Reborn in 96, I started by taking charge of the Dallas Mavericks.

December 12th, Christmas.

Christmas is a very important holiday in the West, just like the Spring Festival in China.

The NBA has also arranged two exciting games for fans around the world.

The Detroit Pistons will face the Chicago Bulls, and the Los Angeles Lakers will play against the Phoenix Suns.

The two teams in the previous match were old rivals.

Back when the Bulls were on their first three-peat, the Pistons were the Bulls' biggest rival in the Eastern Conference.

The Bad Boys did a lot of dirty tricks on Jordan back then.

Now that Dennis Rodman has inherited all the mantle of the Bad Boys, his return to Detroit to face his arch-rivals, the Chicago Bulls, is naturally generating a lot of buzz.

As for the Lakers and the Suns, they have been rivals for many years, making this a closely contested match.

However, the attention was stolen by one man from these two highly anticipated Christmas battles.

Just two hours before the Christmas battle began.

Tim Duncan, the starting power forward from Wake Forest University, has publicly stated that he will enter the NBA draft next year.

This news sent shockwaves through the entire alliance.

General managers of several teams immediately called their own coaches, urging them to lose the remaining regular season games at all costs.

Meanwhile, Popovich, who already knew that Duncan would participate in next year's draft, was comfortably sipping red wine on his sofa at home.

So far, the Spurs are at the bottom of the league with a record of 6 wins and 18 losses.

It's fair to say that the Spurs are already ahead in the race to sign Duncan.

At the same time, Don Nelson also called Chen Fang to ask if he wanted to join the race to sign Duncan.

However, Chen Fang flatly refused.

While Chen was indeed attracted to Dai Dai, he preferred the driver even more.

After all, Dirk Nowitzki is a future icon of the Mavericks. Even with Kobe Bryant now, if Nowitzki joins the Mavericks in the future, he will at most be the second or even third option.

But Chen Fang still hopes to select this Hanscat Hans Chariot.

As for Tim Duncan, he's destined to be with the Spurs unless they can trade for one of their first-round draft picks.

Chen Fang felt that the possibility was extremely slim. He remembered that the Celtics had offered the third overall pick, the sixth pick, and two first-round picks in exchange for Duncan, but the Spurs rejected the offer.

Chen Fang didn't have enough chips to make the deal.

After Duncan announced his intention to participate in next year's draft, many teams immediately changed their strategies for this season and decided to tank to join the tanking army in the race to acquire Duncan.

But one team is crying in the bathroom: the Grizzlies.

In a preseason three-team trade, the Grizzlies traded their first-round pick for next year to the Mavericks, and that pick was not protected by the top three picks.

In other words, no matter how bad their record is this season, they have already lost their chance to compete for Duncan.

What they didn't know was that even if they hadn't traded their first-round pick to the Mavericks, they still wouldn't have gotten Duncan.

Because in the draw, they only drew number 4 and used number 4 to select Antonio Daniels.

This guy played 14 seasons in the NBA, and only had one season in which he scored more than double digits.

He went from being the fourth overall pick in the NBA first round to a second-round pick in the NBDL.

This shows how unsuccessful his career was.

……

12 month 28 day.

After a three-day break, the Mavericks will host the SuperSonics at home.

This will also be the Mavericks' last game of the year.

The SuperSonics are led by Shawn Kemp and Gary Payton.

Last season, they achieved a record of 64 wins and 18 losses in the regular season and defeated the Kings 3-2 in the first round of the playoffs to advance to the next round.

In the Western Conference semifinals, they swept the defending champion Rockets, and in the Western Conference Finals, they defeated the Jazz after a hard-fought seven-game series, reaching the NBA Finals for the first time since winning the championship in 1979.

Unfortunately, they lost to the Bulls 2-4 in the Finals.

This season, they've come back strong, determined to win the championship.

However, the competition in the Western Conference this season is exceptionally fierce.

The Rockets, Jazz, Mavericks, and SuperSonics all have the potential to contend for the top seed in the regular season.

The Trail Blazers, Timberwolves, Suns, Clippers, and Lakers were all eyeing the team.

If you're not careful, they'll catch up with you.

Before the game, many commentators believed that the Mavericks' game against the SuperSonics was a preview of the playoffs.

In fact, the two teams played like they were in the playoffs.

The defensive intensity of both teams was suffocating, and in the end, the Mavericks secured the victory with a three-pointer from Kobe in the final moments.

They defeated the Supersonics, who came to challenge them, with a score of 95:90.

With this game, the Mavericks surpassed the SuperSonics in the regular season standings and are currently ranked third in the Western Conference.

Ahead of the Mavericks are the Jazz and the Rockets.

After defeating the SuperSonics, the Mavericks will have four days of rest before facing the Charlotte Hornets on the road on January 2nd.

The New Year holds great significance for the Chinese people.

As the saying goes, a good start to the year means a good year ahead.

Therefore, Chen gave a firm order that they must win the first game of the new year.

Furthermore, January 2nd happens to be the Chinese New Year holiday, so there will be more fans watching the game than usual.

Chen Fang certainly didn't want to deliver a defeat to the fans on such an important holiday.

During their day off, Chen Fang and Chu Xinran went to Los Angeles.

His purpose in this trip was to acquire Intel shares from a man named Barberis.

The day after the Mavericks defeated the Warriors, Andy Grove called Chen Fang, saying that someone was willing to sell Intel shares, and that person was Barberson.

He is the largest individual shareholder among Intel's many shareholders, holding 8% of the shares.

Unlike in later years, Intel today is not divided up among a group of conglomerates.

Therefore, Chen Fang can only acquire Intel shares by purchasing shares from individual shareholders.

As for whether Chen Fang can join Intel's board of directors, everything will depend on whether he acquires a certain number of shares first.

12 month 31 day.

On the last day of 1996, Chen Fang brought Chu Xinran to a coffee shop in downtown Los Angeles.

They met Barberis here.

Barberis is a white man who appears to be in his fifties.

"Hello, Mr. Barberis, I am Chen Fang. I've long admired your name!"

"Mr. Chen is so young yet so wealthy; he is truly a promising young man!"

After exchanging compliments, Chen Fang got straight to the point.

"I believe Mr. Barberis already understands the purpose of my visit, so I will not beat around the bush. I would like to acquire your Intel shares at three times the market price."

Although Barberys had already learned from Andy Grove that Chen Fang was willing to acquire the shares at three times the market price, he was still shocked when he heard Chen Fang say it to his own ears.

"Mr. Chen, before we discuss the acquisition, I would like to ask a question."

"You are the owner of the NBA's Dallas Mavericks, why would you suddenly want to acquire shares in Intel?"

"Of course, you don't have to answer if you don't want to."

Chen Fang picked up the coffee on the table, took a sip, and said with a smile, "Actually, the reason is very simple: I have so much money that I don't know what to do with it."

Upon hearing this, Barberis was so embarrassed that he couldn't speak.

After a long while, he said with a wry smile, "Mr. Chen is really humorous. Let's just sign the contract then."