According to statistics, as of press time, there are 553 players in the NBA this season, dozens of players more than last season's big list, and major NBA teams have recently frequently tested various short contracts and signed firefighter transitions.
Why is this happening? This needs to start with another round of COVID-19 in the United States and the coalition's control measures. In the past month, a large number of NBA players have triggered the league's "health and safety protocols" for COVID-19 regulation, and then went into quarantine according to the process.
As the number of NBA players in quarantine increases at the same time, there are fewer and fewer available soldiers for NBA teams, but Xiao Hua, a bald head, said that there are no plans to stop again because of the new crown epidemic. If there is no measure for flexible personnel mobility, then it may not be possible to ensure that the NBA team can only play 7 people and 8 people to play, and if it is serious in the back, it is not even possible to play the ball, which is not friendly to the team, fans, and the ball market.
To this end, the NBA reached an agreement with the players' union in mid-to-late December, introducing a version of the "Hardship Waiver" regulation, where at least 3 players on the team are injured or sick or quarantined, and if the suspension lasts more than two weeks, the team can sign additional players first, which is a difficult exception.
In addition, the NBA league has also relaxed the management of two-way contract players and the freedom of development league transfers, two-way contract players do not set up games restrictions this season, and NBA teams can also transfer people from development league teams to play at any time.
For NBA teams, on the one hand, it is to maintain flexible freedom, on the other hand, most of the players who can be used on the market now are players who have been absent from the NBA battlefield for a long time or may not reach the NBA level, and they will of course give priority to consider using a 10-day short contract to test the waters first.
As a result, fans have recently seen the emergence of a bunch of NBA 10-day short contracts or two-way contracts, a bunch of basketball players who have entered the NBA league to play short-term work, and many of them are familiar and long-lost faces of fans, vaguely letting fans see the retro taste.
In this article, the author will sort it out a little and take stock of the five major battlefield veterans who have returned to the NBA League to work short jobs in the epidemic crisis for reference. Of course, due to the limitations of space and changes in the situation, if there are other veteran players who have also been given such an opportunity after the press release, fans are welcome to leave a message in the comment area to add.
Eisen Ilyasova (Chicago Bulls)
Eisen Ilyasova, a 34-year-old basketball star from Turkey, is positioned as a big forward with three-point ability, lack of finishing ability, good at shooting, intelligent blocking and demolition, and no hardness to make a living under the basket.
Looking back on this son's basketball career, although he was selected in the second round of the 2005 draft, he was sent to the development league and was not valued after entering the Bucks. His earliest journey to fame was at the 2006 World Championships, when he won the title of Best Young Player of the Tournament and was on the Bucks roster the following year's NBA season. Incidentally, the second rookie of the World Championships that Eisen Ilyasova pressed at the time was Yi Jianlian.
However, Eisen Ilyasova was not satisfied with the positioning of the rotating player, and after playing for the Bucks for another year, he returned to Europe to play for Barcelona and continue to study. In 2009, the Bucks turned around and chased the European tough guy they despised twice, and asked him to come back to play the starter, and Eisen Ilyasova ushered in a period of high-profile development.
Over the next seven years of the Bucks, Ilyasova averaged 10.7 points, 6.0 rebounds per game and 37 percent from three-point range, making him a distinctive European striker at the time. After leaving the Bucks in 2015, Ilyasova played well with the Pistons, Magic, 76ers and returned to the Bucks in 2018.
Back in 2020, because of the opportunity to get Bogdan Bogdanovic at that time, the Bucks first cut the old minister Ilyasova in order to manage the salary, and finally did not get Bogdan. Ilyasova then made a brief stay at the Jazz before disappearing into the league. Recently, the Chicago Bulls briefly signed Eisen Ilyasova on a 10-day contract, and the Turkish Hunsks will reconnect.
C.J. Miles (Boston Celtic)
C.J. Miles, it's really a long-lost name. Back in the 2005 draft, 18-year-old high school student C.J. Miles was selected in the round, one of the last high school students, he started his NBA career in the Jazz, and then grew into a qualified starter, and then passed the Cavaliers, Pacers, Toronto, Grizzlies, Wizards and other teams.
