The Strongest Bishop in the NBA

Cheng Jie, 16 years old, 1.93 meters tall, 98 kilograms in weight, Mongolian, from a poor county in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, his family belongs to extremely poor households, and he practiced basketball for one year...

The previous information can be ignored, but Wang Xiao takes basketball practice for one year seriously.

For basketball players, one year may be just a stage of practicing basic skills. In fact, Cheng Jie's basic skills are not well practiced, which explains why Cheng Jie can't keep up with the progress of the training camp.

What made Wang Xiao more concerned was that every selected trainee had been interviewed, briefly introducing where his name and age came from, etc. When the reporter who interviewed Cheng Jie asked him why he played basketball, Cheng Jie simply The clear answer made the reporter stunned.

"make money."

Facing the camera, Cheng Jie was a little shy, but his answer was concise and to the point. "People in our area say that being a sports star can make a lot of money. I want to make money, a lot of money, so I want to play basketball."

This is a reason that is so true that anyone feels embarrassed to say it, but it was said openly in the mouth of this 16-year-old boy.

Prior to this, reporters from Li-Ning Sports had interviewed many other selected trainees. Most of the trainees answered that they loved basketball and hoped to win glory for the country. Not like that, but at least when it comes to camera microphone interviews, even these kids under 20 know how to say nice things.

Cheng Jie was the only one who said such a sentence.

Everyone thinks that Cheng Jie is too utilitarian, but Wang Xiao doesn't think so.

After all, Cheng Jie is different from other people. His father has been in prison for committing some crimes since he was a child. His uneducated mother raised him by farming and grazing. For a child born in such an environment, making money It is their biggest goal.

interest? Hobby? Even the stomach is not full, who is in the mood to think about those things?

Moreover, Cheng Jie's so-called making money may not be the same as most people's so-called utilitarianism. He may just want to make money to make his and his mother's lives better. As for how to make money and how much money he makes, he may not have any idea a clear concept.

This is fundamentally different from many 25-year-olds who say they don't care about money and only want dreams, but in fact they put money first and abandon everything for money.

Cheng Jie is very real, so real that Wang Xiao admires this 16-year-old kid a little bit.

Maybe it was because of the truth he told during the interview, maybe it was because of his Mongolian identity, maybe it was because of his dull and withdrawn personality, or maybe it was all these factors combined, in just a few days, Cheng Jie was accepted by the media. The vast majority of trainees are isolated.

This kind of situation is rare. Although all the trainees who are training on the field are basically competitors, at the same time they cannot put the competition on the surface, because basketball is a team sport, and the In addition to personal ability, it also requires better ability to deal with interpersonal relationships.

From this point of view, Cheng Jie, who is isolated by the majority, has some problems.

And Wang Xiao drew a key mark on his name.

The clear purpose, the perseverance to run ten kilometers every day to the street basketball court to train after being excluded, and the kind of ambition to work hard from a poor family background are exactly the kind of players Wang Xiao wants.

Wang Xiao has every reason to believe that this kid will never let down the value of the growth template card if he uses any card in his hand.

Of course, this is only a preliminary judgment. The training camp has only just started, and maybe even better seedlings will be discovered later.

Wang Xiao just picked out Cheng Jie's name separately, and then focused on it. He was actually looking forward to it. If he didn't intervene, he would be squeezed out by the same group of trainees and unable to keep up with the progress of the training camp. What will happen to Cheng Jie, who is incompatible with the atmosphere of the camp, in a few months.

...

The training camp continued in full swing, and as the pace of training accelerated, more and more trainees were struggling and unable to keep up with the pace.

And Cheng Jie, who was always unable to keep up with the training progress at the beginning, seemed to be struggling even more, but what is surprising is that he was able to barely keep up with the training gradually. Really completed the training task assigned by the trainer.

Soon, the half-month intensive training ended, and at the same time, the results of the first batch were officially announced.

There is no suspense, Wang Zhelin, Zhou Qi and other future members of the national team rank among the best. Most of the other players have a big gap with their ratings. As for Cheng Jie, they are in the bottom ranks, and they are even close to entering the bottom ten.

The players with the bottom ten results will leave the training camp and end the training plan ahead of schedule.

The 100 trainees have also officially become 90.

The 90 trainees who survived did not have a chance to breathe a sigh of relief, because after the intensive training, what awaited them was a more complicated training plan.

Defensive training, tactical training, cover running training...

