Malone is 40 years old. Although he is still in good condition, who knows how many more years he can play in the future.
At this stage, Malone has nothing to desire except the championship.
After coming to the Lakers, Malone was even ready to sacrifice.
For example, the Lakers' starting lineup is the best in the league on paper, but their bench lineup is quite thin.
In order to ensure that the substitute lineup would not be too far behind, Malone even considered leading the substitute lineup with Payton.
However, after discussing it with Payton before, Payton was not happy.
Now, it is discovered that the new guy selected by the Lakers, Du En, has great potential.
Whether it is the summer league or the preseason, they have performed very well.
Malone didn't know how well Duen would play in the next regular season, or whether his crotch would be strained in his first playoff game.
What Malone could see was that Duane was training almost every day.
Obviously the coaching staff did not force Duen to do too much training, but Duen would take the initiative to stay for additional training even after the preseason games.
Malone has never seen many such young people who want to make progress in the NBA for 20 years.
Ma Long himself is like this, pushing himself to the limit every day and getting stronger bit by bit.
The same draft pick, the same Kirin arm, and the same hard training made Malone's affection for Duen grow day by day.
In fact, it wasn't just Malone. Kobe, who often met Duan at the Toyota Center during the offseason, subconsciously agreed when he heard Malone mention Duan.
However, Kobe did not continue to mention Duan.
Because there is no need anymore.
“My love for basketball will never change.
But my family and I have been through so much that we still can’t get over.
Basketball has come second to me, and family is the most important thing.
You know, basketball is my job, and I have a job to do, and that's why I'm back.
I'm not hiding at home, I'm here to play well. "
At the media day on October 10, Kobe said this in public.
Compared with the sharp and confident Kobe in the past, today's Kobe is a little cautious and taciturn.
Faced with questions from media reporters, Kobe did not respond too much to issues such as Lakers F4 and winning the championship in the new season.
On the contrary, newcomers Payton and Malone are full of confidence in winning the championship in the new season, and O'Neal also boasted at the media day.
As for Duen, he naturally did not participate in the interview with Lakers F4.
It is true that Duan is the future of the team and is the main ticket-selling player for the Lakers, but he is not on the stage yet.
The Lakers' first media day was still marketing the Lakers F4.
Of course, the reporters on the scene were more concerned about Kobe, but Kobe was under a lot of pressure, and his whole person felt very sad, a bit like a jade.
Kobe was saying that I didn't escape, I came back to play. But as soon as he heard the sharp question, he pretended to be deaf and mute, wandered away, and fell silent.
The words were divided into two parts. When Du En was being interviewed at Lakers F4, there were more than a dozen media surrounding Du En, accepting interviews from them.
Naturally, the Lakers and Nike jointly arranged this!
The video of Duen's extra practice after the game has been processed, and will be released to cities such as Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle where Chinese people live together, as well as major economically prosperous cities in Asia.
Most of the reporters present this time are not local reporters in the United States, but come from many Asian countries and regions.
After this wave of interviews, Du En has basically confirmed his status as the number one defender in Asia, even though Du En has not played in an international match...
After finishing the media interviews, the Lakers and their team officially flew back to Los Angeles to prepare for the next preseason.
After three days of running-in, the Lakers finally welcomed their second preseason NBA team, the Phoenix Suns, at the Staples Center.
Although after the exchange of Kidd and Marbury, the Nets took off and the Suns failed to recover.
However, last season's Suns, under the leadership of Marbury, reached the playoffs.
Facing playoff-level opponents, Jackson still attaches great importance to this preseason game.
Whether it was pre-match warm-ups or pre-match tactical arrangements, Master Zen gave careful instructions to the players.
One thing to say, the Lakers' starting lineup is extremely strong, and the Suns' are not bad either.
Point guard Marbury, shooting guard Joe, small forward Marion, power forward Stoudemire, only center Jack Voskull is relatively bad, he was a second-round pick in 2000.
However, considering that O'Neal is out recovering from injury, the Lakers have no one at the center position, and they all use Cobra Grant as a fake starter.
And because Payton is reluctant to play the triangle offense and occupies a lot of ball rights, it is equivalent to the old Marbury playing the peak Marbury.
The Lakers are at a disadvantage because of the point guard and small forward positions. Just relying on Kobe and Malone C is indeed a bit unable to withstand the firepower of the Suns.
Although it is a preseason game, the main players on both sides are basically full in the first quarter. If Malone had not maintained good condition and his current strength is still far higher than Stoudemire, the Lakers might have been at a disadvantage in the starting lineup.
"Duen, get ready, it's time for you to warm up."
23 to 19, before the first quarter was over, the Lakers were already 4 points behind. At this moment, Jackson suddenly reminded Du En.
It wasn't until the last minute of the first quarter that Duan finally got a chance to play, bringing Fisher and other substitutes onto the court.
