NBA's King of Talking

Chapter 357 The New Season Has Finally Arrived

The Clippers' training camp participants are training very diligently.

Just two days after the training camp started, Jia Fei used his personal strength to win over those who were not convinced by him, and everyone was completely obedient to him.

In fact, former Clippers players like DeAndre Jordan and JJ Redick were unhappy with Jia Fei, this outsider. It was his arrival that led to the trades of his old teammates, 58 and Blake Griffin, and the absence of contract renewals for Klopp and Lee. Everyone knows you've won MVP and championships, but past glories are just that—past. If you can't demonstrate leadership here, then sorry, people still won't respect you! They can despise you, and they can hate you.

Lou Williams and Patrick Beverley, who came from the Rockets, weren't particularly fond of Jia Fei, but in the last two days, Jia Fei has shown them who the real boss is on this team!

In competitive sports, the most effective way to gain prestige and genuine respect from your teammates is to let your performance speak for itself. No matter how much the team develops you, how much the owner values ​​you, or how handsome you are, if you lack skill, it won't work in the end. We're playing in the NBA, not making adult films.

Even Beverley and Lou Williams, who had always had some reservations about him, were defeated by him.

In the locker room, Lu Wei walked up to Jia Fei, smiled, and said, "Jia, I never liked you before and didn't think you were that good. But after training with you these past few days, I'm impressed. I'll never say anything bad about you again!"

"You can say whatever you want!" Jia Fei smiled and patted Lu Wei on the shoulder. With that, all grudges were forgiven.

Lou Williams, during his time with the 76ers, was a huge fan of Allen Iverson, so he wouldn't tolerate anyone saying that someone else's playing style was similar to Iverson's, or even that they were better. Jia Fei was such a person; many media figures said Jia Fei had surpassed Iverson, and the jersey incident further fueled his resentment towards this Asian talent. Even though he knew Jia Fei was very good, he simply refused to acknowledge it.

Now that Iverson has retired, the two have become teammates. Faced with Jia Fei's formidable strength, Lou Williams has finally conceded defeat. Ultimately, NBA players are convinced by skill, not by whether their moves resemble those of their idols.

Jia Fei was satisfied with the result; this was just the first step in a long journey. Gaining the respect and acceptance of his teammates was essential for him to be a team leader. Without a solid foundation of support, he risked becoming isolated. His previous aggressive use of verbal sparring to earn points had offended many. This might be one reason why Shafen and 58 didn't want to be on his team. Fortunately, his integration was now complete, and he no longer needed to resort to such tactics.

October has arrived, and the new NBA season is about to begin, followed by the preseason games.

An NBA season consists of preseason games and playoffs, but the preseason is not on the same level as the playoffs in terms of status and importance. NBA preseason results do not count towards the regular season standings; even if you lose all your preseason games, it won't affect your final playoff appearance. Simply put, the preseason is for warming up and training. Therefore, NBA teams frantically experiment with lineups and give new players experience during this time. Even if the outcome is insignificant, the opponents are all NBA players, making the practice more effective than intra-squad scrimmages.

On October 5th, the Clippers played their first preseason game of the new season against the Golden State Warriors.

The Warriors are the biggest winners of this offseason. While retaining the core roster that won 73 games last season, they upgraded Harrison Barnes, who had a poor performance in the Finals, into Kevin Durant.

How big is the gap between Barnes and Durant? It's like the gap between Ha Seung-jin and Yao Ming, like the gap between Sister Feng and Liu Yifei, like the gap between you and Ibaka...

The Warriors had the cap space to acquire Durant, and there were several coincidences. First, Curry's rookie contract was still in effect; second, the salary cap had increased significantly; and third, several of the Warriors' core players had already signed contracts before the salary cap increase.

Such opportunities are rare and hard to come by...

After acquiring Durant, the Warriors' roster became stronger than ever, and the last weakness of the "Death Lineup" was filled... Why did the Warriors fall twice in the Finals before? Because after everyone switched on defense, they lacked a true one-on-one specialist to break through the defense, and Durant is precisely the kind of player who can do that.

Furthermore, although Durant plays the small forward position, he is 211cm tall, so his position doesn't conflict with the Splash Brothers. After he joined, the Warriors played a small lineup without any height disadvantage.

The starting lineups for both teams have been announced.

The Warriors' lineup consists of Zaza Pachulia, Draymond Green, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, and Chris Paul.

The Clippers' lineup consists of DeAndre Jordan, Tobias Harris, Wesley Johnson, Jia Fei, and Patrick Beverley.

In the new season, Jia Fei will play shooting guard, which is the team's management's decision, and Jia Fei himself has agreed to it. In fact, during the championship season, after Korver was injured and ruled out for the season, he played shooting guard.

The preseason games were all about getting the teams together, so the intensity wasn't high. Jia Fei played for about 20 minutes before being substituted, and soon after, the other starters also left the court to rest, turning the game into a contest between the two teams' bench players.

Ultimately, the Clippers lost to the Warriors on the road, ending their first preseason game.

From this game until the 19th, the Clippers played five more preseason games. After these five games, the new season will begin.

With the 2016-17 season about to begin, major media outlets such as ESPN have started analyzing and predicting the prospects of each NBA team for the new season.

The Warriors are the top favorite to win the championship, while the defending champion Cavaliers are second.

快船并不被看好，他们新赛季的战绩被预测的是西部第9位。也有预测他们第10位第8位的，反正就是8到10位。

Jia Fei never looked at these so-called predictions. They were too subjective and purely theoretical. If predictions were accurate, he wouldn't have won the championship with the Hawks.

Who could have predicted that Jia Fei would go from a role player to an MVP?

Many experts have also made predictions. Barkley, while doing a show with his partner Kenny Smith, said: "It will be very difficult for the Clippers to make the playoffs this season. It's unrealistic to expect Jia Fei to lead the team to the playoffs in the West. I still think they should tank for a year and draft a real cornerstone player. It's too risky to rely on an injury-prone player like Jia Fei to lead the team."

On October 26, the Clippers arrived in Portland, the City of Ripple, on a chartered plane. They will play their season opener on the road two days later.

Jia Fei will also make his Clippers debut. This is also his first appearance in a season, and he is very excited; he has been waiting for this moment for a very long time.