Throughout his career, he averaged 9.6 points, 2.3 rebounds and 1.1 assists per game, making him a competent bench scorer. During his peak Indiana years, C.J. Miles played several consecutive seasons of scoring double-doubles, the peak of which was a 13-point, 3-assist level starter.
After leaving the NBA in 2019, C.J. Miles lost the news. After more than a year of dormancy, CJ, now 34, appeared on the roster for the Development League Ignition Team and played well. At the same time that the Green Army Celtics signed Joe Johnson, who was caught in a manpower shortage, they also threw a 10-day olive branch to C.J. Miles, a veteran of the battlefield.
Lance Stephenson (Atlanta Hawks)
Before joining the Hawks on a 10-day contract and returning to the NBA league recently, Lance Stephenson played in the development league team Big River City Gold (a development league team under the Nuggets) to fight and wait for opportunities, with 45.5% shooting percentage, 35.0% three-point shooting rate to average 19.5 points, 7.4 rebounds and 2.6 assists per game, the state remains OK, 31 years old is not too old.
Earlier, the Nuggets had pulled Outrwin Reid from the River City Gold, skipping Lance Stephenson. However, opportunities are always left to those who are prepared, and Lance Stephenson can also be regarded as catching up with the shortage of staff in many teams in various leagues.
After becoming an Eagles player, Lance Stephenson played 23 minutes in his previous debut, contributing 1 point, 5 assists and 8 rebounds. Although the sample is relatively small, Lance Stephenson's attitude of changing his own style of play, willing to contribute more to the team, and giving up the shot is still more obvious.
II. Isaiah Thomas (Los Angeles Lakers)
Thomas Jr.'s 28.9 points per game and is known by fans as the "King of the Last Quarters" of the Green Army's peak second-team season has been four or five years ago. Throughout his career, Thomas Jr. averaged 18.0 points, 4.9 assists, 2.4 rebounds and 0.9 steals per game.
After the trade involving Irving reached the Cavaliers, the legendary 175cm tall small basketball player began to decline on the NBA stage, becoming an inefficient Ronin point guard. I pay the most tribute to his dream of returning to the NBA league.
The cruel thing is that it's really hard for short mini players to gain a foothold in the NBA after their peak. Looking at the data, after the 16/17 season, Thomas Jr.'s season shooting rate has never been 40%, although this season seized the opportunity to return to the Lakers is a time to operate, but in terms of the current performance of the game, 32 so Thomas Jr. wants to regain a foothold in the league is not easy. Since joining, Thomas Jr. has played in 3 games for the Lakers, temporarily contributing 11.7 points, 1.7 assists and 1.7 rebounds to the team with a 32.4% shooting percentage and 26.3%.
Joe Johnson (Boston Celtic)
As a seven-time All-Star, Joe Johnson has always been known as a singles player, with excellent dribbling ability, projection skills, and scoring vision, and is one of the few classical forward-guard swingers who have vividly interpreted the triple offensive threat. Throughout his career, Joe Johnson averaged 16 points, 4 rebounds and 4 assists per game.
In the impression of fans, Joe Johnson has played for many teams in his career, strictly speaking, he is a player who became famous with the Suns, reached the peak of the Jumping Eagles, and then continued to star glory in the Nets for a period of time, and then there was the Ronin years as an instant combat force, the last time he played was in 2018, and his identity was a Rockets player at that time.
In the three years since he disappeared from the NBA, Joe Johnson has been training, and declared that he did not retire, just loved basketball and continued to play basketball, during which he won the championship as an MVP in the BIG3 League with many veterans, and also won the Pistons' one-year insecurity contract in 2019, but he was finally cut.
When everyone began to forget that Joe Johnson was an active player and not an NBA star who washed his hands on the gold plate, he finally came back. As the No. 10 pick in the 2001 draft, Joe Johnson's NBA dream began with the selection of his home team, the Boston Celtics, and now the first owner gave him the opportunity to return to the league in a 10-day short contract to experience and show.
In the Dec. 23 victory over the Cavaliers, Boston home fans chanted in the final moments after the game was confirmed, pressuring the coach to send Joe Johnson to play. Inches are like dreams, time is like an arrow! After a lapse of 20 years, the young man who was drafted by the Green Army re-put on the Green Shirts at the twilight of his profession and hit an iconic signature jumper in the field.