After playing against the Nets and the Warriors, the Nuggets ushered in a wave of easier schedules, and most of them were home games.

In Denver, the home of the Devils, the Nuggets won the game more easily, so if they didn't pay attention, they played another wave of 7 consecutive wins.

Halfway through the November schedule, the Nuggets had a 16-1 record, and while the players became more and more cooperative, the winning streak also boosted the confidence of the young rookie players.

This is certainly a good thing, but there are also drawbacks.

That is, the situation that is too smooth all the way will make the players have a negative attitude and mentality, which is especially evident in young and inexperienced players.

Gobert has been a bench substitute for the Rockets for four years, and the edges and corners have long been smoothed, and now he has finally become the main force of the team.

But the two main players on the Nuggets' guard line are different.

Whether it is Mitchell or Murray, they are both high-ranking players in the lottery, Mitchell has become the team's main point guard in his rookie season this year, and his impactful style of play and viewing have earned him a lot of fan support, and he is also regarded as a future All-Star player.

And Murray, who entered the league in the draft last season, was also vigorously cultivated by the Nuggets as a potential player at the earliest, although he did not start at the beginning, he played a lot of time, and won the best rookie award because of the butterfly effect.

This season, as the Nuggets' record took off, both the attention and exposure of the two have increased significantly, and the media hype coupled with their own good play in previous games has made the two young men in their early 20s float.

On Nov. 22, the Nuggets played the Rockets on the road, and both went wrong.

After going around for several years, the current lineup of the Rockets is really unwatchable, and there is basically no particularly good instant combat power in the team except for Leonard and Whiteside.

And Leonard, although the trajectory of his life has completely changed because he did not join the Spurs, was not reimbursed by Zaza's footsteps in the 17-18 season like the original time and space, and he is still very healthy on the court.

However, the poor operation of the Rockets has made Leonard unable to hold back his temper, and the conflict with the team's management has become increasingly intensified.

In this game, all members of the Rockets played very well, and the restrictions on the Nuggets' two guards were in place, especially Mitchell, who was good at breaking through with the ball, was almost covered by Whiteside under the basket.

Leonard and Wang Chao's direct confrontation performance was not false at all, with a 46% shooting rate to score 31 points, 8 rebounds and 4 assists.

Wang Chao was not surprised by this.

Leonard, who is not plagued by injuries, should indeed reach the peak of his personal form in the 17-18 season.

In the original history, Leonard only played 7 games in the whole season due to the reimbursement of the season due to a foot injury and various conflicts with the Spurs management, and was then traded by the Spurs to the Toronto Raptors.

In the 18-19 season, in the Raptors, Leonard played the most representative season of his career, averaging 26.6 points, 7.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists per game in the regular season, scoring and rebounding are career highs.

And in the playoffs, Leonard broke out in the small universe, averaging 30.5 points, 9.1 rebounds and 3.9 assists per game throughout the playoffs, all the way to the bloody C, the second round of stealing seven to beat the 76ers led by Butler Embiid, 4:2 Education New Division MVP Antetokounmpo, and defeated the injured Warriors in the finals to win the championship, shocking the league!

Looking back now, there was a lot of luck in the Raptors' championship, such as the successive injuries of Warriors Durant and Thompson, which caused this team that had a chance to create a dynasty to collapse on the Finals stage.

In addition, the Raptors' lineup is by no means as simple as many people say about a single core.

Kyle. Lowry, as the leading star, although the average data per game is only 14+9, his role on the field is very large, holding the ball core and tactical initiation point.

At the same time, Pascal, an ordinary player with the 27th pick in the first round in 16. Siakam's rise is also unexpected, after all, in the first two seasons of his career, he was only a bench player for the team, averaging only 7 points and 4 rebounds per game, but in the 18-19 season, he was helped to the starting power forward position, and played well, averaging 16.9 points and 6.9 rebounds per game in the regular season was the second scoring point of the Raptors, and in the playoffs it improved to 19 points and 7.1 rebounds.

