The fans' appetite was instantly whetted.

After witnessing Tang Tian's above-the-rim dunk, they were really looking forward to his performance in the dunk contest.

After confirming his participation in the dunk contest, Tang Tian also sought Davis and Holiday's help during training.

Although the dunk contest is a non-contact performance, winning still depends on creativity.

Tang Tian was a time-traveler, so he naturally had no shortage of creativity, and all that was needed was to master those moves.

He couldn't really do a vertical jump dunk in the dunk contest to win the championship, could he?

It was at this time that the league released a very important announcement.

Stern, who had served as the league president for 30 years, officially announced his retirement in February, and Adam Silver officially succeeded Stern as the new president of the league.

However, apart from this already known fact, some other words in the announcement seemed very different.

Mark Tatum would serve as the league's chief deputy president, and the league committee would exercise supervisory power over Silver for the next year.

This was equivalent to an extra year of observation period than expected.

Tang Tian was quite happy when he saw this, at least Silver's so-called reforms would be delayed compared to history.

This was also giving him time.

Also as time entered February, Tang Tian received the new year's endorsement fee from burts.bees.

The contract had been signed before, and the endorsement fee for this year was 2 million, of which he received about 1.2 million US dollars after tax.

Before, after redeeming the Dynamite Pack (Maggette), he had more than 800,000 krypton gold points left.

Added together, it was exactly 2 million.

He had played for more than three months this season, and his ability to break through, shoot, and pass was relatively comprehensive, but his weaknesses were also exposed.

Because he didn't have stable enough ball control, he was sometimes targeted.

This included being forced to pass when double-teamed, and Allen's fronting defense when playing the Grizzlies prevented him from receiving the ball.

Ball control was the foundation for him to initiate offense by dribbling, so it was also the skill he needed to redeem most now.

He pulled up the system interface and set his sights on the blue skill column.

There were many blue breakthrough skills, but not many for ball control. After scanning through them, Tang Tian finally set his sights on the Low Stance Rhythm Dribble.

Low Stance Rhythm Dribble (Kemba Walker): Increases ball control stability by 15% and adds 2 points to ball handling attribute.

Walker's skill.

Speaking of which, Walker's style of play was far less flashy than Irving's, but his low center of gravity in ball control was known for its stability.

Moreover, this skill also added 2 points to the ball protection attribute, so the probability of being stolen would also be reduced.

He opened his attribute panel and looked at it.

When he was first drafted, his ball control attribute was only 40, but he had already started training ball control when he was still with the Spurs.

Games, including the past two summers, ball control was his focus of training.

Now, his ability had reached 66, exceeding the NBA's entry-level attribute requirement of 60.

Of course, this attribute value was basically the same as McGee and Jordan, and it was not enough for him to dribble the ball and get rid of defenders in formal games.

This was where the system's help was needed.

Tang Tian chose to recharge, and 2 million krypton gold points disappeared, and his attributes also began to increase.

From 66, it directly increased to 80, which had reached the upper level of the NBA.

And 2 more points were added to the ball protection attribute.

With this, he had officially become an all-around forward who could attack with the ball himself.

Tang Tian was quite excited after the redemption.

From receiving the ball to attack, to being able to dribble and attack himself, this was a qualitative change.

In addition to the need to continue to enrich his offensive methods, the distance between his offensive end and Carter, McGrady, and even Kobe was already visible to the naked eye.

After the exchange, he called Little Lion and ran to the half-court downstairs to train.

To the left.

To the right.

Forward.

Backward.

Left hand, right hand, one slow motion.

Rhythm change.

"Pa!"

The ball flew away.

Little Lion chased after the ball.

Tang Tian shook his head with a smile.

It seemed that like all the skills he had redeemed before, although his ability had improved, his body still needed time to adapt.

Little Lion pushed the ball back with its head, stopped, and shook its head back and forth.

This guy was more than 4 months old and was now half the size of a person.

Tang Tian looked at it and suddenly remembered something.

The agility of felines is the highest of all animals.

Taking cats as an example, it's at least seven or eight times that of humans.

African lions are large felines, and although not as agile as cats, they are many times stronger than humans.

If Olsen could train Little Lion to give him a high five, could he also train Little Lion to practice dribbling with him?

This idea looked very good.

Because Little Lion was still growing, its agility was also increasing little by little.

This was equivalent to helping him break through bottlenecks bit by bit.

With this in mind, Tang Tian called Little Lion to train with him.

However, no matter how smart a lion is, it's not a human. At first, Little Lion didn't understand and just jumped around.

Fortunately, Tang Tian was patient enough. If he couldn't learn it in one day, he'd learn it in two days. If he couldn't learn it in two days, he'd learn it in three days, and if he couldn't learn it in three days, he'd learn it in n days.

Anyway, Rome wasn't built in a day, and he had plenty of time.

More than ten days passed, and although Little Lion still couldn't successfully cooperate with him in training, he had adapted himself to about 70 or 80 percent.

He was already confident that he could dribble and attack in formal games.

The All-Star Weekend was approaching, and the games before each team had ended one after another. The Pelicans had only one last away game left against the Timberwolves.

The Timberwolves weren't a championship contender in the Garnett era, and they had been in decline since Garnett left, never making the playoffs.

Even though they drafted Love, even though they hired the famous coach Adelman.

This team, located in Minneapolis, the northernmost big city in the United States, was like its climate, chilling the hearts of the fans.

However, this year's Timberwolves were the best they had been in recent years.

They were currently ranked tenth in the West and were hopeful of making the playoffs.

Team core Love had an average of 26.1 points, 14.1 rebounds and 4.7 assists before the All-Star Game, all of which were career highs.

Kevin Martin, who returned to Adelman's hands, also had an average of nearly 20 points per game.

They were very eager to win this last game before the All-Star Weekend.

The duel between Love and Davis was also anticipated. Love, at the peak of his career, had been squeezed out of the All-Star spot by Davis, so he was somewhat unwilling in his heart.

The two were about to stage a head-to-head confrontation.

Of course, in addition to the two of them, Tang Tian's performance was also worth looking forward to.

After returning from injury, although the Pelicans had a good record and Tang Tian had shown off a lot of dunks, his shooting percentage in several games was only in the early 40s.

Whether he could regain his form against the Timberwolves was also a major point to watch.