The Whip of the God of Basketball

After leaving Washington, Leon chose to take a week's leave to return to Boston, and accompanied Khomeinis to Marshfield to take care of the children's training camp for Auerbach. The old man is a little physically weak now, flying back and forth from Washington to Boston and having to drive to Marshfield to watch a group of energetic brats teach them how to play basketball is really embarrassing for him.

Now the Auerbach training camp has been handed over to Leon, so the size of the training camp has expanded a lot compared to last year. Leon is an energetic guy, and he will not just hire a few Celtics. The former old player came to walk around the field and take care of the children. In order to organize this training camp, he recruited Don Grimes, the retired head coach of the Medway High School basketball team, as the head coach of the training camp.

Compared with those retired players or coaches from professional teams, Grimes, who has been a high school coach, is obviously more suitable as a mentor for teenagers. His training ideas are more basic and detailed, and it is easier to communicate with children. mingle.

Another coach is Daniel Myers. He has been a coach in the Auerbach training camp since the 1980s. He was absent from the training camp last year due to family reasons. This time Leon invited him back again. . Myers used to work as an assistant to coach Thompson at Georgetown University. The centers he trained included Ewing, Mourning and Mutombo.

In addition, there are basketball coach Donald Morris from Daniel Webster Academy, Floyd Butler from the state high school championship school in Philadelphia, and Arik the strength and conditioning coach at Barnsboot High School. - Taylor et al. These people are all well-known figures in the Massachusetts basketball circle. Auerbach spent a lot of energy introducing Leon to get to know and get in touch with them in a year, not just to let them go to training. Camp to coach, but to give Leon more learning opportunities, and at the same time let Leon inherit the bishop's connections in the Massachusetts basketball world.

For Auerbach, the Auerbach training camp is a small basketball gathering. The training camp that has been gradually abandoned with age and the death of the basketball career has been revived because of the arrival of Leon. The number of young players who signed up for the training camp this year was twice as high as last year. Khomeinis made great efforts in publicity. She set up an enrollment homepage for the Auerbach training camp on the Internet and officially started online promotion and registration. The number of applicants increased greatly, and some of them had to be screened out to be eligible.

The training location of the training camp is still in the old gymnasium in Marshfield, but Leon has already discussed with Auerbach to move the location of the training camp to Smithfield, which is closer to Providence, from next year. The new practice facility at Bryant University there. Not only will there be new venues there, but it will be closer to Fall River, Springfield, Hartford, etc., and the transportation will be more convenient, which will attract more children to the training camp.

Everything is going in a good direction, just like the Celtics. In one week, Leon spent a lot of time applying the scouting knowledge and team management knowledge he learned from the Celtics. For example, he established a team for each young player. A small player file, which includes the basic data of these young players, training camp performance and future development evaluation. Although the vast majority of people were evaluated as "not going to be a professional player", his precise, concise and unique comments still left a deep impression on the coaches.

Of course, there are still children who are highly rated, such as last year's Michael Carter-Williams, this time he worked tirelessly from Hamilton to participate in the training camp. Compared with last year, he has grown a lot taller, and his skills More proficient, and the kids who were older than him in the training camp are no longer his opponents at all, and his growth rate is amazing.

Of course, all of this is not the focus of Leon's work here. His real intention or task is to come to the training camp to learn and really start learning basketball tactics.

During nearly a year of working as a scout, Auerbach strictly prohibited Leon from learning any tactics. He was not allowed to read basketball tactics textbooks, he was not allowed to secretly learn tactical drills during team training, and he was not allowed to watch videos to explore tactics by himself. Routine, and he was not allowed to ask himself questions about tactics.

Leon once asked Auerbach this question, and Auerbach only gave him one answer, "I don't want you to become a slave to tactics."

From the first time he knew Leon, repeating Pitino's tactical speech verbatim in the office of the training gym, Auerbach knew that this guy was likely to be a tactical genius. His memory ability and way of thinking allow him to have extremely strong deduction ability, calculation ability and spatial imagination, which are very important for a basketball tactician.

