Although every year there are many strong teams in the league to win the championship, but at the same time, every year, there are also teams that lose madly in order to win the "reverse championship" - the title of the next year's draft, which is a technical term. Due to the NBA's unique mechanism, the teams with the worst records each year will receive the top picks in the next year's draft, which also leads to teams that are not related to the playoffs will begin to deliberately lose in order to win the future. Especially if you encounter a big year of the draft, or the next year's draft has a historic rookie that can be used as the cornerstone of the team, then it will set off a wave of swinging bad in the league's teams, then, today we will take a look at the NBA has had the craziest swing year - 96-97 season, which player will let even the giants of the Green Army will put down their faces and compete for the rot?
This person is Tim Duncan from Wake Forest University, in fact, as early as 1996, Duncan, who was still a junior in college, had been listed as a popular candidate by scouts, when the teams were already salivating over him, but out of commitment to his mother, Duncan still participated in the draft in 1997 after his senior year. When it was decided that Duncan would participate in the '97 draft, a wave of crazy swings set off by the NBA began.
Throughout the 96-97 season, there were 15 teams in the league with less than 50% winning percentage, especially the Western Conference's swing competition was very fierce, and even sent the Clippers, who had 36 wins and 46 losses and only 43.9% of the winning percentage that season, into the playoffs. Of course, the most exaggerated is also these teams, that season the Grizzlies only achieved 14 wins and 68 losses, the league's giants Boston Celtics only achieved a record of 15 wins and 67 losses, and the most frustrating thing is the Spurs, who have been in the playoffs for 7 consecutive seasons, and the spurs that have won 59 wins and 23 losses the previous season, ranking second in the West, have only achieved a record of 20 wins and 62 losses this season.
Even crazier is the fans, who celebrate when the Green Army loses at home, simply happier than they are to win, because they know they are one step closer to Duncan. In order to get Duncan, the Green Army star Cardinals also traded the first round of the 24-win Mavericks that season to do double insurance, and even released a bold statement "Welcome to trade the league teams, the players in the team are free to pick, as long as you can sign me in the first round!" ”
However, in the end, the Spurs drew the first prize with a 21% probability, and the cardinal Auerbach at the time was still not dead hearted, calling the Spurs management, saying that the Green Army was willing to exchange Duncan with the first round of the Tanhua Show and the No. 6 pick, as the little fox Popovich naturally did not go to the old fox, and in the end, the Spurs used this title to select Duncan, thus opening his 20-year-long Spurs dynasty. Duncan alone has caused the league to set off half of the teams, especially the Green Army and the Spurs, to lay down their faces, which is really rare in history. （ikuet）