As far as Xu Yong knows, the NBA adjusted the trading deadline in the 2017-2018 season, moving it forward to the second Thursday before the All-Star Weekend, but before that, this iconic node day of the league was on the 16th Thursday after the start of each season.

This year, it is February 19, three days after the All-Star Weekend.

Many people are familiar with this time point, but may not understand why there is such a day.

In addition to the literal meaning that teams cannot be traded after this period, more importantly, the league will calculate each team's total salary for this season based on their latest roster on the deadline, and teams that exceed the luxury tax trigger line will be subject to a luxury tax.

After reading this, you will understand that no matter how much some teams exceed the luxury tax at the beginning of the season and how much money the owners are willing to spend, whether it is true or not depends on the lineup after that day.

So at this time, in addition to strengthening the lineup, tax avoidance is also an important reason for the transaction.

In fact, trade rumors were already flying around long before the All-Star Game weekend, and even the trade of McGrady had been completed.

Moreover, during the All-Star Weekend, there are endless scenes of stars recruiting each other.

For example, this year, Xu Yong heard it in Dallas, and a lot of it.

For no other reason than the summer of 2010 was very special. It could be called the craziest free market year in NBA history.

James, Wade, Yao Ming, Bosh, Nowitzki, Stoudemire, Joe Johnson, and Pierce, all the All-Stars who participated in this year's All-Star Game, will become full free agents this summer or have player options.

In addition, there are Ray Allen, Boozer, Big Z and so on, together they make up the craziest summer of this year.

This is the main reason for many of the phenomena.

Although players cannot dominate transactions, they can lobby free agents to join or form a team.

Based on this fact, the team has made many trades to free up salary space.

The Bulls are one of them.

One thing that sounds absurd but is very realistic is that Brad Miller's contract expires this summer. As long as the Bulls get rid of Hinrich's contract, they can even sign James and Wade at the same time.

This may not necessarily happen, but the Bulls have been working towards this goal for a long time.

Hinrich's name has begun to appear frequently in the trading market.

Especially as the deadline approaches, even the Bulls players feel that the team's most senior veteran has entered the countdown to leaving the team.

Three days passed quickly, and as the trading deadline approached, transactions of all sizes continued to emerge.

Among them, the Wizards were the biggest seller on this year's trade deadline.

As one of the Bulls' trading partners in last year's draft, the Wizards have had their ups and downs this season.

They used the fifth pick to acquire Salmons and Thomas from the Bulls at the beginning of the season, and with the existing lineup, they were able to become a strong team.

However, before the season officially started, Thomas suffered a broken left arm and would miss most of the season.

The season hasn't even started yet and the loss of a key player is a bad start.

Fortunately, they have sufficient personnel and their overall strength remains strong, and they were in the playoffs at the beginning of the season.

But something happened midway through the season that hit rock bottom.

Arenas and third-year player Crittenton had an argument while playing cards on a plane. Afterwards, Arenas, an All-Star player with a strong personality who would poop in his teammates' shoes, turned into the first generation "gun king" in the locker room and pulled a gun on Crittenton.

The key point is that this incident that happened inside the locker room was exposed by the media, which resulted in Stern being severely punished with a 50-game suspension.

The team leader was suspended for an entire season. After waiting for two seasons, the Wizards were no longer able to maintain the lineup and directly announced that the Wizards Supermarket was open for business.

Long before the All-Star Game began, Caron Butler had been traded from the Wizards to the Mavericks.

And on the trade deadline, Antawn Jamison was also sent to... the Cavaliers.

That's right, the Cavaliers, who were ranked first by ESPN at the beginning of the season and are now second only to the Magic in the Eastern Conference, are strengthening their team again.

This was a robbery-style deal similar to the one for Pau Gasol. The Cavaliers only gave up "Big Z" Ilgauskas in exchange for Jamison from the Wizards.

In contrast, Ilgauskas, who has been relegated to the bench after O'Neal's arrival, averaged only 7 points and 5 rebounds per game this season, and his shooting percentage was only 44.3%, a career low.

Jamison is still in good shape, averaging 20.5 points and 8.8 rebounds per game, making him one of the best space power forwards in the league.

