The biggest mystery of the NBA offseason: Why did the Lakers and Warriors suddenly stop being good?

There can be two similar conclusions about the performance of the Lakers and Warriors this offseason:

① The management of the two teams is not doing well. On one hand, he lost the electric fan and picked up the treasure, but on the other hand, he directly "overslept".

②In the new season, no matter whether it is James who still earns 52 million yuan or Kuzhaiba, the three Warriors who are over 110 years old and who have to earn a salary of 140 million yuan in total, they will never win the championship.

Note that it is impossible, there is no chance at all.

I said, welcome to dig graves in the future.

At this time, someone will definitely jump out and say, of course, James and Curry are 42 and 38, and they are definitely not as young as Jokic and Alexander, and they are young and strong. This is not obvious.

Or it means that the Lakers' management is not a good person, and with Doncic, he wants to dump James. The Warriors management seemed to have taken huge amounts of sleeping pills and has disappeared since they selected two second round picks in the draft last month.

It is recommended that if Dunleavy is prescribed in the future, he can endorse a sleeping pill or a sleeping pillow. Whoever uses it will know.

In fact, there are still essential differences between the two.

The Lakers are in a very subtle transition period.

Everyone knows that LeBron is no longer good, whether it is compared to himself in his peak period or horizontally with the young leaders in the league.

Many people talked about LeBron's second team and the best of the month last season, but you should understand that LeBron's entire career may be one of the super giants in the league who least valued the regular season (maybe only comparable to Sharks who have surgery and work-breaking injuries in the regular season).

During the period from 2014 to 2020, he has become accustomed to recuperation and adjustments during the regular season, and fortunately he has shown his best self in the playoffs.

From 2014-18, LeBron truly reminded the public that "I am still the league king" are all in the playoffs.

From when will I start to make efforts in the regular season again and prove myself?

That has to be attributed to Westbrook, who has been together for 21 years. Since then, he and the Lakers have reached an embarrassing situation where they cannot keep up with the rhythm of the West District team if they don’t play well.

It is best proof that you have to participate in the playoffs three times in four years. If you don’t show off your “playoffs” in advance in the regular season, it will be dangerous for the playoffs.

What's more, it's hard for LeBron to prove himself in the playoffs.

In the four playoffs after winning the championship in 2020, his winning contribution value was only in the top 40 for 23 years and a year among the 240 players participating in the playoffs, and the rest are no longer the most important players.

If he wants to maintain the public impression that "I can still play", he naturally has to make more efforts in the regular season.

So a super giant who started to plan the regular season after half of his career, retired in the last part of his career and had to play hard in the regular season.

It's really a pain in the old man.

fans or media may take his role, but the Lakers management, especially Walter, whose boss just now went from the Bass family to the back of hundreds of billions of Jewish consortiums, would not care too much about these.

Even the retirement tour income that many people talk about is far less important than the team's future healthy development in Walter's eyes.

To a certain extent, Old Zhan is a "old minister of the previous dynasty" operated by Aunt Jenny. It would be nice to be able to stay a good end after the new king ascended the throne.

Although neither side broke up for decency, it can be foreseen that the biggest task of the Lakers in the next year will make Doncic happy, rather than making LeBron happy.

This is the essence of the Lakers being different from the past few years.

So, the biggest difference between the Lakers and the Warriors who were stuck by Cumingga is that they do not have the urgency to win the championship immediately, and there is no sense of crisis that wins in the present and time is out of my mind.

They are not giving up on strengthening (some people don't really think Ayton fell from the sky), but a team building with rhythm, patience and no blackmail (Wigkins exchanges for Hachimura + Knector + 31 first round asking price, take a break).

This year, they are trying to control the total salary below the first tycoon line (195.9 million) in order to make the next operation more flexible (can sign high-paying players to buy out, can trade more and exchange less, can use full middle class, etc.).

But it is very different from LeBron's approach to spending a lot of money and having a high salary for him.

In a word, this kind of team building is healthier and more controllable. But Luca, 27, can wait, and 42, can no longer wait.

To be said, the biggest problem is the introduction of Westbrook back then.

In addition to Pelinka, Aunt Jenny, James, Westbrook, and Ritchie Paul are all responsible for this oops.

Aunt Jenny will never dare to invest randomly again (21 years later, the Lakers only made one transaction in the offseason).

Paul Fu was kicked out of the Lakers' core decision-making level.

And the price of Zhan Mei is that not only has their influence on the team (Pellinka) operations not as good as before 2021, but also proves that their bottom-up ability cannot solve all problems.

This is also the core reason why Damei was rejected in the future and was eventually sent away.

If you want to blame, just blame that ridiculous transaction.