If the performance in any link is not good enough, they may be kicked out of the team, and no one dares to take it lightly.

With the increase in the types of training and the deepening of the intensity, Wang Xiao became more and more satisfied with Cheng Jie. Although the speed of progress was not fast, it was far different from Zhou Qi, Wang Zhelin and others, but Cheng Jie did practice every day. He is making solid progress, and he is seriously absorbing the skills taught to them by the trainers every day.

What's even more commendable is that this kid can still maintain the habit of going to the street basketball court for extra practice every day despite the increasing training intensity.

...

Before you know it, time has entered October.

On the NBA side, both employers and employees are still arguing and cannot reach an agreement for a long time. The lockout has affected the start of the new season. Many players are starting to panic. They are worried that the NBA will really come to an end. Many players have begun to sign contracts with overseas leagues. On the one hand, I want to leave a way out for myself, and on the other hand, I also want to maintain my competitive state in other professional arenas.

Several of Wang Xiao's disciples, such as Jeremy Lin, Stephen Curry, and Paul George, who had a sharp increase in favor of Wang Xiao because of Wang Xiao's intensive care last season, all called Wang Xiao, saying that a CBA team contacted them , couldn't make up his mind, and wanted to ask Wang Xiao's opinion.

As a time traveler, Wang Xiao gave them very pertinent advice.

"To be honest, I don't really recommend that you go to the CBA to participate in the competition."

As a time traveler, Wang Xiao was very aware of the result of the shutdown and its subsequent impact, so he never worried about it from the very beginning, and even took advantage of this long vacation to run back to China to organize a large-scale "Wang Xiao" event. Xiao basketball training camp”

"I can tell you clearly that the NBA's lockout will end sooner or later. Neither the employer nor the employer can bear the huge loss of a long-term lockout. The two parties will eventually find a balance between the two, and then end it all."

"When all this comes to an end, the new season will inevitably be a shortened season. The tight schedule and tight schedule will be a major test for the physical fitness of every player on every team."

"The distance between China and the United States is too far. Traveling to the CBA to play in the CBA does not necessarily keep you in a competitive state, and it is likely to make your body overtired. This is not a good thing for coping with the intense competition of the shrinking season. "

"So my personal suggestion is that you'd better stay in the United States, ensure your training intensity every day, occasionally participate in small games organized by other players, maintain a good competitive state, and reserve more physical energy to cope with the upcoming shrinking season. .”

Everyone who called Wang Xiao was, without exception, a player who trusted Wang Xiao very much, so they followed Wang Xiao's suggestion convincingly.

What Wang Xiao said is also true.

Because of the lockout, each team played only 66 regular-season games in the 11-12 season. The schedule was so tight that many players couldn’t get over it. This made it difficult for teams with an average age to reach the playoffs. Say the Spurs, Lakers, Mavericks, Celtics and other teams.

In the 2011-12 season, two young teams made it to the finals, one was the Heat's Big Three, and the other was the Thunder's three.

There is no doubt that in this shortened season, a younger and more energetic team can have the last laugh.

So Wang Xiao's advice to them is to recharge their batteries as much as possible while ensuring their competitive state.

Entered the Eastern Conference finals in the first season, entered the finals in the second season, and now is about to usher in the third season, Wang Xiao's goal is naturally locked in the championship.

However, there are only a few people like Curry and Jeremy Lin who call to consult Wang Xiao. After all, according to the NBA lockout regulations, any team management personnel are not allowed to contact the players during the lockout.

As the head coach of the Wizards, Wang Xiao is properly a member of the management team. Calling Curry, Jeremy Lin and others on the phone is also an illegal operation.

However, Curry and the others took the initiative to make the call, so it is naturally impossible to leak it, so the problem is not a big one.

Throughout October, the NBA has been in a tense atmosphere, and the negotiations between the labor and management have been unable to reach a consensus. When the time entered November, more serious things happened.

On November 15, 2011, NBA player representatives and the executive committee of the trade union jointly decided to reject the new proposal of the management, and the labor negotiations officially broke down.

More and more players choose to play overseas, such as Wilson Chandler, Brooks, JR Smith and other players who went to China to seek gold.

But the choice of one player is surprising, and that is the only Chinese player in the NBA, Yi Jianlian of the Nets.

As a Chinese player, when the NBA was suspended, Yi Jianlian did not choose to return to China to play, but stayed in the United States for special training.