Chapter 22 Debut
At seven o'clock, in the visiting team's locker room, the head coach announced tonight's starting lineup.
"Kevin Johnson, Dan Marley..."
Paul Westphal read out the names of No. 1 and No. 2, and at the small forward position, he hesitated.
Cedric Ceballos immediately became nervous, staring at the head coach and clutching his shorts with both hands, fearing that he would lose his starting position.
He was the 20th pick in the second round of the 1990 draft, a very late draft pick. In his first two seasons, he only averaged 11 minutes per game as a substitute and was not taken seriously.
But this season the team changed its head coach and three starters left, causing a serious shortage of manpower, so he had the opportunity to become the starting small forward. However, his playing time only increased to 21 minutes, less than 30 minutes, and his position as a main player was not very stable.
In contrast, Richard Dumas, who was in the same room with Wang Tiejun, was looking forward to it and dreamed of getting this main position.
"…Cedric Ceballos…"
Then Westphal read out the starting small forward position.
"yeah!"
Cedric Ceballos clenched his fist in excitement.
“Damn it!”
Dumas grumbled in disappointment.
"...Barkley..."
Westphal paused again when he read this.
Only the center was left. At this moment, Wang Tiejun, Mark Weston and Oliver Miller all looked at the head coach.
"Old K."
Westphal looked at Wang Tiejun and then recited.
"hey-hey!"
Comrade Lao Wang immediately laughed.
“Damn it!”
Mark West cursed inwardly.
"Why?"
Oliver Miller was extremely disappointed. He was a first-round pick with great potential. Why did the team give up on him?
Although they had guessed such an outcome from Wang Tiejun's big contract and the team training match in the afternoon, they still couldn't accept it when it actually happened.
At 7:30
Suns: Wang Tiejun, Barkley, Cedric Ceballos, Dan Majerle, Kevin Johnson
Digital Team: Andrew Lang, Tim Perry, Clarence Witherspoon, Jeff Hornacek, Jose Hawkins
This game was not broadcast live nationwide, only in Philadelphia, so the attention was average.
But in fact, in the two areas of Philadelphia and Phoenix, this game attracted a lot of attention because Barkley and three Suns starters swapped teams.
Judging from the record of this season, Flint City's deal was not successful, as they had more losses than wins in previous games.
But it is not a failure either, because Philadelphia did not make it to the playoffs last season, and no matter how bad the record is this season, it will not make it to the playoffs.
From the Suns' perspective, the trade was a success. Before Tom Chambers was injured, they were first in the Western Conference and the league.
"Tonight Andrew Lang vs. the perverted coolie from China..."
In the live commentary booth, commentator Roma wanted to praise his own center and make fun of Wang Tiejun, but when he thought about Andrew Lang's 5+6 strength, he lost the confidence to speak and could not continue.
Partner Venus quickly took over the conversation and said, "In terms of scoring, in the last game between the Suns and the Magic, the perverted coolie played for 30 minutes and only scored two points. It can be seen that he is an offensive idiot. In this regard, Andrew Lang can completely shut him out with his defense."
At this point, he felt there was something wrong, because O'Neal failed to shut out Wang Tiejun and was even dunked over. Although Andrew Lang averaged 1.9 blocks per game, could he really shut out that pervert?
He felt a little weak and couldn't continue.
Their center was too weak, so the two had to change the topic and started talking about Barkley and Philadelphia's past.
At 7:45, the first team came out.
"Kevin, long time no see!"
"Jeff, so nice to see you!"
In the player tunnel, Kevin Johnson warmly hugged Jeff Hornacek.
Except for Wang Tiejun, the other players from both sides were once teammates and they also greeted each other.
"Let me introduce you to my brother, Lao Wang," Barkley introduced.
"Hello." Wang Tiejun said with a smile.
"Is he okay?"
Hornacek glanced at Lao Wang and asked Kevin Johnson in a low voice.
As a former main shooting guard of the Suns, he follows the Suns' games closely. He watched the last game between the Suns and the Magic. Although the Chinese man's statistics were poor, his performance against O'Neal surprised him a little.
"Better than Mark West anyway."
Kevin Johnson said, and then smiled at Andrew Lang: “Andrew, you are going to suffer tonight.”
Andrew Lang was startled, glanced at Wang Tiejun, and asked in confusion: "Kevin, what do you mean?"
Kevin Johnson laughed and said, “It seems like you didn’t pay attention to our last game.”
Andrew Lang shrugged and nodded, "I had a party the night before yesterday and indeed didn't watch the game."
"Andrew, he is very good at strong confrontations." Hornacek reminded.
Andrew Lang is 211 cm tall and weighs 115 kg. He looks strong, but like Milicic in later generations, he doesn't like confrontation, so when he heard this , his brows frowned.
"System, there are no missions in this game?"
Before going out, Wang Tiejun looked at the system and found that no tasks had been issued.
The system replied: "If the host completes various achievement tasks, such as scoring, first time 10+, 20+, 30+, etc., total score 500 points, 1000 points, etc., the system will give corresponding rewards, and will not specifically issue such tasks."
Fifteen minutes later, the game began.
In the center circle, Wang Tiejun and Andrew Lang jump ball.
Lao Wang's jumping ability is not that good, but it is already pretty good for the center position. The later Death God Durant's jumping ability is only more than 60 centimeters.
Andrew Lang's athletic ability is also average, and his jumping ability is not as good as his, so he was easily hit by him.
The Suns attack.
Wang Tiejun went straight to the basket, but Andrew Lang blocked him and was immediately pushed away. As their strength and confrontation ability were not on the same level, he successfully entered the basket.
Andrew Lang went forward and was pushed away from the basket. He carried the defender with his left arm and raised his right hand to ask for the ball at the top of the arc.
Kevin Johnson originally wanted to pass it to Barkley, but this was Wang Tiejun's first start, and seeing that he had a chance, he lobbed the ball in.
Wang Tiejun jumped up, grabbed the ball with one hand, stood up again, and was about to dunk when his left arm was caught by Andrew Lang.
"boom!"
The dunk missed, the ball hit the basket and bounced up, and at the same time the referee blew the whistle.
“Fuck!”
Wang Tiejun was a little depressed. His athletic quality was indeed not good. He lacked explosive power and was slow to get up. If it was the pervert O'Neal, he would definitely have made it a two plus one. This was one of the differences between him and O'Neal .
"Old K, good job." Barkley came over to encourage.
"Brother, get ready for the rebound."
When high-fiving, Wang Tiejun and Barkley were whispering in each other's ears.
His shooting is only level 50 and his free throw ability is very poor, but he is self-aware of this.
Barkley's face trembled and he nodded.
Wang Tiejun stood on the free throw line, took the ball, dribbled it seven or eight times in a row, and then carefully threw it into the basket.
"boom!"
The ball was too short and bounced back into the basket.
"Rookie, I can make free throws more accurately than you with my eyes closed," Jeff Hornacek joked.
Lao Wang rolled his eyes and said, "I'm a center and I've only been playing for three years. I haven't touched the ball in almost two years. I've been doing heavy work in the past few months. I don't have any shooting feel now. I should be proud of myself if I can touch the basket from such a long distance."
"boom!"
The second ball hit the rim just as usual.
Barkley jumped high, and grabbed the ball from Andrew Lang's head as he appeared from behind. Then he got up again and made a lob shot over Andrew Lang and scored the ball.