However, tactics are only part of the job of the head coach of the team. Auerbach was afraid that Leon would become a tactical obsessive who was obsessed with tactical drills while ignoring player relationship handling, team building and player discovery. In my impression, a coach like this is only suitable to be a full-time assistant coach for a certain item of the team, but once he becomes the head coach of the team, it is likely to be a disaster.

For example, Doug Collins, the head coach of the Bulls in the 1980s, one of the characteristics of his coaching was standing on the sidelines and shouting tactics. When the players were attacking on the court, they had to listen to the coach shouting the tactics, and then think about how to run the tactics. Finally make an offensive choice.

Auerbach commented on those coaches: "Look at the coaches who won the championship. Is there any one famous for such-and-such tactics? Phil Jackson? Triangle offense? You go ask Dennis Rodman, what is the triangle Offensive, give the ball to Jordan! And that thing is just old Winter's trick. Adelman, I heard he's in Kings for Princeton, I don't think he's up for it. Jerry Sloan, what's the life of living in Salt Lake City? In the UCLA system, even after Jordan retired, he couldn’t win the championship. But Popovich won the championship with the Twin Towers! Look, like Pat Riley, Jack Ramsey, KC , and me, what tactics are known for? No, none! Remember, tactics are for the team, for victory, don't be a slave to tactics. When you become a slave to tactics, then you may win Some vain names, but you will miss the championship."

What a smart person Leon is, so Auerbach only needs to say it once and he can remember it in his heart, so his biggest gain in this year is his eyesight and in-depth contact with the basketball circle. Know the rules by which the sport operates. When the time comes, when you can start learning basketball tactics, everything will fall into place.

In the training camp, Leon's main teacher was Daniel Myers. From the appearance point of view, Daniel Michael, like his former partner John Thompson, is not like a basketball coach at all, but like a wrestler, his body is as strong as a metal bucket.

Miles is not known in basketball circles for his tactics. He was known for his strict team discipline and iron-blooded defense when he coached at Springbrook High School in Maryland. Of course, like John Thompson, he is also good at training centers.

Teaching Leon tactics was a painful thing for Myers, because he soon discovered that Leon's ability to draw inferences from one instance was too strong. For example, after he taught Leon the three basic pick-and-roll styles, Leon quickly summed up nine derivative styles based on his own experience watching the game. For another example, in the tactical routine of the low-post and weak-side cooperation of the center, Myers pointed out two key points-one is the ability of low-post attackers to attract double-teams, and the other is the switching speed of the strong and weak sides, and Leon is very fast. It means that I have discovered several other key points-the depth of the low position, the shooting ability of the strong side players and the appropriateness of the player spacing.

After teaching Leon the basic basketball tactics for three days, Miles chose to give up, because in the end he could no longer answer Leon's questions, and he also taught those basic tactical routines and principles that could be taught, anyway. You can learn it, you don’t need to ask three questions or four questions, and you don’t need to review and review. From the fourth day, Leon can stand on the sidelines and guide the young players to run basic tactics.

When Leon found Grimes and asked him to do more guidance, Grimes said: "There is nothing you can learn here. What we teach are some of the most basic tactics and principles. Before coming Mr. Auerbach called me and let me tell you not to touch those complicated and dazzling tactics. He told you to digest the fundamentals. He said that when you master these fundamentals, those papers Superficial tactics are just a tool for playing with those fundamentals. So...we really have nothing to teach, we're better suited to teach those kids."

Leon heard Grimes' words and began to summarize the basic principles of tactics he had learned in his mind. He thought for a whole day, summed up what he had learned for three days, and then wrote a word in his notebook: space.

The ultimate goal of all offensive tactics is to create space for players to shoot. On the contrary, the purpose of all defensive strategies is naturally to block the space for opponents to shoot. Therefore, space is the source code and core of all tactics. Starting from this word, Leon will build his own tactical pyramid.