Kobe s Road to Revenge: How Kobe Subjugated the Beast Artest in 2009

In Kobe's journey of revenge on the Celtics, Ate's joining is definitely a key factor for Kobe to complete his revenge. It can be said that without Ate, whether Kobe can revenge the Celtics, or even whether he can stand in front of the Celtics in the finals, is a question mark, so this matter is definitely worth mentioning.

But Arte joined the Lakers, full of great black humor.

In the playoffs last season, Arte was competing with Kobe, and the two were just about to start a fight. Later, Arte chose to reduce his salary to join the Lakers in order to win the championship. How did Kobe defeat Arte in the face of such an unstable factor?

On July 1, 2009, the free market gate officially opened. NBA agent David Bowman was busy with his contract. Many of his players had expired this summer. For example, his biggest client Andrew Bogut, who became a free agent this summer after spending four years of rookie contracts. He wanted to win a five-year maximum salary contract for Bogut, but the Bucks were only willing to pay 60 million in five years. The gap was not big, but it was not small. For example, Osella Harrington, who played in the NBDL for one year due to injury last year and performed well. This year, see if he could win him another NBA contract.

At this moment, Bowman's phone rang, and the one he represented was a free agent client who became a free agent this summer. Ron Artest. After Bowman took the call, he heard an astonishing decision from Arte -

I'm going to play in the Lakers.

Bowman's first feeling was that Atai was crazy.

In the playoffs that just ended last season, the Houston Rockets fought seven bloody games with the Lakers in the second round. The Rockets' leader Arte is the main defender of Kobe. Not only does he fight all kinds of wits and courage, but his physical contact is even more intense. Arte is a trash talk at Kobe's face. You are a coward, you can only elbow me! Kobe shot back with disdain and spoke with the ball! In

, the relationship between the two was always on the verge of conflict. The fans felt that the two of them were going to fight after the game!

But now, Atai is going to join Kobe? Isn't this crazy or something?

Bowmann has not worked in the field of NBA agents for a long time. Before 2005, he was a lawyer and a part-time NBA agent. He had only one client, Harrington, for a long time. It was not until 2005 that he signed the rookie Bogut who was about to go to the draft under the introduction of his master David Falke. He gained a firm foothold in the field of NBA agents. Bowmann does not know Kobe, but he has definitely heard of Kobe's bad temper, stubborn, aggressive, and vengeful. These are all the inherent labels in Kobe's early days.

Although Bowman felt that this was a bit fantasy, he still contacted the Lakers' general manager Kupchek and asked about the possibility of Arte joining. Kupchek did not dare to be careless and directly asked Kobe for his opinion. Kobe only said one word when he heard this -

YES.

Kupchek was still worried. He asked Atai, a man with extremely unstable personality. He was just a time bomb. What if he couldn't stop it? Kobe said -

Just get him over and I will do the rest.

In fact, what the Lakers lack most now is the small forward. Luke Walton has proved that he is not good. Lamar Odom can beat a small forward, but his outside shooting is really bad, with a shooting percentage of only 30% all year round, and he can't open up space at all. Therefore, the team put all hopes on Trevo Ariza, who was traded in 2007. Ariza performed very well in the playoffs last year, especially in the finals, with several ghost hand steals and direct anti-crying magic.

But the problem is that Ariza, who became a free agent this year, was offered a 5-year qualification offer of 33.95 million yuan by the Rockets. It is obviously a premium for a substitute who averaged only 9 points and 4 rebounds per game last season. Kupchek, who was forced by the Rockets, was not following, nor was he not following, and both ends were blocked.

But the arrival of Atai can allow the Lakers to let Ariza go with confidence. He made up for the shortest wooden board in the Lakers lineup. It is worth mentioning that the Lakers signed Atai with a contract of 33.95 million in 5 years. Compared with Atai's strength at that time, this contract was a significant salary cut. The outside world generally believes that Atai can get a contract of tens of millions.

At the press conference of the signing, Atai made a bold statement -

The Lakers won the championship last year, and this year they are still the original team, but they just replaced Ariza with me. If they can't win the championship, it must be my problem.

Kupchek signed Atei and renewed Lamar Odom for 4 years and 33 million yuan, 2 years and 4.4 million yuan, and renewed substitute inside Josh Powell for one year. At the same time, the substitute guard Jordan Famal's fourth-year rookie contract was turned into regular. In short, while retaining the original core framework, the Lakers also welcomed the strong aid, Ate, and his strength has been greatly improved.