Moreover, the Cavaliers' deal is extremely similar to the Rockets' deal for Hamilton. Ilgauskas/McGrady's contracts are expiring, and Jamison/Hamilton both have big contracts for the next two years.

While other teams were busy clearing space, they were making deals that blocked space, and they actually had only one purpose.

The Rockets want to keep Yao Ming, while the Cavaliers want to keep James.

But no matter what, Mo Williams + Anthony Parker + James + Jamison + O'Neal, except that the frontcourt players are a little older, this lineup is basically the perfect lineup that only 2K can create in this era.

Of course, only Xu Yong knew that what was even more outrageous was that later on, the Cavaliers management would find a bug and re-sign Ilgauskas with a minimum salary.

At this point, Xu Yong still couldn't understand how the Cavaliers' lineup failed to make it to the Eastern Conference Finals.

Then the Bulls also made a move, and they made a three-way deal with the Knicks and Celtics.

The Bulls traded Will Bynum and Songaila for Nate Robinson and Bill Walker.

The Knicks traded Nate Robinson and Marcus Landry for Eddie House and JR Giddens.

The Celtics sent Eddie House, JR Giddens and Bill Walker in exchange for Will Bynum, Songaila and Marcus Landry.

Xu Yong only learned the news the day after the deadline.

His first reaction was surprise.

Bynum didn't play badly after joining the Bulls, and Bynum is from Chicago.

But if you think about it carefully, it doesn't seem that difficult to understand.

The first is the salary space issue. Songaila still has nearly 5 million in contract next season. If the Bulls want to make a difference in the summer, they must find a way to trade him.

Then there is Brown. Just as Xu Yong thought, the Bulls traded for Brown for O'Neal and Howard.

But after Brown really joined the team, they found that Brown's condition was too bad.

Yes, players have form, and if you want them to be in form, you have to give them playing time.

In terms of hard power, as short players, Nate Robinson is obviously stronger than Bynum on the offensive end.

After all, he averaged 17.2 points per game last season and is much better at three-point shooting than Bynum.

And overall, the Bulls traded Tim Thomas, whose contract was almost equivalent to a garbage contract, and veteran Hunter for Nate Robinson, Kwame Brown and Bill Walker.

Just as Xu Yong judged at the draft, regardless of Foreman's character, his professional ability as a general manager is absolutely excellent.

As for the Knicks, they are more focused on helping Nate Robinson.

Robinson was a first-round pick by the Knicks in 2005. He has never played in the playoffs in his career. He has played diligently for the team and it is also his contract year, so he is eager to show himself on a higher stage.

Bynum's experience has shown that he can get that kind of opportunity with the Bulls.

As for the Celtics, House has been in poor form this season. As a guard, his shooting percentage barely exceeds 40%, which obviously does not meet the needs of a championship team.

By trading for Bynum and getting Songaila at the same time, this deal is a win-win no matter how you look at it.

However, although he understood it, Xu Yong also gained a deeper understanding of the NBA business world.

After all, his rookie season hasn't even finished yet, and his teammates next to the closet have changed twice.

A few days after the trade deadline, Xu Yong met Nate Robinson in the locker room.

His first impression was that he was short, really short.

It's not like the two teams haven't faced each other on the court before, but because they were on the court together for a short time, his feeling wasn't that strong.

But now standing in front of me, I really feel like an uncle seeing a child.

Nate Robinson is definitely not 1.75 meters tall, and may not even be 1.7 meters tall.

But this guy is really strong, with muscles like small hills, even stronger than Griffin, whom he faced before.

None of the short guys who can make it in the NBA are good people.

"Xu, it's only because you won the championship. If someone else won, I would have made trouble for him." As soon as he saw Xu Yong, he started complaining about the dunk contest that had just ended.

It can be seen that he was quite unhappy about not being invited to the dunk contest.

Xu Yong laughed after hearing this. Unlike Bynum, Robinson seemed to be a bit genuine.

But this is consistent with my impression. Robinson is passionate and energetic on the court. This kind of person definitely doesn't have so many twists and turns.

