unfinished glory

Chapter 17 Signing
After the game against the Bulls, the Spurs played three more games, winning two and losing one.Li Chongxiao only played two of them, one win and one loss.

Coach Budenholzer did not fix the backcourt trio, but took them apart and played them at different times.

Li Chongxiao played more than 20 minutes in each game, of which about 10 minutes were played alone.At the same time, he made more breakthroughs according to the coach's instructions, which resulted in him getting new skills.

Although his ball control is average, it is completely sufficient to face these opponents.And his speed is very fast, and his dribbling rhythm is also good. Although the confrontation is average, he still has bounce and touch to make up for it.

In this way, after one game, Li Chongxiao was able to make two or three breakthroughs, plus a few three-pointers, and scored a total of 40 points in the next two games.

Coupled with the previous 35 points, after five games, a total of 75 points were scored, averaging 15 points per game, second only to Devin Brown's 17.8 points.

After the summer league, the Spurs notified Li Chongxiao to sign, and the two sides signed a 1+1 contract.The second year is a team option.In terms of salary, the basic salary is US$39 in the first year and US$64 in the second year.

At the same time, the Spurs also held a simple joining ceremony for Udri and Li Chongxiao.Li Chongxiao's grandfather and parents rushed to San Antonio and witnessed the moment when Li Chongxiao raised his Spurs No. 6 jersey with a smile.

At the press conference, the reporter asked a lot of routine questions: how does it feel to be selected by the Spurs; what do you think about joining the Spurs; how do you evaluate your performance in the summer league and so on.

Li Chongxiao's answer is: Excited, unbelievable, very excited to join a team like the Spurs with a long history, full of honors, excellent coaches, and great leaders.The summer league performance was done with the help of coaches and teammates, which showed that the Spurs are a united team.I feel very honored to play in such a team and look forward to the regular season.

At this time, there will be no reporters stupid enough to ask questions such as "whether he was selected by the Spurs because of the Chinese people" or "the Spurs offered him a contract considering commercial factors", because as long as a reporter with a little bit of professionalism can Seeing his performance in the summer league, this fully deserves a second-round pick.

Of course, the gossip reporter's question was indispensable: "Do you know Yao Ming? How is the relationship?"

"Yao Ming is a great player. His performance has cleared the way for players from China and Asia to join the NBA. Both me and He Shengzhen have been helped by this. I have a good relationship with him. I participated in the trial training in Houston before. , it was he who helped to make contact."

Some people asked another question. Li Chongxiao has just turned 18 years old, and he has only played in Duke for one year, and his performance is not good. Why would he want to participate in the NBA draft?

Li Chongxiao pissed off, and said with a smile: It was because of Chris Duhong, Du Hong encouraged him.Who told Du Hong to be an honest man?Honest people have to take the blame.

This time, the reporter of "Sports Weekly" got the news in advance and rushed over. He first asked a question that domestic fans are very concerned about: How did Li Chongxiao's past experience suddenly appear?
Li Chongxiao knew what he meant, and replied: "I am an international student from Huaxia. I studied in Duke last year and participated in the NCAA. First of all, I would like to thank my grandfather for helping me to be enlightened; I would like to thank my parents, who have always created conditions, Give me a steady stream of love; thanks to the old coach K of Duke, who helped me grow;..." Later, I also thanked my former teammates like Du Hong and Luol Deng.

Finally, I mentioned the high school, maybe the school has pulled up a banner now: "Congratulations to our school's 2003 student Li Chongxiao for joining the NBA!"

After confirming that Li Chongxiao is still from China, the reporter of "Sports Weekly" then asked: "Will you participate in the national team competition in the future?"

"I very much hope to participate in the 08 Olympic Games held in the imperial capital. After all, this is a grand event in our country." Li Chongxiao said with a smile:
"I also hope to help Yao Ming in the national team, so what I have to do now is to improve, work harder and focus more on training."

After the press conference, mother Wang Caixia finally fulfilled her dream of helping her son buy a house, and spent more than 100 million US dollars not far from the arena.

