBA lottery date is May 20, and Wu Huang doesn't have to worry about the draft for the time being, he has officially signed an agent contract with Brandon, and now he has full authority to appoint Brandon. Moretz and UA are in talks about a sneaker contract.

Nike and Adidas have not given up on signing Wu Huang, but Nike has confirmed the final offer, and they can only give a six-year $85 million sneaker contract at most, and will not increase it again. Adidas offered slightly more than Nike, with their final offer of $90 million over six years, which is already their biggest contract offer for a rookie player.

However, the two giants have one thing in common, that is, they will never add a sharing agreement to the rookie shoe contract, they will not set a precedent for Wu Huang, James did not have this treatment back then, and no one will enjoy this kind of superstar treatment in the rookie shoe contract in the future.

Emperor Wu can understand their insistence, once the two giants set the precedent of Emperor Wu, and if a new genius comes out in the future, then he will definitely be given such treatment. At the same time, those superstars who have become famous may not be satisfied, James, Wade and others have only owned the sneaker share in the past two years, if Wu Huang enjoys the same treatment as them as soon as he enters the NBA, how can these superstars be balanced in their hearts?

UA is not worried about this problem, they don't have NBA players at all, so they can set this precedent for Wu Huang, which is also their killer weapon to beat Nike and Adidas, otherwise UA's 7-year $100 million contract is not much better than a 6-year 90 million contract.

On April 28, on the day the Lakers eliminated the Jazz 4:1, the Los Angeles Times announced a shocking news to sports fans around the world, UA (UnderArmour) officially signed Wu Huang with a 7-year, $110 million epic rookie shoe contract, which far exceeded the 7-year $93 million rookie shoe contract that Nike provided to James that year.

"Thank you very much UA, Kevin. Purrank and all those who believe in me. I was only 19 years old when I signed and I was just a skinny kid from Los Angeles, and I feel very honored to be part of such a great company and to be so trusted. On his Twitter and Facebook, Wu Huang made no secret of his excitement.

"We are pleased to announce that UA has signed a seven-year contract with Hugo, which will bring great value to our business, our brand and our shareholders. Over the next 7 years, we will build a strong partnership with Hugo. For the rest of Hugo's career. We will see his infinite potential. Hopefully he can create new miracles in the NBA. UA wrote in a statement.

This blockbuster news quickly squeezed the headlines of major media outlets. directly squeezed the promotion news of the Cavaliers, Lakers and other teams to the back. This is the first rookie shoe contract in NBA history that exceeds 100 million yuan, and Wu Huang's name once again appeared in a prominent position in major media. During this time, his limelight almost overshadowed Kobe Bryant and James.

Many fans are secretly staggered about the amount of the contract offered by UA, thinking that they must be crazy to offer such a contract to a rookie.

The Wall Street Journal analyzed UA's big spending on the same day, and they believe that in the field of basketball shoes, UA's presence is almost negligible. Let's start with a set of numbers: according to a report released at the end of 2008, UA's share of the basketball shoe market is only 0.05%; On the contrary, the Nike and Jordan brands have a whopping 85% share.

Furthermore. UA sold $8 million in basketball shoes last year, while James' signature sneakers alone sold $120 million.

UA is betting on Wu Huang's appeal in Asia, if they can sign Wu Huang, and the latter can reach half of James's sneaker sales worldwide during the contract period, then UA's revenue in basketball shoe sales will exceed the contract they provide to Wu Huang, plus the brand value brought by this NCAA new MOP, so it is easy to understand that UA will not hesitate to go on the offensive against Wu Huang.

What's more, the potential shown by Emperor Wu is no worse than that of James back then. In fact, UA is willing to give Wu Huang such a big contract, which is also optimistic about his future. According to the current trend. If he can match or even surpass James' current shoe sales in the future, he may be able to win a championship in the future. His commercial value will be further enhanced. At that time, he will become UA's number one endorsement star, and UA will naturally make a lot of money, so this contract may replicate the legend of Jordan and Nike back then.

The New York Times report is more interesting, they actually think that the sponsors give too much contract treatment, often causing the sponsor to have a say in the player's important decisions about the career, and the sponsor will definitely want the player they signed to play in the big city, so they came to the conclusion that the chances of Wu Huang finally settling in New York have increased significantly.

