E文推荐：Big money doesn't always translate into big success
总共 3 个回复
觉得这个不错哦，另一个角度看NBA FINAL，门户似乎没有译。
Big money doesn't always translate into big success
Six of the NBA's highest paid players are in the NBA Finals and in search of the ultimate prize.
By KEVIN DING
BOSTON -- Kevin Garnett is the highest-paid player in the NBA, and a special distinction arrives C.O.D. with his $23.75 million salary.
In a sports world where athletes' incomes are as public as their uniform numbers, Garnett has to win to make himself worth it in the eyes of the fans he represents and the owner who signs his paycheck.
If he doesn't win – as happened in Minnesota, prompting Garnett's offseason trade to (and contract extension from) Boston – then all that money makes for a whole different burden than a fat wallet.
The same goes for Kobe Bryant (No. 9 in NBA salary at $19.5 million), Paul Pierce (No. 15, $16.4 million), Ray Allen (No. 18, $16 million), Pau Gasol (No. 26, $13.7 million) and Lamar Odom (No. 28, $13.5 million).
They are six of the league's 28 highest-paid players – nearly a quarter of the league's upper crust – and they've made it here to the NBA Finals. Three of them will win, three of them will lose; it's all or nothing, just the way it always is in high-stakes gambling.
That's why most of the attention is on Boston's Garnett, Pierce and Allen and the Lakers' Bryant, Gasol and Odom – entering Game 2 tonight. Boston leads, 1-0, which is why this is what we've heard for the past two days:
Garnett brought Boston's intensity, Pierce overcame his knee sprain and Allen proved his defensive mettle against Bryant, who shot 9 for 26, and didn't get picked up by Gasol and Odom, whose descriptions have gone from long and lean to weak and skinny.
That's the way the pendulum swings when you're an NBA money man, and the only way to change it is to change the scoreboard.
For the record, Garnett would've had to hit three consecutive shots at the final buzzer just to match Bryant's 6-for-16 second-half shooting in Game 1. But because Boston won, Garnett's second-half fade never even bubbled to the surface, along with his longtime stigma of being an undependable late-game scorer despite his NBA-high salary.
"It just really matters who won and who lost the game," Lakers guard Derek Fisher said. "The Celtics won the game, and there's not as much talk about who shot the ball like what. We lost the game, so then Kobe shot the ball 9 for 26. That's just how it is. Had we won the game, his 9 for 26 would be basically irrelevant, and we'd be talking about other things."
Garnett, Pierce and Allen know this well after going a combined 97-159 (.379 winning percentage) in Minnesota, Boston and Seattle last season – getting brought together now only because none of them has been able to get it done anywhere before. Together, they have played 35 years of NBA basketball before reaching their first championship series.
Looking back on the losing, Allen said Saturday: "You somewhat fade into obscurity."
Allen remembers being asked by people, "What team do you play on?" because scoring 22 points per game in Milwaukee or 26 points per game in Seattle – or signing a five-year, $80 million contract, as Allen did in 2005 – doesn't necessarily validate an NBA star.
"Being on a good team," Allen said, "is all that you need."
Gold trophies and diamond rings are currency, too.
None of these six players has won those before except Bryant, and even he hasn't won for five years. That's why their soap-opera storylines have intersected so much recently: Bryant asked for a trade. Odom and Pierce nearly got traded. Allen, Garnett and Gasol did get traded.
The net result was the Celtics and Lakers decided to take on massive payrolls in business ventures that need to mature in the next six games or less. If after this next game the Lakers have stolen home-court advantage in what is now a 1-1 series, Gasol and Odom will become long and lean again, and Bryant will again be said to have mastered the game.
Lakers coach Phil Jackson has designs on Odom handling the ball more to create early offense for teammates before Boston's defense gets set. The focus of most of the past two days of film study have been spacing the triangle offense properly to create entry-pass angles for Gasol to cut off Boston's defense from the inside out.
And yet Jackson tellingly responded to a question Saturday about Gasol and Odom by answering: "But more than anything else, Kobe …"
He is the highest-paid Laker, right?
"He has been an unstoppable force in this game," Jackson said. "He usually doesn't have two games in a row that are bad. He comes back and plays better. So we anticipate that's going to be a pattern."
This is also everything Bryant wanted: the trip that money can't buy.
"Well, I'd much rather have the pressure of this moment as opposed to having the pressure of deciding which swim trunks I'm going to wear in Bora Bora, the Gucci ones or the Yves Saint Laurent ones. I'd much rather have this pressure."
