With the winner of last night's finals, the 83/84 season of the NCAA Tournament officially came to an end.
For a period of time after that, the Houston fans were immersed in the revelry of their local university winning the championship.
It had always been a unique phenomenon in North America that the NCAA League was more popular than the professional leagues.
Whether it was basketball, football, baseball, or even ice cream, North American fans preferred to watch university tournaments.
Because it was pure enough, there weren't so many interests involved.
Coupled with the unique regional culture and complex, the popularity and attention of the university league had always been proudly above the professional league.
The National Football League was still manageable. It had always occupied the top spot in the American professional league and had a wide audience.
The four major leagues did not spread their influence to the world and were limited to the local situation. The NBA had always been the guarantee of ratings and the most watched professional league.
What about the NBA?
Even though it had just merged with the UA and added more than ten teams, the competition was not strong enough, and the viewership ratings were falling. Addicts were everywhere in the league, which led to the league being on the verge of disbandment.
Compared to other leagues, the NBA was too unhealthy and had too many negatives.
The situation had been slightly better in the past two years. It was only because of the appearance of Magician John Xun and Larry Bird. The confrontation between black and white had been hyped up by the league and attracted a lot of attention to a certain extent.
Seeing that the marketing of the black and white confrontation was working well and had restored a certain image of the Alliance, the viewership ratings continued to rise. The new CEO continued to increase his efforts and hype up the news.
This popularity and expectation finally exploded in June of this year when the Los Angeles Clippers and Celtics met in the finals.
The clash between the two super magicians of the Alliance and Big Bird was finally going to be a super showdown in the finals. The popularity reached an unprecedented level, breaking through the previous year's attention.
The confrontation between black and white, the collision between two superstars, attracted the attention of countless people under the background of deep-rooted racial discrimination in the United States.
It could be said that Stern's operation had succeeded, and the effect was huge.
Immediately after, he kept moving, preparing to make drastic changes to the annual draft in order to increase the competitiveness of the Alliance.
At this time, the draft order was arranged in reverse order according to the team's record. The final first pick was decided by the two bottom-ranked teams in the Eastern and Western Regions.
In other words, as long as you were ranked at the bottom of the division, you would be able to get the second place at the very least.
This would result in a terrible flaw.
Once a team saw that there was no hope of winning the championship, or that their results were not good, they would go crazy and lose without any bottom line.
For example, in the 82/83 season, the Rockets won the first pick with a coin toss after a series of consecutive defeats and chose Ralph Sampson.
A season later, the Rockets played the same trick again. In the final 27 games of the regular season, the Rockets lost 20 games and " overtook " the Clippers on the last day of the regular season.
The current owner of the Clippers was still Sterling, a shrewd real estate businessman. The Clippers that he owned were in a mess almost every year. As long as the team had outstanding young players, they would trade for money.
He was famous for his outstanding performance.
Stirling was already so shameless, but he didn't expect the big-eyed Rocket to go even further.
In the second half of the season, which was the worst record, in a 53-minute overtime game, the Rockets coach, Billy Fitch, let the 38-year-old veteran, Elvin Hayes, play for 52 minutes.
Although Hayes was already 38 years old, he could still release heat. However, in just a week, he announced his retirement because he had consumed too much energy and his parts were damaged.
After sacrificing Hayes, the Rockets once again received the blessing of Lady Luck and won the coin toss against the Clippers.
This time, they would take down Hakeem Olajuwon and form the twin towers in the team!
What they were executing was the "Octyl Strategy"(the general manager of the 76ers, famous for his poor performance and fighting for the first draft pick).
This directly led to the team owners and many officials in the league becoming more and more disappointed with the draft system, thinking that the league had lost its competitiveness.
As the former general manager of the 76ers, Patrick Williams, recalled,""They're all very angry and frustrated about it.”
David Stern, as a young and ambitious new president, decided to do something.
Therefore, he sharpened his knife and prepared to make a move on the draft system.
However, this did not affect this year's talent show.
This year's talent show was the last year before the reform.
Jordan, Olajuwon, and the others did not get the first bonus from the reform of the draft.
This year's rookies were full of talents and were sought after as the " diamond generation " in the future. They were even a level higher than the 96 golden generation and the 03 platinum generation.
This was because the 1984 draft had a high success rate and was the best of the three generations. There were three of the top 10 NBA stars in 1984, and four of the top 20 NBA stars in 1984.
Michael Jordan's honor alone crushed everything.
In addition to the basketball god, he also had to win two championships, and the super inside player, Olajuwon.
MVP winner Charles Barkley;
John Stockton, one of the Two Elders of the Mysterious Underworld, the nine-time assist king, and the two-time steal king.
Do you think these four big shots can be called the 'diamond generation'?
Wrong!
There was also:
Alvin Robtson: Four-time All-Star, Defensive Player of the Year, Six-time Alliance Defensive Lineup, Second Team of the Best Lineup;
Otis Thorpe, once an All-Star and the starting power forward of the championship team, the Rockets;
Kevin Willis: All-Star player, third team in the NBA, extremely long 24-year career.
Don't forget, Sam Bowie was the second-best player to beat Jordan, even though he had fallen behind.
Such a peak rookie, plus the guy who had always been popular:
Sam Perkins, Jordan's teammate in North Carolina;
Melvin Tupin, Sam Bowie's teammate in Kentuckia (this year's NCAA semi-finals), one of the Twin Towers;
Wait a minute...
The team that had a terrible record last season and was likely to have a higher draft pick was facing sweet troubles.
Who should he choose?
Who else would they choose?
The Golden State Warriors 'general manager, Altos, didn't have this problem.
They only had three rounds this year.
There was no first round!
But when he was told by the general manager's assistant that Liang Wenhao had also announced his participation in the talent show, he was extremely shocked.
"Did I hear wrongly? He's also participating?"
"Yes!" The assistant nodded and handed him a newspaper.
"He's only a freshman. His stage will be next year. Isn't it good to participate then?”
When Arters took the newspaper, he was puzzled by Liang Wenhao's choice.
However, the eye-catching headlines in the newspaper made him nervous.
" The hero of the NCAA championship, the savior of the University of Houston, and the rookie from Fragrant River City announced his participation in the draft and attracted the attention of many teams.”
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