In addition, the Raptors also have interior defensive stalwart Gasol Jr., Serge Ibaka, and 3-and-D player Danny. Green, and most importantly a non-draft player with a contract in his early 1 millions, Van Jordan, Van Vleet.

This lineup is not weak at all, and it is definitely not Leonard's single-core championship, he is positioned in this team like the Warriors' Durant, independent of the team's tactical system, standing up when the team needs the individual ability of top superstars, and helping the team stabilize the situation or establish the victory with stand-up singles.

There's no denying that Leonard did a really good job, stepping up at a number of key moments in the playoffs, which allowed the Raptors to win the championship in the 18-19 season.

Just following the next season, Leonard resolutely chose to leave the Raptors who were enthusiastic to stay, and after switching to the Los Angeles Clippers in the City of Angels, the Raptors still played the second record in the East when the original team was only without Leonard, and swept the Nets in the first round of the playoffs, and fought seven bloody games with the Celtics led by Tatum in the second round.

Despite being in the second round, the Raptors in the 19-20 season proved that even without Leonard, they are still the powerhouses in the East and one of the top teams in the league.

As for Leonard, when he first left the Raptors, he was already regarded as the new active league leader, and he had the potential to replace James Durant as the king of the league and become the new king of the league. After George also announced that he would join the Clippers, the Clippers once became the biggest favorites in the league, and the momentum even overwhelmed the Lakers of the Zhan Mei combination.

But the attitude of a civil servant to work and the physical condition of injuries and stoppages have disappointed fans again and again in Leonard's several seasons with the Clippers.

By the time Wang Chao crossed over, no one would have mentioned the question of Leonard's historical status.

Although the two championships and FMVP have a high blessing for Leonard's status, with Brother Alphabet's two consecutive regular season MVPs and the championship championship and being crowned FMVP, he has successfully replaced Leonard as the new strong contender for the league's new best chance to become the league's first person.

Even in the 22-23 season, Jokic was crowned king, and Brother Alphabet was defeated by the Black Eight, Jokic is only better than Brother Alphabet in the current league's selection, in terms of historical status evaluation, both of them have two MVPs, a championship plus an FMVP, and they are also the first championships in team history won by their respective teams, and the gold content is invaluable, but in terms of other honors, Brother Alphabet has 5 for a while, and Jokic only has 3, He also has the Defensive Player of the Year award and a four-time First Defensive Player of the Year award.

Combining these honors, even after Jokic won the championship in 23 years, the competition between the two is still inseparable.

Of course, it's hard to say now, but not necessarily after that.

After all, with Jokic's dominance in the 22-23 season and the Nuggets' roster structure, it is very likely that they will continue to defend the championship, on the other hand, the Bucks, after winning the championship, have returned from the playoffs for two consecutive years, which is disappointing and doubtful that a player like Brother Alphabet, who has never been able to develop a three-point shot, wants to maintain his dominance in this small-ball era.

The topic is a bit off the hook, back to Leonard.

Wang Chao feels that Leonard, who was in the Clippers, was already in a completely rotten mentality, and his thirst for victory and championship was not so great.

But in this world, the changes and influences brought by Wang Chao have completely changed the trajectory of Leonard's career.

Although he has three crowns in hand, there is no FMVP, which makes Leonard's position not much stronger than the period of one crown and one FMVP in the same period of time and space.

In this case, Leonard naturally wants to lead the team to win a championship and get FMVP to prove his ability.

However, the depth of the Rockets' roster wasn't enough for him.

Stopping in the second round of the playoffs for two consecutive seasons has made Leonard dissatisfied with the current state of the team and increasingly agitated.

His anxiety did not come from Wang Chao or other players, but from his former colleague, Jimmy, who won three consecutive championships with Wang Chao on the Rockets. Butler.

Unlike his struggles under the single-core leadership of the Rockets, Butler's small days with the Spurs are called a nourishment.

The gap between the team's management and the coach is unmistakable.

