In the summer of 2004, after James' rookie year ended, he received a call from Carlos- Boozer 。
Boozer entered the league a year earlier than James. In the 2003-04 season, the 22-year-old Boozer averaged 15.5 points, 11.4 rebounds, 3.1 rebounds, and was one of the most reliable helpers around Youzhan. According to the Cavaliers, Boozer negotiated with the team to let him become a restricted free player in advance, and then the two sides will renew a six-year contract worth about 40 million yuan.
But in the summer of 2004, the Jazz, Denver, Hawks and Bobcats all reported contracts of nearly 70 million yuan for six years. According to the labor agreement at that time, Boozer of the second round show could only get a middle-class special renewal, that is, the six-year 40 million level. If the Cavaliers want to match the six-year 70 million contract, they must do a transaction to expand the salary space of only 4 million to the 10 million level.
Boozer called the team management and the boss to ask if they would like to make room for their own trade. He also made another call to James to hear his opinions.
James replied, "Listen, Nike gave me 100 million yuan when I was 18 years old, which changed my life. If the knight is unwilling to make room for you, you should make the most favorable choice for yourself."
James was 19 this year.
Of course, the Cavaliers didn't make room for Boozer. They chose to scold Boozer on the media for his treachery and greed for money. They let Boozer go and traded to Gooden as their imagined replacement.
In the second year of James' career, the last game of the 2004-05 season, he played for 48 minutes and won the fourth triple double game of the season. In the future, he will win 108 triple double games, surpass Kidd and enter the top 5 in history, but this is only one of his future records that is relatively less dazzling.
Kidd, who is destined to be surpassed in the future, is also playing the last game of the season at this time. He is 31 years old and has just been in the league for ten years. It seems that the two consecutive years he led the team to the finals are too long ago. Now they need to win this game to win the last playoff ticket from the young Cavaliers. If the two teams have the same final record, the Nets will enter the playoffs and the Cavaliers will be out.
James said that he has been staring at the scoreboard in the game, not only the Cavaliers, but also the Nets. Green Kai, the opponent of the Nets, has already locked in the third place in the east. The last time they played against the Cavaliers, they removed all the main forces in the last quarter. In this game, they did the same thing and did it fairly. Nobody cares about Lvkai. Rivers, who had just transferred from the ABC commentator, said that the two games were "significant": "we have trained our young people very well."
When the Cavaliers started the game, the Nets were 17 points behind and 11 points behind at half court. When the Cavaliers reached the last quarter, they saw the Nets surpass the score. Carter scored 24 of the 37 points in the second half. After leading the team to win the playoff tickets, he said, "I just want to add some drama to the game."
Carter has always been so calm. He can go to the graduation ceremony before the tiebreak. He can say "I didn't do my best" when he leaves Toronto. He can make some drama in the life and death battle. This character may be one of the reasons why he went to Eagle to play at the age of 43. He is not chasing anything. He may simply like playing basketball. He is half human, half divine, and ultimately human. In the final analysis, it is just basketball.
Frank, the head coach of the Nets, was not clear about Carter's dramatic plan. He grabbed the players' necks and poured chicken soup during the intermission: "You just think that the last 24 minutes of your life are left."
Life is certainly more than 24 minutes. Everyone's life on the scene is still a long time away. Nets coach Frank didn't know that he would be demoted from chief assistant to "daily news reporter" by Kidd in the future, just like Nets player Jason Collins didn't know that he would become the most influential 100 people in the world and the cover character of Time magazine in 2013, Only because he became the first male athlete in service in North American professional sports when the LGBT sport in the United States set off a new wave of climax. [Note 1]
[Note 1] Caroline Mousse was also unaware of this. In the summer of 2005, she had been dating Collins for four years, and in four more years, they would have a wedding. Then one month before the wedding, Collins would tell her that she had decided to cancel the wedding.
Of course, for the NBA in the 2004-05 season, the Nets are not important, just as the Cavaliers are not important this year. The last opponent the Cavaliers defeated, Raptors, was also unimportant. Compared with James opposite, their generation 03 Chris Bosh stood like a minion on the court. They only took 9 shots and scored 11 points and 5 rebounds, which is the legacy left by Carter and the hope of the team in the future. Just a few years after the Raptors entered the league, they have experienced twice the pain of the team leader's leaving. This Bosh looks honest and honest, and he is also keen on programming. He thinks everything can be one or two, and there is no reason to repeat it.
A little more important than these things, or more impressive for Chinese fans, is McGrady's 35. 13 seconds, which is the first two away games won by the Rockets of Yao and McGrady in the playoffs, and it is almost possible to start thinking about the next opponent.