Because the point guard equipped was Fisher, Duan quickly got the ball and directly faced Joe in isolation.
"Well, that's interesting!"
Du En saw that the singles Joe was not very strong, and heard that the singles Joe was famous for his skills, so he took the initiative to hit the back in a high position, trying to use his strength advantage to suppress the singles Joe.
But unexpectedly, after taking the initiative to fight, I found that Joe's confrontation in singles was okay.
However, the singles Joe lacked some defensive experience. Du En pushed the singles Joe twice. The singles Joe did not take the initiative to retreat to leave a defensive space. Du En took the opportunity to turn his back and pass the singles Joe directly to the basket.
Stoudemire came to help defend, and Duen feinted to shoot. Stoudemire's defensive habits were also not good, and Duen sent him flying. Duen then jumped up to meet him, and after a confrontation, he made a throw.
"Two plus one! Duan played very smart and is about to stand on the free throw line. His free throws are very accurate. He will score three points for the team in one round."
Lakers home commentator Bill McDonald said excitedly.
The home commentator will definitely have some subjective factors. Even in a preseason game, Bill McDonald hopes the Lakers can win and that the Lakers' rookies can perform better.
Duan did not disappoint him. He played for the first time at the Staples Center and had no stage fright at all. He hit the extra penalty steadily and scored 3 points right away.
The Lakers fans at the scene had been listening to the news about Duen all summer and were about to test Duen's quality for themselves.
Now seeing Du En's mature performance, he immediately cheered.
"Duane, Duane, Duane!"
Listening to the cheers of the fans, Du En naturally played more enthusiastically. Even if there was less than half a minute left, Du En had to perform better.
In the next round, singles Joe wanted to hit Du En back, but Du En was indifferent to singles Joe's change of rhythm dribbling.
In isolation, Joe preferred to shoot rather than break through. In the end, he chose to step back to open up space and shoot a fadeaway jumper.
Duan rushed forward with the help of his excellent rebound speed. Although he did not touch the ball, it still caused some interference to Joe's shot in isolation.
Coupled with the mid-range shooting rate, which is not high to begin with, Jordan's shooting rate at his peak was only 50%.
Joe shot in isolation, and the Lakers immediately passed the ball to Fisher after grabbing the rebound, allowing him to advance quickly.
Because time was running out, Fisher immediately passed the ball to Duan after halftime.
Playing at home is indeed different. Stimulated by the fans, Duan was full of confidence after getting the ball.
In the last 3 seconds of the first quarter, after Duan got the ball, he shot a three-pointer against Joe's defense without saying a word.
Real men never look back to see explosions!
After shooting the three-pointer, Duan looked back confidently.
Hearing the roar of cheers erupting from the audience, a smile appeared on Du En's cool face.
By the way, after Duan made a three-pointer, he gave the Suns 1.4 seconds of attack time.
After receiving the ball in isolation, Joe immediately rushed to the frontcourt. Under Du En's entanglement and interference, he forced a three-pointer at the buzzer, but he did not put the ball into the basket like Du En.
"Duane, Duane, Duane!"
The sound of Joe's single match was mixed with the cheers of the Lakers home fans, sending Duane off the court and back to the bench.
"Brother, your shot just now was so cool!" O'Neill took a towel and came to greet Dun in person.
After Duen sat down, O'Neal, who was used to playing tricks, imitated Duen's physical therapist and squeezed Duen's shoulders.
O'Neal seems so close to Duen, so naturally the relationship between other Lakers players and Duen will not be too bad.
During the break between quarters, many role players came forward to compliment Duan on his wonderful performance in the first quarter.
He scored 6 points in just 1 minute of play!
Based on Duan's performance in the previous two preseason games, he could easily score more than a dozen points in the second half.
So after the whole game, if you score more than 20 points, isn't it just a handful?
Duan's performance today was indeed similar to his previous performance in Hawaii.
He started the second quarter and played more than 4 minutes. He suppressed the Suns' last year's first-round pick Casey Jacobson on both offense and defense, scoring 7 points, 1 rebound, 2 assists and 1 steal.
In the second half, Duan's performance was still stable. He only played 15 minutes and scored 14 points, 4 rebounds, 3 assists and 1 steal.
At the end of the game, Duan played 20 minutes and scored a total of 27 points, 5 rebounds, 5 assists and 2 steals.
In terms of turnovers and fouls, Duen also controlled them relatively well, with 2 turnovers and 3 fouls respectively.
If the level of movement control and passing can be further improved, Duan can also make a big improvement in controlling mistakes.
After playing the Suns, the Lakers are about to welcome their second team to visit the Staples Center - the Cleveland Cavaliers.
James, whom Du En has been waiting for all summer, will finally appear in front of him as his opponent.