Xu Yong also liked this kind of personality, so he quickly said: "After the training, we can have a match."

"Really? I've had this idea for a long time!" Robinson couldn't sit still when he heard this.

This is so true.

Xu Yong smiled and nodded, and also thought of something very interesting.

With Robinson's current enthusiasm, he will most likely participate in the dunk contest next year. By then, Griffin, DeRozan, and Nate Robinson will be worth looking forward to.

In the team's training sessions, Robinson showed the ability of a player in his prime and integrated into the tactical system very quickly.

Although, maybe Denagro's tactical system is a bit simple.

However, there was one person's performance that Xu Yong never expected.

Bill Walker, a player Xu Yong had never heard of before his rebirth, performed exceptionally well.

Especially his shots from beyond the three-point line, which were so stable that it was a little unbelievable.

You have to know that Walker played for the Celtics for two seasons before, but he rarely had the opportunity to play. He was the type that made people feel his existence was completely invisible.

Did the Bulls get another free bargain?

"I know him." Rose and Xu Yong were chatting after the training session.

Xu Yong showed curiosity. He really had no impression of this player who he could not find any information about when he opened the search engine.

"If he hadn't had his knee injury, he would have been a star player now," Rose said with emotion.

Bill Walker can't be simply summarized by the sentence "Those who can enter the NBA are the Jordan in their stories". In high school, he was a flying and evasive guy like DeRozan, and was known as the "second Carter". At that time, he was in the same high school as OJ Mayo and had a bright future.

But when he entered high school, knee injuries began to plague him.

In his last season of high school, he suffered a cruciate ligament knee injury that ended his season, which made him rank only 69th among high school students in 2007.

Then he went to Kansas State University in college, played on the same team as Michael Beasley, averaging 16.1 points and 6.3 rebounds per game, and seemed to have stood up again.

But just a few weeks before the draft, he injured his knee again, his third major injury in five years.

That caused his draft prospects to plummet, and he was eventually selected by the Celtics at the 47th pick as a supplement for James Posey who failed to renew his contract.

But unfortunately, the Celtics formed a Big Three lineup that summer, so he, a second-round pick, naturally had no chance.

Listening to Ross's description, Xu Yong thought of another person.

The Thunder selected "Little Maddie" Perry Jones in the 2012 NBA Draft.

Jones was also a top-10 or even top-5 prospect at the time, but ultimately fell to the end of the first round due to injury.

The two people's experiences are surprisingly similar.

But looking at Walker's condition, he seems to be much better than Jones.

Especially being able to transform from a dunker to a shooter is very rare.

This kind of player can serve as a tactical end point, just like Novak of the Rockets back then, and has great tactical value.

At this time, in the corner of the court, a man was scanning the court. It was the team's general manager Foreman.

There aren't so many free bargains in the world. He was able to pick out Walker from a bunch of junk, all thanks to his years as a scout.

If the Bulls had not already had no second-round pick that year, he would have probably picked them.

And after looking at this round, the Bulls' lineup has changed a lot compared to the beginning of the season.

Point Guard: Rose, Nate Robinson, Jerome Pargo

Shooting guards: Xu Yong, Hinrich, Bill Walker

Small forward: Deng, James Johnson, Damien Wilkins

Power forward: Gibson, Brad Miller, Richard

Center: Noah, Kwame Brown, Aaron Gray

He is quite satisfied with the lineup he has built this season.

At least compared to the beginning of the season, there has been a huge improvement, and it looks like a playoff-level lineup.

At this time, Xu Yong and Robinson's entertainment dunk contest began.

Both of them showed their individual talents.

Xu Yong's dunk is just like what was presented in the dunk contest, a combination of strength and aesthetics, while Robinson's is the violent aesthetics of a short man.

When you see Xu Yong's dunk, you will be amazed at why he can dunk so beautifully, while Robinson will make you wonder how he can jump so high.

Looking at the two players in the game and the players cheering on the sidelines, Foreman couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

In fact, he was a little worried about the impact of frequent trades on the team, but now it seems that such worries were unnecessary.

Even if the Bulls really make it to the playoffs this year, he should be able to compete for the Best General Manager Award.