The more important thing may be the Auburn Mountain Palace incident, the largest ticket in history, which destroyed Reggie Miller's remaining thoughts of the last season.
The really important thing was the two transfers that took place in the summer of 2004. The 30-year-old Nash went to the Suns and won the first MVP in his career. Many years later, D'Antoni was deeply remorseful. "If only I could let Nash play like Harden"; 32 year old O'Neal swam to the south coast. Wade's rib injury made them lose the tiebreak against Pistons in the East. More importantly, the Lakers completely withdrew from the western competition, and the Spurs ran over the Sun to return to the finals.
James sat in the stands and watched the seven finals of the Spurs and Pistons. He has begun to grow a beard and will keep this stereotype for many years to come. He told reporters who interviewed him: "I will lead the team to the finals."
In the following 19 years, James entered the playoffs in 17 seasons, entered the finals 10 times, and only lost the first round twice. As we stand at the moment of 2024, it is hard to realize what really important things will happen in this year. We will only talk about what this is the first time we have faced the second round without Zhankudu since 2005. This conclusion is of course no problem, but why should James Curie Put it with Durant? Just say that James and Curry make sense? Just James and Durant? If the Bucks, Clippers and Philadelphia are all out of the first round, shall we change this statement to that there is no Jankuduka Weidi in the second round of the first playoffs? This also makes sense, and does it seem more shocking and more impressive that an era is really fucking past?
It seems that this is not the case. To put it bluntly, this matter was pushed to 2005, simply because James has been in the playoffs since 2006, and he has not been in the playoffs twice until 2019 and 2022. During this period, James has only lost the first round in 2021 and 2024 twice. As long as he has scored the second round in these four years but has no stars this year, he can be tied with James for "the past", Moreover, the more stars there are, the higher the probability that these four years will be covered. They can all declare "the era is over" side by side. Let's not worry about whether these people have ever owned the era. Just ask one thing: can they be regarded as people of the same era in terms of breaking through the first round in the playoffs? Durant only entered the second round in 2011, and Curry only entered the playoffs in 2013. You can't say that James survived for a long time. Generally, he didn't lose in the first round of the playoffs, so he suddenly extended the timeline to 2005, creating a sense of sadness that young birds fly away from Liaoning.
I guess a similar era can also be built in a certain year. For example, in 2011, we can say that for the first time since 1999, there was no Shafouke in the finals. "Ah, an era has passed" sounds more reliable than this Zhankudu.
So why is it that Zhankudu has not entered the second round for the first time since 2005?
If we really look at the past from the perspective of 2005, we will only feel that the future is still very vague. After the first five years of the 21st century, the Pan 96th generation is still the backbone, and the generation 03 has been promoted to the sky. Milicic, the "human flesh cigar", is the first to win the championship, Wade and Capono will be the second, and Perkins is the fourth, Melo Anthony entered the playoffs very early, but it was difficult to break through the first round. James, the son of God, could not even enter the playoffs.
At that time, you would not think that we would have a player with such a long career, and not Carter's type of long, and you would not discuss whether this person has the opportunity to break the history scoring record. You will only talk about what team basketball has finally defeated talent and come to the highest stage. You won't think this is a confrontation between justice and evil, but you just think this is what a basketball game should look like.
Of course, you won't realize what changes have taken place in our NBA narrative in the past 19 years. From classical descriptions of gods, to realistic descriptions of stone Buddha sharks and pistons, to the four guards of martial arts style, to the launch of microblog around the decade of the 21st century, we began to enter the stage of mass network literature, and black honey theory began to become the mainstream of narrative.
The NBA has never lacked confrontation and comparison between players, but there has never been an era that can present praise and criticism without delay, as in the Internet era. Views are no longer conveyed by magazines or TV commentaries in longer length, but poured out by short videos less than 2 minutes and short text less than 140 words. Even if someone has done 45 minutes of audio programs, It will also be presented to more people in the form of slices. In this case, the narrative with lower understanding cost will naturally become more acceptable. Logical thinking must give way to emotional expression. Funny words will gradually change from "Kevin+Nate" to "Crab and Pants", eunuch and Liangshan ". With the development of the Internet era to the current We Media node, traffic will become the only standard to measure the success of all narratives, Narration, in a way, really affects the form of basketball games in the minds of fans.
From this perspective, James is more like the "longest river" than the "longest river", because he carries almost all the relevant flows. A large part of Kobe and Curry's traffic needs to be associated with James to be established, so this“ Janduku The absurdity that "the era will not enter the second round has passed" has its own internal narrative logic, which may not be clear to onlookers, but people who eat rice will understand this truth: if you want to attract Jamie, praise James is not necessarily comparable to scold him, and vice versa.
