Wang Chao can understand López's excitement, after all, after this season, López is really to the point that almost no one cares.

But as a traverser, Wang Chao is clear about López's subsequent development prospects.

In the original history, after the expiration of his big contract in the 17-18 season, López's situation was almost the same as he is now.

After spending the 17-18 season with the Lakers, Lopez was also in a state of unpopularity, and finally had to choose to join the Milwaukee Bucks with a base salary of 3.38 million meters a year.

Then people found out that López of 22 million can be called a garbage contract, but López of 3.38 million is simply not too fragrant.

A player who can defend on the inside, can pull to the outside to shoot three-pointers, except for a slightly worse rebound, almost perfectly fits the center in the league's small-ball era at this stage, is so cheap?

In the 18-19 season, Lopez played 81 games in the regular season for the Bucks, averaging 12.5 points and 4.9 rebounds per game, shooting 45.2% from the field and 36.5% from three-point range.

To some extent, Brother Alphabet's ability to win the regular season MVP in the 18-19 and 19-20 seasons for two consecutive years is inseparable from Lopez's silent pulling outside the three-point line to help him involve the opponent's interior defense.

Because of this, at the end of the 18-19 season, the Bucks and Lopez re-signed a four-year, 52 million meter contract, but this is not the end.

In July 2023, the 35-year-old Lopez will renew his contract with the Bucks for another 2 years, with a contract amount of up to 48 million yuan, an average of 24 million per year!

In the past few years in the Bucks, Lopez has averaged only about 12+5 points per game, but his role is not reflected by the data, three-point deterrence and basket defense are the real value of Lopez on the court.

In this regard, López is in close proximity to Celtic center Al Brown. Horford is almost the same, but compared to Horford's high salary of more than 25 million annual salary since 16 years, Lopez is a real bargain during this period.

Wang Chao is more or less indebted to Lopez, although it was a normal team transaction to choose to trade him for Durant, but at that time, Wang Chao really planned to compete for the championship with the same lineup as the Nets in the first year.

Now that I think about it, in fact, even if I didn't want Durant at that time, with the configuration of Lopez + Jokic, two big men with projection ability, there was no difficulty in winning the championship.

He took the initiative to call Lopez to invite him to the Clippers, which was more or less a little compensation for him.

After all, even if Lopez joins the Bucks as he did in history and is tapped to shine, it will be a few years before he has a chance to win the championship.

It's completely different from Wang Chaochao, there is a great chance to win the championship next year, and in the current lineup of the Clippers, after Jordan Jr.'s contract expires and leaves, there is no serious center, and the team also needs a big man who protects the basket inside.

Wang Chao is sure that in a year's time, Lopez's value will be re-played, and at least one contract with an annual salary of more than 20 million will be obtained in the 19-20 season.

After all, since the beginning of the 2017-18 season, Horford and Lopez are actually at the same level, both of them are about 12+5, Horford may be a little better in terms of organizational strategy, and the rebounds are slightly better, but the gap between the two is really very limited.

And even if he joins the Clippers next season, Wang Chao doesn't plan to treat Lopez badly, just with his attitude of choosing to defect to him without hesitation, at least he has to give a full middle-class contract of about 8 million, which is much more attractive than the 3.38 million offered by the Bucks!

——

The call between Wang Chao and López is naturally not known to outsiders.

With the arrival of July 2018, the free market officially opened.

On July 1, the contract officially expired, and the players who returned to free agency have not yet moved, and the teams in the league are up and running, after all, many teams need to go through a deal to free up enough salary space to bring in new players.

At the same time, teams have also begun to actively contact those free agents to make offers to show their sincerity, hoping to get a superstar to join and change their lives.

However, superstars are clearly not that easy to come by.

On the day of the opening of free agency on July 1, the Thunder took the lead in issuing a statement. George signed a four-year, $173 million contract extension with the Thunder.

