The Whip of the God of Basketball

"Gelgulich?" When Khomeinis heard the name, her mind was filled with questions.

In this month, Khomeinis has gotten to know a lot of players and agents that she didn't know at all in the past. However, in the field of coaching, her knowledge is the same as that of most ordinary fans. She only knows those champions with high exposure. Coaches, or famous coaches of strong teams, know very little about assistant coaches of some teams or college coaches.

"He is an assistant coach of the Suns and a well-known defensive coach in the league. Every year he holds coaching training courses in the summer to teach and train young coaches in the league. Hart and he are old friends, so he wrote an introduction The letter recommended me to go to his training class, which will be held in Los Angeles this year. Hart asked me to come and learn and make friends along the way," Leon said.

Gelgulic is not only the current assistant coach of the Suns, he has been George Karl's royal defensive coach in the past, and single-handedly created the strong defense of the 1996 SuperSonics. He then followed Karl to Milwaukee, but he failed to help the Bucks go further in the 01-02 season. In the 2003 season, he was recruited by the Suns and became the team's chief assistant. Although Gelgulic has not helped any team win a championship in the NBA so far, in the coaching circle, heroes are not just judged by championships.

Gelgulic has a profound foundation in defensive theory and rich college coaching experience. Perhaps some of his methods are not suitable for the NBA, but for any coach, it will be beneficial to learn from Gelgulic. many.

"Do you still need to study? I thought you had learned everything a coach can learn." Khomeinis was a little surprised. She was not exaggerating. Leon's memory and learning ability are very good. Feelings, he has no doubt that Leon can put all the knowledge about basketball into his mind in three years.

"There is no end to learning... and studying by yourself is completely different from having an experienced teacher to guide you. I have my own insights and understanding on offense, but on defense... I haven't learned enough. Before Leave everything to Hart to handle, and it won’t be that easy next season.” Leon prides himself on his ability to learn, but he also knows that in any profession, there is no end to the pursuit of excellence. Basketball is an ever-changing and With the development of complex modern games, it is not enough to simply study those materials and diagrams.

In terms of defensive tactics, last season the Celtics mainly adhered to tough one-on-one, supplemented by various defensive traps designed by Hart. It was a relatively simple and concise defensive strategy. Obviously, with Kevin Garnett In the future, if we continue to follow this strategy for defense, it will be a huge waste of 28 million.

Now that Hart has withdrawn, no one will design and train the Celtics' defense next season. Before finding a suitable defensive coach, Leon must be prepared to shoulder the responsibility. So just like the intern coach at the University of Arizona last summer, this time he can study seriously in Gergulic's training camp and enjoy the treatment of an academic coach.

In the evening, Leon and Khomeinis took a good look at the Pacific Ocean under the moonlight in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows of the room, and talked quietly all night. It had nothing to do with basketball or life, but only about love.

……………………

Early the next morning, Leon went to the hotel where he stayed before, changed his clothes, then rented a car from a car rental company on the seaside, and started to go to the location of the coaching training camp - the University of Santa Monica. Gymnasium, where this year's coaching training camp for Gergulic started.

Leon drove a rented junk car, a $20-a-day eight-hand Chevrolet, all the way east along Tenth Avenue, one of the most famous highways in the United States. In the movie "Forrest Gump" back then, Forrest Gump ran to the end and didn't want to run anymore. He just stopped under the sunset on Tenth Avenue.

It only takes fifteen minutes to drive to his destination, Santa Monica College, an ordinary community college that is not famous for sports, so it can escape the search of the stars and leave some space for the NBA coaches. A place and space for children to learn.

Leon is actually a transfer student. Gergulic's training camp has already started for three days, and half of the one-week training camp has passed, so he may not be able to learn some things. When he came to the training hall with a letter of introduction in hand, he saw a short old man - it was Gergulic. He was standing on the sidelines holding a tactical board and teaching a black man wearing glasses something. .

According to Hart, this training camp starts at 10 a.m. and ends at 3 p.m. every day. It was only 9:30 when Leon came, and it seemed that Gergulic was giving the black man wearing glasses a little trouble.

Both of them noticed Leon, and Gergulic reacted. He remembered that his old friend Hart called him the day before yesterday and wanted to send a student to his training camp to study. Gergulic guessed that there was a high probability of it. It's Celtics head coach Fox Leon, a very famous figure in the NBA.

Leon handed Hart's letter to Gergulic, who opened the letter and read it, sighing that Hart could actually work for one more year and win a championship before leaving.

Leon took this opportunity to take a closer look at this famous coach. In the past, the two sides were far away from each other during the game, and Leon did not pay much attention to this low-key assistant coach. He is about less than 6 feet tall, slightly shorter than Leon. Among NBA coaches, he and Leon are both relatively short. He has fluffy gray hair, a ruddy face, a thin face, a high nose and big ears. He looks like an elf in the forest.

The black man behind him wearing glasses had a square face, a big mouth and a broad nose, and he looked very imposing. Leon recognized him at a glance. It was Mike Brown, the assistant coach of the Spurs.

Two months ago, Mike Brown followed the Spurs in defeating the Boston Celtics in the Finals and won the first championship of his career as an assistant coach. Leon didn't expect to see Brown here, and it was obvious that he and Gelgulic had a very good relationship.

"Mike is my student. When I was with the SuperSonics, Mike worked as a video editor for the Nuggets. In the summer, he would follow me to the summer league to play as a starter and learn something. Now that I have a training camp, he also I am willing to come here and learn." Gergurich said with a smile.

Although they are rivals in the finals, even the players will treat each other as brothers after the game, and the coaches will no longer hate each other. Leon also shook hands with Brown and chatted about some transactions and signings that occurred in the recent summer. At about ten o'clock, three other students also arrived at the training hall.

Hawks head coach Terry Stotts, former Pistons head coach Rick Carlisle, and a black guy whom Leon didn't know were the other three members of the training class. Gelgulic advocates small class teaching in coaching training. He believes that coaching, a highly mental job, is meaningless if it is done like a summer camp.

Rick Carlisle was obviously taken aback when he saw Leon. He didn't expect Leon to come to this training class, but the two were still friends. Carlisle also stepped forward and shook hands with Leon, and then whispered in his ear. Bian said: "I don't want to go to Boston..."

Leon just smiled and didn't answer. Carlisle, this guy, clearly refused Bird's invitation to join the Pacers on the phone. He turned around and called a friend and asked him to tell Bird that he agreed. This story is Hart's. He still remembers what I told him clearly.

As for why Carlisle came here to study, it was because he was one of the earliest students in Gergurich's class, and he came to Gergurich for advice almost every summer.

There is also Stotts. Leon also has an impression of this seemingly weak guy. In the 1990s, he was a scout for the SuperSonics. Later, he joined George Karl's coaching staff and became a partner with Gelgulic. In 2002, he finally had the opportunity to coach the Eagles on his solo career, but the record seemed unsatisfactory, so he needed to recharge his batteries with a teacher.

There was another guy, a black man with a round head and thick lips. He introduced himself as *** Biskstaff, the son of NBA coach Bernie Biskstaff. Bernie Biskstaff is a good friend of Gelgulic and is also Mike Brown's senior at the University of San Diego. He led Brown to the NBA.

It can be said that in this small training camp, everyone is a well-connected guy. Leon lamented that if there weren't a few old guys forcing him to lead him, he didn't know how many years of groping it would have taken. Like Stotts, it would take ten years to become a coach.

And he only used one-third of others' time. Now that half of the training class has passed, Leon is still confident that he can learn more than others in the remaining half of the time.