Big money doesn't always translate into big success
Six of the NBA's highest paid players are in the NBA Finals and in search of the ultimate prize.
By KEVIN DING
BOSTON -- Kevin Garnett is the highest-paid player in the NBA, and a special distinction arrives C.O.D. with his $23.75 million salary.
In a sports world where athletes' incomes are as public as their uniform numbers, Garnett has to win to make himself worth it in the eyes of the fans he represents and the owner who signs his paycheck.
If he doesn't win – as happened in Minnesota, prompting Garnett's offseason trade to (and contract extension from) Boston – then all that money makes for a whole different burden than a fat wallet.
The same goes for Kobe Bryant (No. 9 in NBA salary at $19.5 million), Paul Pierce (No. 15, $16.4 million), Ray Allen (No. 18, $16 million), Pau Gasol (No. 26, $13.7 million) and Lamar Odom (No. 28, $13.5 million).
They are six of the league's 28 highest-paid players – nearly a quarter of the league's upper crust – and they've made it here to the NBA Finals. Three of them will win, three of them will lose; it's all or nothing, just the way it always is in high-stakes gambling.
That's why most of the attention is on Boston's Garnett, Pierce and Allen and the Lakers' Bryant, Gasol and Odom – entering Game 2 tonight. Boston leads, 1-0, which is why this is what we've heard for the past two days:
Garnett brought Boston's intensity, Pierce overcame his knee sprain and Allen proved his defensive mettle against Bryant, who shot 9 for 26, and didn't get picked up by Gasol and Odom, whose descriptions have gone from long and lean to weak and skinny.
That's the way the pendulum swings when you're an NBA money man, and the only way to change it is to change the scoreboard.
For the record, Garnett would've had to hit three consecutive shots at the final buzzer just to match Bryant's 6-for-16 second-half shooting in Game 1. But because Boston won, Garnett's second-half fade never even bubbled to the surface, along with his longtime stigma of being an undependable late-game scorer despite his NBA-high salary.
"It just really matters who won and who lost the game," Lakers guard Derek Fisher said. "The Celtics won the game, and there's not as much talk about who shot the ball like what. We lost the game, so then Kobe shot the ball 9 for 26. That's just how it is. Had we won the game, his 9 for 26 would be basically irrelevant, and we'd be talking about other things."
Garnett, Pierce and Allen know this well after going a combined 97-159 (.379 winning percentage) in Minnesota, Boston and Seattle last season – getting brought together now only because none of them has been able to get it done anywhere before. Together, they have played 35 years of NBA basketball before reaching their first championship series.
Looking back on the losing, Allen said Saturday: "You somewhat fade into obscurity."
Allen remembers being asked by people, "What team do you play on?" because scoring 22 points per game in Milwaukee or 26 points per game in Seattle – or signing a five-year, $80 million contract, as Allen did in 2005 – doesn't necessarily validate an NBA star.
"Being on a good team," Allen said, "is all that you need."
Gold trophies and diamond rings are currency, too.
None of these six players has won those before except Bryant, and even he hasn't won for five years. That's why their soap-opera storylines have intersected so much recently: Bryant asked for a trade. Odom and Pierce nearly got traded. Allen, Garnett and Gasol did get traded.
The net result was the Celtics and Lakers decided to take on massive payrolls in business ventures that need to mature in the next six games or less. If after this next game the Lakers have stolen home-court advantage in what is now a 1-1 series, Gasol and Odom will become long and lean again, and Bryant will again be said to have mastered the game.
Lakers coach Phil Jackson has designs on Odom handling the ball more to create early offense for teammates before Boston's defense gets set. The focus of most of the past two days of film study have been spacing the triangle offense properly to create entry-pass angles for Gasol to cut off Boston's defense from the inside out.
And yet Jackson tellingly responded to a question Saturday about Gasol and Odom by answering: "But more than anything else, Kobe …"
He is the highest-paid Laker, right?
"He has been an unstoppable force in this game," Jackson said. "He usually doesn't have two games in a row that are bad. He comes back and plays better. So we anticipate that's going to be a pattern."
This is also everything Bryant wanted: the trip that money can't buy.
"Well, I'd much rather have the pressure of this moment as opposed to having the pressure of deciding which swim trunks I'm going to wear in Bora Bora, the Gucci ones or the Yves Saint Laurent ones. I'd much rather have this pressure."
