CHAPTER 1263: CHAPTER 511

Before the championship match, Zhang Yang, Okafor, Felton, and Hill discussed having a week-long party after winning the title.

The night of the championship, they really started a week-long party, partying for two nights in Los Angeles and then continuing for five nights back in Charlotte. The trio, along with Hill, Jordan, Carlisle, and Bickerstaff took turns hosting, making it seven consecutive nights of revelry...

Zhang Yang was fine at night; except for the night he hosted, he usually left after one round. His teammates were used to it by now. Being single, you could party however you liked, but when you were with someone, maintaining basic loyalty was praiseworthy anywhere.

Okafor also didn’t stay long, except for footing the bill.

But Felton and Hill really enjoyed themselves. The former was expected; during the season, he relied on the discipline fostered by hanging out with Okafor and Zhang Yang, so when it was time to party, he partied hard. Hill, on the other hand, was genuinely happy. Even his wife agreed to let him indulge for once.

During his seven years with the Magic Team, Hill thought his basketball career was over. Who would have thought that at 36, he could win a championship as a starting player? When he joined the Bobcats in the summer of 2007, he had that in mind, but he didn’t expect to win a championship. Strong players like Barkley, Stockton, and Malone couldn’t even succeed in that regard.

But by day, Zhang Yang was exhausted, filled with various team duties, fan appreciation events, championship parades, City Hall and state legislative events, sponsorship meetings... As the team’s face, he had to attend each one, covering ten events in six days.

Time quickly moved to June 28th. After the last party on the 22nd, in the past five days, he either stayed at home, accompanying the little diva who came back from playing a villain role and complained about having no work, modeled clothes for his mom, played some baseball with his brother, or went to the arena for meetings with the management and coaching staff to discuss draft-related matters.

Yesterday afternoon, the bald guy and his team went to New York, leaving the training ground empty today. Zhang Yang thought about it and decided to resume training. He called Jarett Young in the morning to book training, also helping an old friend earn some off-season overtime pay.

He was just a few thousand points away from 140,000 shooting value, so he hurried to accumulate enough to start the next wave of tasks.

Though he hadn’t seriously touched a basketball in over ten days, he didn’t feel any rustiness. That moment of winning the championship, feeling like he owned the whole world, was utterly captivating.

A nine-to-five day passed, and Zhang Yang returned home to prepare dinner with the little diva who had gone to a design class with his mother.

Emma Roberts, ever since she turned 15 and had an adult-like appearance, hasn’t been able to land any good scripts. Occasionally, she’d get offers, but like the other day, they were either for playing a pretty decoration or a villain sidekick. Otherwise, they’d be obviously terrible scripts. But she didn’t get disheartened; she kept studying what needed studying and learning new things that needed learning. Inspired by Zhang’s mom, she thought, since she had a model-like body, why not learn design? Maybe she could start a fashion brand or create a professional design label in the future.

After dinner, around 7 o’clock, Zhang Yang and Emma Roberts sat in front of the TV to watch the player introductions at the draft.

Emma Roberts asked, "Is the draft difficult this year? You’ve been to several meetings recently."

Zhang Yang responded, "It’s a bit tricky. This draft is very important for our ability to remain competitive."

"Because of Jarett and Michael?"

A few days ago, Emma Roberts heard Zhang Yang mention that the Bobcats’ backup point guard, the great Jack, and the significant small forward in the offensive lineup, Pietrus, hadn’t completed their contract renewals, and both intended to test the free agency market.

Zhang Yang nodded: "Rick and Bernie think we can’t keep them."

"Couldn’t agree on salaries?"

"No, it’s not about the salaries. The owner has no issues with the annual salary; our salary is already over the cap. Even if they asked for seven to eight million annually, the owner would bite the bullet and agree.

The problem is with the contract duration. According to our plan, we can only offer a one-year short contract. Next season, Brad (Miller), Kendrick (Perkins), and Mike (Miller) will all have contract years, with a total salary of just over 27 million.

If we don’t sign new long contracts this summer, next summer we’ll only have the big contracts of me, Raymond, and Emeka, plus Paul (Millsap)’s bird rights and some rookie contracts, bringing our total payroll down to around 50 million. Even if the salary cap drops due to economic reasons, it won’t be as high as last summer’s 62 million plus, we are likely to free up a ten-million salary space.

Many veterans from the 01 to 03 draft classes may have their contracts expire next summer. While we may not have a chance to compete for top-tier players, the management is very interested in ten-million-level, mid-level veterans with real strength.

However, some teams will certainly guess our intentions. As soon as Jarett and Michael enter the free market, there will definitely be teams offering long-term contracts.

If we don’t match the offers, we’ll lose two key substitutes. If we do, the 2010 free market will be out of our reach, which is what’s giving Rick and Bernie such a headache."

Emma Roberts thought for a while and asked, "Can’t you discuss with them to renew for one year first and then sign a long-term contract after next summer’s free market?"

The little diva didn’t understand the salary cap rules, and Zhang Yang knew that, so he explained, "Our ability to create salary space to sign people next summer depends on giving up Jarett and Michael’s bird rights. Once we sign other players, there won’t be any space to re-sign them. By then, they’ll still have to look for new jobs."