As time goes on, the New York Knicks enter a plateau in the season. The team's record has stabilized and internal conflicts have remained under control. Even a thorn in the side like DeMarcus Cousins has finally changed his attitude and actively moved closer to integrating into the team.
Such a state has also gradually dissipated doubts from the outside world.
When Porzingis and Jordan stopped due to injuries, the outside world was full of doubts. In the eyes of many people, without these two core players, the Knicks' record will surely decline rapidly.
Some people in the industry even believe that without these two cores, the Knicks can only maintain the fifth or sixth position in the Eastern Conference at best.
However, they still underestimated the Knicks, or perhaps the trio headed by Zhao Feiyang.
Of course, there is no need to say more about Zhao Feiyang. Although he will always face some weird suspicions and accusations because of his status as a Chinese player, he has won a lot of honors after all, and he also led the team to the finals and won the championship. , at this point, even if others want to hack him, it is not so easy to do so.
The focus of the trio is Zach LaVine and Adrian Ennis.
The two are not yet considered top stars, LaVine's performance is acceptable, and his data has reached the league's near-first-tier level. He is at an excellent level among defenders and deserves to be the second in command of a team. It is not a problem to train him as the core.
But even so, he doesn't have that much honor to defend himself, and he can't conquer most people yet.
Before your talent is fully realized, you will still encounter a lot of doubts.
Compared to LaVine, Adrian is undoubtedly more questioned. He was just an inconspicuous rookie at the beginning. If it hadn't been for the help of Zhao Feiyang due to a yin and yang mistake, I'm afraid he wouldn't have continued to play basketball at all!
This season, his performance has exploded, and he once had extremely impressive results. His personal scoring average has also improved compared to last season, but he is still not up to the first-line level.
Comparing his previous performance, Adrian has made great progress. Compared with the rookies of his time, Adrian's progress is indeed visible to the naked eye.
If compared with first-line stars at the same position, Adrian still has a lot of room for growth.
Such a trio will naturally be questioned by many people!
But in the following time, the trio led two veterans to interrupt these people's questions! They maintained a record of more wins than fewer losses, and once again picked up the team's declining record.
This kind of performance is very difficult for any team.
As time goes by, the season gradually enters the middle and late stages. While Porzingis and DeAndre Jordan are about to come back, the NBA's annual All-Star Game is coming again.
After the fancy activities in the past few seasons caused aesthetic fatigue, this All-Star Game once again returned to the old East-West battle.
This time the venue was also placed at the Spectrum Center Arena, home of the Hornets in Charlotte.
Some time before the official start of the All-Star Game, the NBA opened the voting process early. To the surprise of many in the industry, after the first round of voting, all five Knicks starting players entered the voting list.
Dwight Howard and DeMarcus Cousins ranked relatively low, but they have finally entered the public eye.
LaVine and Adrian had different votes. Although they were not as good as Zhao Feiyang, they also entered the top ten this time.
According to previous rules, All-Star substitutes will be voted on by the head coaches of the 30 teams. Based on the performance of LaVine and Adrian, they have a high probability of being selected.
In this way, the trio of Zhao Feiyang may all be able to successfully enter the All-Star Game.
Of course, the most surprising thing is that after several seasons in the NBA, Zhao Feiyang finally reached the top of the voting rankings.
After the first round of voting, Zhao Feiyang occupied the first place with 1,087,736 votes.
Ranked second behind him is LeBron James.
The former league's vote leader lost to Zhao Feiyang with a small number of votes this time and was ranked second.
LeBron received a total of 1,078,891 votes.
In third place is Antetokounmpo Giannis Antetokounmpo, who received 993,655 votes.
Compared with Zhao Feiyang and LeBron who are ranked high, the gap between Antetokounmpo and Antetokounmpo is still more obvious. It seems that LeBron and Zhao Feiyang are most likely to compete for the final All-Star vote king.
Before the All-Star voting results came in, DeAndre Jordan and Porzingis finally decided to come back after taking a long break.
On the night when the two came back, the Knicks also ushered in another opponent of their own, the Houston Rockets.
This is the first time the two sides have met this season.
At this time, the Rockets were ranked fourth in the Western Conference, falling one spot from their previous ranking. It's not that there's anything wrong with the Rockets, it's that the Portland Trail Blazers, who surpassed them and rushed to third in the Western Conference, are too strong!
Damian Lillard has performed very well this season. He and CJ McCrum have become the two super cores of the Trail Blazers. The two started to work hard from the beginning of the season, and by the middle of the season they helped the team rush from fourth in the Western Conference to third in the Western Conference.
Although the Trail Blazers have a good record, more people in the industry are still optimistic about the Rockets.
Compared to the Trail Blazers' lineup, the Rockets are obviously deeper. There are capable players from the inside to the outside, and there are even a group of players on the bench who can be named. In this comparison, there is obviously a gap between the Trail Blazers.
The two sides started playing at the Toyota Center Arena.
This game attracted tens of thousands of fans, not only was it full inside and outside the stadium, but it was also broadcast by many TV stations. Even China CCTV Sports on the other side of the ocean specially broadcast this game during prime time.
Beep.
The on-court timer sounds and the game is about to begin.
Both teams took to the court as starters.
Although Porzingis and DeAndre Jordan have returned, head coach Norman Thomas still did not let them play for the first time.
Cousins and Howard still occupy the fourth and fifth positions, and the other positions are occupied by the Zhao Feiyang trio.
For the Rockets, Chris Paul will of course play the one position, James Harden will go to the two position, Carmelo Anthony will go to the three position, the fourth position will be handed over to PJ Tucker, and the fifth position will be handed over to To Clint Capela.
Jump ball from both sides.
Snapped.
The referee threw the ball out, and Howard grabbed the basketball first. He slapped the ball away and the basketball fell into Zhao Feiyang's hands.
Zhao Feiyang advanced with the ball.
"Well done!"
Zhao Feiyang shouted to Howard before dribbling the ball across half court.
The entire Knicks team knows that no matter how good Howard is against other teams, he will do his best when playing against the Rockets. It can even be said that he will never give up until he kills him.