The old man Li Guangfu used the money he earned from investing in the stock market to give him a Ferrari 360 Modena, which surprised Li Chongxiao, who did not expect the old man to be so trendy.

Father Li Guoqiang gave Li Chongxiao a logistics team as a gift, and the current prototype is two assistants.

Legal assistants help with some legal matters, including property tax, individual tax and other tax filing matters.The business assistant helps deal with business endorsements and the like. The specific job at this stage is to help Li Chongxiao reject all commercial endorsement invitations.

Both father and son feel that they are not short of money anyway, and the top priority is to gain a firm foothold in the NBA.

Then there's the sneaker contract. In 2002, Li Chongxiao decided to take the road of professional basketball. After reading the side report of his son that the old man gave, Li Guoqiang judged that his son could complete his unfinished business, but at that time, the goal of both of them was only CBA.

At that time, the endorsement of Yao Ming's sneakers was used by the company as a marketing class, and Li Guoqiang overheard it.With an idea, he contacted some friends in the mall to inquire about the situation of the CBA team; on the other hand, he decided to take another route and add some insurance.

In recent years, his career development has entered a bottleneck. He has saved a lot of money but has nowhere to invest. He does not understand the Internet, and the burst of the Internet bubble in 2000 is vivid in his memory, which makes him feel that he still wants to do industrial insurance.

It happened that two things collided, so Li Guoqiang inspected several small and medium-sized sports equipment manufacturers at home and abroad.Foreign monks like to chant sutras, and finally chose a company in the United States called Under Armor in Chinese.

He used money and Huaxia's network in exchange for a 30.00% stake and became a major shareholder.With the money, Under Armour, started the research and development of the most profitable sneakers, and is actively looking for a backup spokesperson.

This year, the development of sneakers has finally matured. It was expected that Li Chongxiao would become the first spokesperson of the CBA, but it turned out that he entered the NBA. What a surprise.

After evaluating Li Chongxiao's potential and market prospects, Under Armor gave Li Chongxiao a two-year contract of 240 million US dollars, as well as some bonus incentive clauses.

In fact, Yao Ming had discussed these two matters with Li Chongxiao before.After the summer league ended, Bill Duffy wanted to be his agent, and Reebok wanted to sign him, and both parties communicated through Yao Ming.Li Chongxiao consulted Li Guoqiang at that time, but temporarily shelved it.

In addition, Yao Ming and Li Chongxiao talked about the Rockets' draft this year. He was originally scheduled to be the target, but the boss Alexander wanted to open up the European market just like opening up the Chinese market, so he exchanged picks with the Mavericks and chose Spanoulis.

Finally, Yao Ming mentioned the national team. Li Chongxiao implicitly said that this year's Athens Olympics, the national team has already been training in Dallas, and it must not be able to catch up. However, the 2008 Imperial Capital Olympics is obligatory. As for other competitions, it depends on the situation.

Affected by Yao Ming fever and Olympic fever, domestic basketball is also in full swing.

After Mr. Li Guangfu retired, in order to pass the boring time, he set up a basketball training camp in Pengcheng.This time I came to San Antonio and recruited a young man to let Li Chongxiao do the endorsement for free.

My mother quit when she saw this, and said that she also has a brand that she wants Li Chongxiao to endorse. In the past two years, she founded a chain of beauty salons and a cosmetics and skin care brand for women.

This shocked Li Chongxiao into a cold sweat, so he talked about it, so that his mother agreed to talk about endorsement when he released men's skin care products.

After dealing with these trivial matters, Li Chongxiao returned to Durham, Luol Deng and Du Hong, who had already signed contracts, also returned soon, and the small training camp officially started.

Li Chongxiao continued to practice shooting and defense, and at the same time strengthened his training in strength confrontation.

In addition, the training of passing the ball has been increased, and strive to make no mistakes.Then ball control training is also put on the agenda, after all, every player has a crossover dream in his heart.

Practicing ball control is also to strengthen the breakthrough. After being pointed out by coach Budenholzer, Li Chongxiao opened the door to a new world on the court.At the end of each training session, he dragged Luol Deng to one-on-one, lost box after box of soda, and never tired of it.

(End of this chapter)