The new season would enter a true era of contention among heroes.

This landscape was also far more complex than in history, the butterfly effect brought about by Tang Tian's transmigration beginning to manifest.

However, Tang Tian didn't react much. For him, the more intense the changed landscape, the better.

Having lived a lifetime already, he was only interested in challenges, and only challenges could truly reflect his personal value.

As free agency neared its end, he had already returned to the Relentless Brothers training camp.

The Pelicans had drafted Jokic, Dinwiddie, and Tyler Johnson, and signed Ariza in free agency. Counting Morrow's re-signing, their roster for the new season was basically set.

Dempsey would take care of the remaining details, like re-signing Metta World Peace and Evans, and signing a few non-guaranteed players to prepare for the preseason.

As for him, he needed to start preparing to improve his individual skills.

Although he was more interested in challenges, the Pelicans' roster was still somewhat immature, and his own improvement was even more important to raise their ceiling.

Nike's new contract fee for the year had already arrived, 10 million U.S. dollars, which after taxes, left him with over 6 million.

However, unlike last year, because the salary from the new NBA contract couldn't be advanced, he only had those 6 million-plus "kryptonite points" now (the previous points had all been used up).

The good news was that his contract with BMW was about to expire, and contract renewal would soon be on the agenda.

Automobiles were a large part of endorsements, and the endorsement fees were second only to those for sneakers.

His previous contract with BMW was 2 million for 2 years, but with his current popularity, the endorsement fee would definitely skyrocket.

It was foreseeable that his "kryptonite points" would soon exceed 10 million+, enough to exchange for a purple skill.

Having previously exchanged for the Dynamite Package (Maggette), its upgraded version, the Divine Turtle Bombardment (Westbrook), was definitely one of the skills under consideration.

However, Tang Tian's current thoughts weren't limited to this.

Last season was his first year as the team's core player. He got a lot, even an unlimited amount, of shot attempts, and he successfully won the scoring title.

But his efficiency wasn't actually that high.

There were two reasons for this: one was his stamina, and the other was his offensive arsenal.

There weren't many skills in the system that improved stamina, and the ones that did were also red-level.

Fortunately, this wasn't too prominent of an issue, after all, he already had the Masked Man (Hamilton), and he could also solve it by reducing his defensive effort.

Last season, his stamina was prone to problems, and starting alongside Morrow was also a big factor. Now that Ariza was helping him share the pressure, the situation would be much better.

In comparison, offensive arsenal was a bigger problem.

This problem had already started to appear in the second half of last season, became obvious in the series against the Clippers, and was fully exposed against the Grizzlies.

That was also why Joerger was able to target him and the Pelicans.

If he had a stable scoring method in double-teams, the Pelicans wouldn't have had to fight so fiercely.

Kobe's fadeaway jumper, a skill he had thought about more than once last season, was the next offensive skill he wanted.

However, this was a red-level skill, requiring 50 million "kryptonite points", so it would definitely require a process of accumulation.

The good news was that Nike would have his sneaker revenue sharing in February next year, so it wasn't impossible.

Just like when he exchanged for McGrady's pull-up jumper, he started practicing the fadeaway in advance after returning to the training camp.

Like the pull-up jumper, the fadeaway was also a very technical skill.

But this time, without someone like McGrady to teach him, only Prokopio was there to give pointers.

He asked Thompson and Butler for help, and soon he found out that he couldn't fadeaway.

The fadeaway could be broken down into several parts: turning, jumping and raising the ball, balancing in the air, and finally shooting.

These parts not only required hang time and proficiency, but also very high requirements for core strength, body coordination, and flexibility.

His jumping ability and core strength were enough, but his body coordination and flexibility were far behind.

His fadeaway, the shot after turning, was a bit like Westbrook's stiff pull-up jumper.

The "Kobe Fadeaway" skill in the system didn't have any bonuses in this regard, which meant he had to practice it himself in advance.

Fortunately, he had the experience of "McGrady's Pull-up Jumper" before, so he could start preparing in advance and save a lot of time.

Body coordination and flexibility weren't considered basic basketball skills, but Prokopio still gave him some training methods.

Coordination could be trained through dance.

Many dance moves required a very high degree of coordination.

When Tang Tian heard this, his eyes unconsciously turned to Walker. When it came to dance, there was a ready-made expert in the training camp.

As for body flexibility, the best way to train was yoga.

For this, he could only hire a private yoga instructor or sign up for yoga classes.

After Prokopio finished speaking, Tang Tian directly pulled Walker into a corner.

"You want to learn street dance?"

Although Tang Tian explained, Walker still wanted to laugh when he heard the suggestion.

Although Tang Tian was humorous sometimes, he was generally a serious person, and he couldn't imagine Tang Tian doing street dance.

"Is there a problem?"

Tang Tian asked, seeing the expression on Walker's face that he was trying to hold back a smile.

"No, of course not. Then we'll start practicing tonight."

Walker said with a smile he couldn't hold back.

Laughing aside, he was still considering Tang Tian's feelings, arranging the training for the evening, not wanting Tang Tian to embarrass himself in front of so many brothers.

"Tonight? No need, let's start now."

Tang Tian knew Walker was considering him, but that didn't matter.

Having lived a lifetime, his skin was thicker than a city wall, and he didn't care about these things at all.

Moreover, he also planned to pull others in to practice together, to improve their body coordination, which would also benefit them.

Thinking of this, he pulled Walker to the court and called everyone else over.

"Street dance?"

When Tang Tian said he wanted to practice this, everyone else looked interested.

Tang Tian almost forgot that street dance culture in the United States, like streetball, was very popular.

Especially for black people.

Thompson was white, but he liked to have fun and was also very interested.

And so, under Walker's leadership, the Relentless Brothers began a refreshing and unconventional street dance training.

Left hand, right hand, a slow motion, right hand, left hand, slow motion replay.

Except for Irving, who was a point guard himself and had good coordination, everyone else was making a fool of themselves, with all sorts of funny scenes.

Whiteside looked like a real zombie, and Thompson even fell while twisting...

It was obvious that everyone's body coordination was generally average.

This street dance, it seemed, was the right thing to practice.