The Spurs' current lineup is actually not good, except for Butler and Howard, there are no particularly outstanding players in the team, Duncan has long since retired from the old GDP three, leaving only Parker and Ginobili two old men, and this season has gradually retired from the main position.

From the perspective of the overall lineup structure, the difference between the Spurs and the Rockets is not big, Leonard's on-court performance is obviously slightly better than Butler's, and Howard and Whiteside currently have the same function on the court, both are centers who protect the basket under the basket, but the average points per game is slightly higher.

However, in the past two seasons, the Spurs have reached the Western Conference Finals twice and staged a bloody battle with the Warriors, while the Rockets have stopped in the second round every year.

Don't look at Butler's data during the regular season, he only maintained an average of about 20+5+5 per game, but he played quite hard in the playoffs, causing a lot of trouble for the Warriors.

This also makes more and more people now compare Leonard and Butler together, after all, the two were selected by the Rockets at the same time, and their positions and playing styles are relatively close, and they also became the core of the team after Wang Chao left the Rockets and received a contract extension with a maximum salary.

The difference is that the Rockets are more optimistic about Leonard, who has outstanding static talent and higher potential, so the maximum salary keeps Leonard.

In fact, the Rockets also made a contract extension offer to Butler at that time, although it was not the maximum salary and it was very close, but Butler also had the idea of competing with Leonard at that time, and after learning that the team would use Leonard as the first core of the team, he decisively chose to leave the Rockets.

Since entering the Rockets, Butler has been secretly competing with Leonard, but due to his talent, even though he works harder than Leonard, he is still dominated by the opponent in terms of evaluation and on-court performance.

Butler just wants to prove that even a player with average talent like him can beat a genius through hard work!

Leonard knows Butler's thoughts, and naturally he doesn't want to lose to Butler, after all, everyone has arrogance, and his talent is so outstanding, if he is surpassed by Butler, wouldn't that prove that he is worse than Butler?

The two have been competing since last season, but in the second round of the playoffs, the Spurs and the Rockets met directly, Leonard successfully suppressed Butler slightly in personal data, but the Rockets lost in the hands of the Spurs, and Butler was only slightly inferior to Leonard in terms of data, which is difficult to describe as losing to Leonard.

In this case, the victory or defeat between the teams is quite crucial, and Leonard's Rockets lost to Butler's Spurs, which is equivalent to his loss to Butler.

This gave Leonard's self-esteem, which he had always been proud of, a huge blow.

After all, since the draft joined the Rockets, he has always been better than Butler, whether it is the daily heads-up beating of Wang Chao's personal training camp, or becoming the team's starting main force first, becoming an All-Star, and being selected to the best team, he has to be one step ahead of Butler.

Now that he lost to Butler in the playoffs, how can he bear it?

This summer, Leonard forced the Rockets to strengthen the team's operations so that they could return to the championship ranks.

However, after a toss in the summer, the team management can be said to have no gains, not only that, but Gobert was let go for nothing.

Now that Gobert is playing well with the Nuggets and even better than Whiteside on the defensive end, it seems that the Rockets' management is a bunch of shit.

Although the Rockets won the game with the Nuggets, Leonard was not happy at all, he could see that the Rockets' victory was completely due to the team's better hand, and the Nuggets themselves had some problems, not that the team was really that strong.

And he can also see that Wang Chao didn't get completely serious in the game at all, which is one of the reasons why the Rockets can win easily.

The more this happened, the more unhappy Leonard became.

Because he knew that Wang Chao didn't see the Rockets as a threat at all.

Leonard never had the luxury of chasing Wang Chao's footsteps and becoming the top star in league history as successful as he was.

But the "victory" of this game still stung him deeply.

While the Rockets' home fans were celebrating the victory, Leonard entered the tunnel with a straight face.

The moment he walked into the aisle, he was ready to continue to press the palace management, and if the team still can't get a strong teammate who can help him before the end of the trade deadline this season, then he should consider submitting a trade request, and he doesn't want to waste his career peak on such a team with no future! (End of chapter)