Warm and Innocent
He was very satisfied with his current life and could even accept an early four-year, $100 million extension rather than wait until his rookie contract ended and seek a max extension.
"I'm surprised Coach Z secretly traded for Brook Lopez. Wasn't he satisfied with the Warriors' interior? The price he paid was far too high—a first-round pick and three rotation-caliber players for a traditional big man who was about to be phased out of the league. Are the Warriors not going to keep playing small ball?"
But if the Warriors performed poorly from here on out, Zhang Yu would be criticized no matter how well Lopez played.
After the Warriors completed the trade, many people felt it was not worth it. Bill Simmons said:
But with the rise of the small-ball era, traditional centers who were slow and unable to switch had gradually declined. Mobile blue-collar centers who could protect the rim and switch defensively had become the answer at center. If they could score as well, then they were the ideal interior players for the small-ball era.
Jaylen Brown was heavily affected. He lost his rhythm, and his scoring plummeted, while Wiggins still steadily put up 17 points and helped the team stay locked in a tight battle until crunch time.
The Warriors had many players participating in All-Star Weekend. Besides Curry and Antetokounmpo, who were selected as All-Star starters, Jaylen Brown, Brogdon, and Markkanen were chosen for the Rising Stars Challenge, Bogdan entered the Three-Point Contest, and the biggest surprise was Wiggins making the All-Star reserve squad.
The Cavaliers were always looking for guards who could handle the ball, because no matter how good a guard was, once he got to the Cavaliers, he would stop handling the ball. They could only keep searching for