At six o'clock this afternoon, the first preseason game of the NBA's 2022-23 season is about to kick off, and the game will be played between the Golden State Warriors and the Washington Wizards.
In addition to today's one, the two teams will also play another game at 1:00 p.m. Beijing time on Sunday, and the players of both teams have already arrived in Japan.
The reason why the NBA chose the Wizards and Warriors to play the first preseason game of the new season overseas is very simple, the Warriors, as one of the most influential teams in the NBA at the moment, won the championship for three years last season, and there is Stephen Curry, a super star with great appeal in the world, and the Warriors go overseas to play preseason games for the further promotion of the NBA brand.
The reason for choosing the Wizards is simpler, the Wizards player Hachimura is a Japanese mixed-race, and the Wizards go to Japan to play pre-season games is also half a home game. However, Japanese fans are not very interested in Hachimura, but Curry really makes the love and aesthetic standards of fans around the world unified, and it feels that more fans will cheer for Curry.
Back to the game itself, two years ago, the Warriors had not yet waited for Klay Thompson to return from injury, Green's form was also ups and downs, Poole did not show talent, and the Warriors relied on Curry alone to support him. Although the Warriors ultimately failed to advance to the playoffs that year, Curry was crowned the season's leading scorer with 32 points per game in the regular season and the second time in his career.
That year's Wizards were still driven by the two cores of Beal and Westbrook, but the team was still stumbling and thrilling to advance to the playoffs. In the regular season that year, Beal's level reached the peak of his career, averaging 31.3 points per game, if it were not for Curry's dazzling performance, the scoring king of that season would be Beal's bag.
Time has passed, now the two teams are not the same, the Warriors side of the soup god returns, Poole has been upgraded to an All-Star level, Wiggins is more reborn and the strength of the overall rise, and Curry is still the peak, this season they will definitely aim to defend the championship.
On the other hand, on the Wizards' side, Beal only played 40 games last season due to injury, and the team only achieved a record of 35 wins and 47 losses, and in the case of Wei Shao leaving Beal to welcome new teammates such as Porzingis and Kuzma, the team showed that the strength did not have the ability to impact the playoffs, and winning the championship was even more out of reach.
But what makes Beal personally happy is that this offseason he agreed to a 5-year super maximum salary of 251 million yuan with the team, and I don't know if under the "drive" of the US dollar, Beal can burst out of the 2020 offensive level and send the team to the playoffs as much as possible.
In this afternoon's game, Kan Kanjun personally felt that Hachimura might get more playing time and scenes, after all, he was half the host.
As for the core Curry and Beal of the two teams, it is expected that the last twenty minutes of play will basically be finished, and finally let the bench ball end, which is also the usual style of the NBA preseason.
In this kind of low defensive intensity game, it is entirely up to the players of the two teams to play their own hands and role lineups, but with the start of this first preseason, it also indicates that the new season of the NBA is really getting closer and closer to us!