Los Angeles fans scoffed at the New York Times' remarks, isn't Los Angeles a big city? Besides, Wu Huang is in Los Angeles now, why do he have to go to New York?

ESPN turned their attention to the numbers again, and they carefully calculated the real income of Wu Huang's contract, and finally found that although the figure of $110 million was staggering, the federal tax rate he needed to pay was 39.6% of the highest level, that is, $43.56 million, which was directly paid to the Federal Revenue Service. In addition, because Wu Huang is in California, he also has to pay the highest state income tax in the United States, with a tax rate of 13.3%, which translates to $14.63 million.

43.56 million + 14.63 million is 58.19 million US dollars, that is to say, Wu Huang can only get 51.81 million US dollars out of 110 million US dollars, and then he has to give 8% of the commission to the broker, and in the end he got only 47.66 million US dollars, only 6.8 million US dollars per year, less than half of the total amount of this 100 million yuan contract.

"It's so bitter!" Wu Huang now don't want to think about tax evasion, this Nima cut half of his income with one knife, so angry that he hurriedly fought with Christine four times to comfort his injured heart.

The NBA playoffs entered the second round in May, and the University of Southern California will visit China at the end of May.

USC is training in the spring, and Wu Huang is still training with the team, he is still a member of the Trojans, and at the end of May, he will travel with the team to Asia for a visit and play a few friendly matches against the Chinese national team and two CBA teams.

Here to mention the Chinese Basketball Association, they began the cooperation plan with the University of Memphis last year, after sending a delegation to the United States to investigate, the Basketball Association believes that the University of Memphis advocated by the style of play is at the forefront of basketball development, for the Chinese men's basketball team is of great significance.

But the irony is that the Basketball Association is changing as fast as the Football Association, learning Brazil today, learning Europe tomorrow, and learning Japan the day after tomorrow.

So just after the USC championship, the basketball association immediately ended its long-term cooperation with the University of Memphis, and the delegation moved to Los Angeles. Naturally, the Basketball Association believes that the style of play advocated by the University of Southern California is at the forefront of basketball development, and it is also of great reference significance for the Chinese men's basketball team, and it should be studied well.

This time the Basketball Association is not going to just talk and not practice, they are going to let the Chinese men's basketball team play two warm-up games with the University of Southern California at the end of May.

On May 20, just one day before the University of Southern California left for Asia, the annual NBA Draft draw was held at the Hilton Hotel in New York.

The NBA lottery is naturally important for those rebuilding teams, and if they get a high pick, they have the opportunity to select good young players in the draft to put the team's rebuilding on track. This year, the Clippers, Grizzlies, Knicks, Timberwolves, Thunder, ...... They were all looking forward to getting the top spot.

According to the regular season records of each team this season, the odds of each team winning the lottery are: Clippers (25%), Grizzlies (18.6%), Knicks (15.5%), Kings (11.9%), Timberwolves (8.0%), Thunder (6.5%)......

Historically, not many teams with the worst record have ended up getting the top pick in the lotto draw. Since the lottery began in 1994, the teams with the highest odds of winning the lottery have only won three of the 21 draws: the 76ers (Iverson) in 1996, the Cavaliers (LeBron) in 2003 and the Magic (Howard) in 2004. In the last five years of lotto draws, none of the teams with the worst records have won the top pick.

Soon, the lottery results began to be announced in reverse order, with the Phoenix Suns at No. 14, the Indiana Pacers at No. 13, the Charlotte Bobcats at No. 12, the New Jersey Nets at No. 11, the Milwaukee Bucks at No. 10, the Toronto Raptors at No. 9, the Golden State Warriors at No. 8, the Minnesota Timberwolves at No. 7, the Minnesota Timberwolves at No. 6, the Sacramento Kings at No. 5, and the Oklahoma City Thunder at No. 4.

This result shows that the Clippers, Grizzlies, and Knicks have confirmed that they will not fall out of the top three, but the final announcement still makes the Clippers, Grizzlies and Knicks fans very nervous. In the end, the order of the top three is as follows: Memphis Grizzlies in third, Los Angeles Clippers in second, and New York Knicks in first.

The Clippers did not break the curse of the worst record this year and it was difficult to get the top pick, and when the lottery results came out, the Knicks' brain-dead owner James Brown. Dolan jumped out of his seat at once, and the New Yorker had a 15.5 percent chance of winning the prize. (To be continued.) )