After talking about the Lakers, let's talk about the Warriors.

After Butler's trade this year, Curry said to Zhu Meng, "This is our last ride", which is actually very prescient.

At that time, because the Lakers got Doncic, the Warriors finally had to get Butler in order to maintain their pursuit of the "California boss" and almost question the entire league.

But Butler also has little money, and he must get a promise to renew his contract before he is willing to nod. In the end, the Warriors can only offer a contract of 110 million US dollars for two years.

Although Butler, who did not play for half a year in the second half of last season, the Warriors' price is that the total salary of the three old men in the 25-26 season was 138 million yuan, and 147 million yuan in the 26-27 season.

You can't find an older and more expensive "iron triangle" in the entire league.

This year's playoffs, the Warriors actually showed the attitude of the last betting. I guess even Curry himself can beat Jokic and Alexander after he grows one year older.

It is difficult to kill the Rockets in seven hard games in the first round, but it is almost inevitable that the Timberwolves Curry fell down. Under the "new version" with faster pace and longer rotations, even Curry is as strong as he can't keep up with the young people's fast legs.

Of course, the responsibility lies not only in the "competitive team" led by Curry, Cole, and Zhu Meng.

The "management group" led by boss Rakob and general manager Dunleavy (actually the puppet of the former) is also unkind.

The clues can be seen from the resignation of Bob Myers, general manager who maintained the Warriors' championship team in 2023:

This Warriors have always maintained both hands and no hard hands on both roads, both on the road of maintaining the championship team with Curry as the core and maintaining competitiveness in the future.

God and the league have given them opportunities. The brief slump in the 19-20 season and Durant's departure have given them two valuable future assets, namely the 2020 role model and the 2021 No. 7 lottery.

But the Warriors management first chose the wrong person in the past two years, and secondly, after making a mistake, he was still lucky and refused to stop the loss in time.

In the end, I got nothing on the road that I wanted and wanted.

In 2020, they chose a pure five center embryo Wiseman who Cole would not use at all, and missed three goals, Halliburton, Bain, Maxi, and McDan.

In 2021, they chose a hot body but the ball merchants were owed money. They trained Kumingga, who had not been on par with the team for four years, and missed Wagner Jr., Shin Kyung, Jaylen Johnson, Aldama and Herbert Jones.

What's more, in recent years, it is not that there are no teams willing to take over these two young masters, but they both missed players who are truly suitable for the Warriors in the management's paranoia for the future, which made the team lose valuable opportunities to strengthen.

The Raptors wanted to win Wiseman in Siakam's trade, but the Warriors declined, let alone how many teams were staring at the Warriors' second pick before the 2020 draft and wanted to trade directly.

When it comes to Kumingga, it is even more interesting.

To be honest, in the four years of the Warriors, Xiao Ku showed his certain real-time combat power and growth space, but he was more incompatible with Curry and Dream Chasing as the core system.

At that time, timely stop loss was the best solution.

The Warriors chased Siakam for the second time, and the Raptors wanted Kumingga, but refused.

The Warriors chased Anunobi again, and the Raptors wanted Kumingga, and refused again.

The Warriors pursued Markkanen last year, and Anji also wanted Kumingga, but the Warriors refused.

Anyway, in the eyes of the Warriors management, probably only James can replace this treasure.

The biggest "boomerang" brought by doing this is that Kuminga Zhen regards himself as the core of the team building in the future.

The issue of his contract renewal has been rampant since two years ago. He did not accept the contract with an average salary of $30 million from the Warriors, and Moses Moody of the same class did not sign the contract.

This year is the last year of a rookie, so the Warriors can only give him a qualification quote. He still refused to sign after he made a round of free agent market.

The funny thing is that there are only 9 people on the official list of the Warriors (not counting the two second-round picks this year). When most teams in the league have recruited soldiers and formed a team, they are still waiting for Kumingga to decide how big the offer can be given to targets such as Horford and Melton.

I believe that most Warriors fans have changed from love and hatred to hatred of Kumingga now.

The Warriors' salary structure is also awkward. Kuzhuba's old three occupy nearly 140 million space, while Moody's, Podjemsky, Hilder and other six people have only more than 30 million in total.

This makes trading operations extremely difficult. If you want to make a big deal, you either send away Butler, or you send away Curry's most important "pendant" to pursue your dreams, otherwise you will not be able to pay any salary at all.

And to sign a free agent contract, it has been found on the market now. There are no strong people who can sign for the basic salary. Once the full middle class is used, the first hard hat will be activated (195.9 million), and then Kumingga will be even more unlikely to stay.

So now I understand why Curry said "this is the last shock" last season.

The Warriors nowadays can only be an old man.