The Whip of the God of Basketball

"One, Michael Jordan will come back this season, two, the Lakers will win three consecutive championships in the 2002 season, three, Chinese football will qualify from the World Cup qualifiers and enter the World Cup, what else, what else... By the way, the United States Knowing how to fight Afghanistan...but what's the use of it?" One night after returning to Boston, Leon stayed in his hut, took out a large white paper and began to dig out all the memories in his mind, especially Some events with big impact. These things left a deep impression on Leon's mind. Leon probably wrote it down when he saw the TV news at that time.

What makes Leon strange is that in July this year, China successfully bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games. Leon didn't feel the slightest when he saw the news. It seems that such a big event did not leave a deep impression on Leon's mind. . Leon guessed that these events should be remembered randomly, because he was still young at that time, and he might have written it down when the TV news was broadcast one day when he went home, and he didn’t remember it if he didn’t hear it.

Now Leon is repeatedly searching his brain, trying to find some memories related to American basketball. Unfortunately, except for Jordan's comeback and the Lakers' three-game winning streak in the 2002 season, it is difficult for him to recall other news. Moreover, the entire memory period came to an abrupt end in the summer of 2002. He only remembered that he went to his uncle's house to play in the zoo that summer, and it was all cut off afterwards.

Leon is a pragmatic person. He has no intention of exploring the life that has disappeared, but only wants to pick out some useful things from the broken fragments. When he was a child, he was not a person interested in sports. It seemed that he wanted to piece together information related to the NBA.

In that era when the media was not particularly developed, a kid who didn't care about basketball had few chances to see news related to the NBA. If Leon really cared about the NBA at that time, then seeing Wang Zhizhi on the court He should be able to remember something.

"It seems that I really didn't care about sports in my last life..." Leon thought to himself, but he was still a little unwilling. He was very confident in his memory. He knew that many things were not completely forgotten, but just hidden. in deep consciousness. Many things will not necessarily come to mind if you try hard, but when you encounter similar or related events, they will suddenly come to mind. This is also a characteristic of unconscious memory.

Leon is convinced that a considerable part of this memory that came back to his mind should be hidden in the deep subconscious. If he wants to find information related to basketball, he needs special stimulation. So Leon found out all the news papers at home, and began to browse the news related to the NBA over and over again, hoping that some words and sentences could evoke some deep memories.

Leon flipped through the newspaper as fast as the wind blows, and the words flowed through his mind one by one. Finally, when he saw a piece of news related to the New Jersey Nets, a memory popped out of his mind.

"The team that will play the Finals with the Lakers in 2002 will be the New Jersey Nets!" Leon just remembered that the 2002 championship would be the Lakers, but he couldn't remember who their opponents in the finals would be. Remember the losers?

Leon still found this information deep in his memory. It didn't seem to be of much use, but it was very important to Leon, far more important than the news of Jordan's comeback.

This starts with the evaluation of public opinion after the draft. Overall, the 2001 draft was a bumper harvest for the Celtics. The three players they got, Dalembert, Arenas and Joe Johnson, proved to be very promising players in the subsequent summer league. The three-man Celtics Summer League team remained undefeated throughout the summer, and the backcourt of Arenas and Joe Johnson swept the Orlando Summer League.

But this is only the summer league after all, and there are still many people who think that the Celtics have been overly inclined to perimeter players in the draft in the past two years, especially in the two consecutive years that they have selected three attacking guards. Even within the Celtics, there were some disagreements that one of Joe Johnson, Arenas and Michael Reed should be traded as soon as possible in exchange for a more excellent and practical insider. Especially after the Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic acquired Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing respectively, such dissatisfaction has become increasingly prominent in Boston, and there are more and more voices criticizing the draft results.

Because with the loss of the Los Angeles Lakers on the road to dominance, and the almost invincible performance of Shaquille O'Neal, the whole league set off a wave of siege of O'Neal, and many teams learned from the Portland Trail Blazers or Indiana Pacers , hoarding a large number of defensive insiders, especially in the West where there are a large number of forward geniuses, the accumulation of insiders by each team is almost crazy. This trend has more or less affected the Eastern Conference, especially the Pacers and 76ers who have entered the finals in the past two years are typical teams that pile up defensive insiders, so this makes Kay, who once had the strongest frontcourt lineup in NBA history. Celtics fans miss the era of controlling the inside very much, and public opinion has also been affected. They are dissatisfied with the Celtics' continuous selection of backcourt players and then trading for an old point guard.

Head coach O'Brien is one of them. Influenced by traditional thinking, he, like Pitino, has always expected to get a high-quality player who can support the Blazers inside. To make a trade, I didn't expect that until the preseason was about to start, the management still had no news. For Leon, who dominated this draft, he began to bear tremendous pressure. In particular, he is now the team's assistant coach. After returning to Boston to start training, he will be responsible for optimizing the team's tactics and system. In discussions with O'Brien and Vogel , they disagreed on the issue of imaginary enemies.

O'Brien and Vogel believe that when the entire league is reinforcing the interior, the Celtics' top-heavy lineup model and corresponding tactical play will be blasted by rebounds. Last season, their rebounds were not good. good. Leon thinks that since they are in the east, there is no need to target O'Neal and the heroes of the west. Even if the Raptors and Magic get Olajuwon and Ewing, they will not be able to become big players. The success or failure of the Philadelphia 76ers depends entirely on Iverson Alone, Leon believes that the one who will really dominate the Eastern Conference next season is likely to be the Bucks who lost by a tiny bit in this year's Eastern Conference Finals.

Now it seems that Leon should have guessed wrong, but in terms of team structure, the Nets and the Bucks are very similar, both with a flexible backcourt-forward combination as the backbone, especially when the Nets replaced Marbury this summer Got Jason Kidd, although the outside world is not optimistic about this guard exchange deal, but Leon already knows that this will be a completely new exchange for the Nets.

Recalling this piece of information, Leon had a clear idea, and he further strengthened his views on the current team construction and tactical line, insisting on giving priority to talent, and gaining chips for future operations; , Adhere to the line of taking the outside line first, refuse to hoard defensive inside lines, improve the flexibility of play, and give full play to the talents of the players in all aspects.

This is not Leon's idea alone, but the general policy proposed after many discussions with Auerbach. Auerbach finally decided to give up the past idea of ​​winning draft picks and picking superstars to change the team overnight. , The alliance's suppression and Stern's targeting made such old tricks no longer work. Auerbach and Leon discussed repeatedly, thinking that if the superstar who can completely change the team cannot be selected, then select the best player that can be selected, accumulate enough chips, and then look for opportunities to seek big deals to change everything superstar.

It is not easy to convince Auerbach to accept such a strategy. The old man has spent his whole life playing tricks, robbing halfway, and making big gains with small things. He never thought that one day he would go into the game of "saving five zero tickets for a full ticket" . Danny-Ainge and Leon are on the same front. Chris Wallace also obeys this policy. Only O'Brien and Vogel insist on selecting and trading on the basis of the current lineup. A French player and firmly believes that he can lead the team to the next step. It's just that under the pressure of Auerbach, their voices have not become mainstream.

If the Celtics have a poor record and a chaotic lineup after the start of the season, it is hard to say how things will develop.

Leon couldn't help but feel a little strenuous thinking about these things. O'Brien is a very good guy and is very popular with the players. Leon has no personal quarrel with him. But the disagreement in basketball philosophy will break out one day. As Leon's understanding of basketball deepens, their conflicts will deepen. This is completely different from the grievances between Pitino. Leon has realized that the assistant coach's year will be a very difficult one.