The Brooklyn Nets followed suit, they first renewed contracts with Durant and Paul respectively, and then renewed the contracts of Devin Booker and Nikola Jokic at the same time with a five-year offer of 158 million and 148 million, successfully retaining the team's last season's Finals lineup.

But this is undoubtedly a big gamble.

The 18-19 season is not the 17-18 season.

After the end of the child labor contract in the rookie season, Booker and Jokic both have a starting salary close to 25 million in their new contracts.

The contract extension signed by Durant and the Nets is a 2-year contract of 68 million, an average of 34 million a year, and a player option for the second year, his idea is very simple, if he stays in the Nets for another year and has no chance to win the championship, he will definitely leave the Nets, after all, even if he has a championship now, not only has he not been recognized, but more people have questioned him, especially the loss in the finals this year, which makes him more eager for a championship of his own.

In contrast, Paul didn't think about it so much, for him, the championship is important, but the silver is the point.

In order to keep Paul, the Nets had to pay a 4-year super contract of 160 million meters, and the starting salary of his new contract reached 35.65 million meters, which is the highest salary on the Nets team.

This can be calculated.

Paul's starting salary for the new season is 35.65 million, Durant's 34 million, and Booker and Jokic both 25 million.

The combined salaries of these four people alone have reached an astonishing 119.6 million!

Don't forget, the Nets were in the summer of '17 when they were with Bojan. Bogdanovic completed a contract extension with 4 years and 48 million, with an average annual salary of 12 million.

For the 2018-19 season, the league salary cap was $101.8 million and the luxury tax line was $123.7 million.

The salary of the five players of the Nets has reached 132 million, even if all the other players are base salaries, the total salary of the entire team must reach at least 150 million! If you sign a player with a little strength, you will have to go up to 160 million.

Predictably, what an exaggerated luxury tax Nets owners will have to pay next season.

However, at this time, the Russian landlord owner of the Nets has already started to peddle the team, and he doesn't care about this issue at all, and in the past few years, the Nets have entered the finals twice, won a championship, and their market value has risen again and again, so they don't worry about selling at all.

In fact, if it weren't for the existence of Wang Chao that led to the butterfly effect, the Nets should have been sold to Tsai Chongxin in April 18, and the reason why it dragged on until the end of the finals was that the Russian rich man was also hesitating, if the Nets could continue to win the championship, maybe he could stay in the team for a longer period of time.

The Nets, who have successfully retained all the main lineups, are undoubtedly still the team with the best chance of winning the championship, especially when Wang Chao is sure that he will not stay with the Nuggets, and there are only a handful of teams in the league that can compete with them.

In fact, the same situation as the Nets is the Warriors.

The Warriors' salary is also a lot, after all, the team has Curry, Thompson, Green and Cousins four All-Star level teammates, before a little better, Curry's first big contract shrunk a lot due to injury, and the annual salary is only more than 10 million.

But last summer, Curry's contract expired, and in order to keep the two-time regular season MVP, the Warriors had to give a super cap salary, with a starting salary of 34.68 million yuan in the 17-18 season, and 37.46 million next season!

In addition to him, there are Cousins, Thompson at 18 million, Green at 17 million, and Iguodala at 16 million.

In the 17-18 season, the Warriors had a total salary of 135 million and paid a high luxury tax.

But compared with the next 18-19 season, this is still good, because Cousins' contract has also expired, and with his regular season stable contribution of 20+10 data, the new contract will have to start at least 30 million!

As a result, the Warriors' total salary is no less than that of the Nets.

The problem is that the Nets have won a championship in the past three years, and the Warriors have not won any team accolades for so many years, and multiple playoff losses have made them realize that Cousins and the Warriors' small-ball tactics are not particularly compatible.

Whether the Warriors want to pay a huge price to keep Cousins and continue the Warriors' long-term championship in the playoffs, even the Warriors' own management is quite hesitant.

However, because Cousins did not suffer a serious injury at this time as he did when he was with the Pelicans, and still maintained a relatively healthy state, the market value is extremely high, after all, there are very few high-quality centers like him in the league today, even if he does not plan to stay, at least through the way of signing and trading, as much as possible to get some chips.

The whole league was watching the Warriors' Cousins, and a few days later, the results were finally available.

The Warriors ultimately decided to send Cousins away, and the slow-paced, positional center didn't fit the Warriors' small-ball style of play.

However, the Warriors did not let Cousins go for nothing, but first reached a three-year, $107 million contract extension with Cousins in a sign-and-trade manner, with an average annual salary of 35 million, and then reached a deal with the Los Angeles Lakers to get Brandon Ingram, Ruel Deng, and the Lakers' next two first-round picks and two second-round picks from the Lakers.

It's clearly a take-it-or-take-it-the-take-it-and-take-it-and-

The Warriors sent Cousins away at the same time, although they took over Ruhr. Deng's garbage contract, but also got the Durant template Ingram, who is 2.06 meters tall, has outstanding athleticism and stable mid-to-long-range shooting ability, and can be a good position as a big forward in the Warriors' Death Five lineup.

At the same time, the Warriors could buy out Ruhr. Deng still has two years left on his big contract, and although he still needs to pay the other party's salary, he does not need to occupy the team's salary cap, which can save the Warriors a large luxury tax penalty.

Of course, the Warriors are still at a loss, after all, although Ingram seems to be full of talent, there are countless players in this league who have not successfully cashed in their talent, and naturally they can't match Cousins, one of the league's top All-Star centers.

But if you add two first-round picks, it's different.

And so the deal was struck.

You know, even if the Lakers get a stronger and more valuable brother Davis in the future, the chips are just Ingram, Lonzo. Ball, a '19 first-round pick plus two second-round picks.

The Lakers are willing to pay two first-round picks to get Cousins, and the sincerity is already very good.

As soon as the deal was struck, it caused an immediate sensation across the league.

The Warriors' move can be described as trading instant power for the future, and Ingram plus two first-rounders will ensure the overall strength of the Warriors for years to come.

And the Lakers, on the other hand, paid a lot of future for getting All-Star center Cousins, and they still have the top Towns on the inside.

The combination of Towns + Cousins means that the Lakers have once again formed the top interior combination in the league.

It's just that Ingram has always been a very optimistic future star for Lakers fans, is it really cost-effective to trade a 28-year-old center who is only in his prime for four or five years at most?

And even if the Lakers form the inside twin towers of Towns + Cousins, in this era of small ball and the outside line is respected, it is difficult to make a difference if there are not enough strong players on the outside with just two inside twin towers.

However, they didn't know that the Lakers had already planned a big game of chess.

When Wang Chao learned that the Warriors sent Cousins to the Lakers, he couldn't help but be a little surprised, and he thought of a possibility.

"Will it be ......?"

That's right, he guessed right.

On July 10, James, who had officially announced that he would jump out of the contract, announced that he had reached an agreement with the Los Angeles Lakers to join the Lakers for 4 years and $153 million, and the league was shocked!

James + Downs + Cousins? What kind of fairy combination is this?

Everyone was shocked, but they couldn't help but have the desire to complain.

LeBron, LeBron, are you learning from Wang Chao? That's really a good thing.

Wang Chao changed teams to help the poor, you are good, which team has a good lineup, where do you go?

first went to the Heat group of the Big Three, and then the Cavaliers had three champions and ran back, and now the Lakers have the inside twin towers, and they immediately rushed over again, this operation, Durant next door has a thumbs up!

However, there is one thing to say, James's several runs, at least to the team that is not particularly strong, and the team is also slightly flawed, such as when the Heat Big Three, in addition to the Big Three, the Heat lineup was almost dismantled, not to mention the bench players, and even the five serious starters are difficult to make up, and Irving and Embiid have not proven themselves during the Cavaliers period, and they have not yet made the playoffs.

And the current Lakers are also a relatively weak team in the West, at least a little better than Durant's behavior of running directly to hug Wang's super thigh...... Well, it's about 50 steps and 100 steps.

(End of chapter)