The Whip of the God of Basketball

The summer in the NBA always goes by in a hurry. By September, players who were fishing and vacationing began to return to the court one after another. They either held training camps together or found separate trainers for intensive training. The smoke of last season has dissipated, and all the pain, loss and helplessness can disappear in one summer, because the new season is about to begin.

Every year before the start of a new season, every team looks strong, every player seems ready to break out in the new year, and every rookie seems to have to prove on a new stage that he can be here. Survive. Of course, everyone knows that this is just a beautiful scene before the battlefield begins, just like those soldiers who wore crisp uniforms and had high aspirations before being sent to the front line. When the war begins, death and flesh and blood will make them experience what it means to be alive. cruel.

The same is true for the NBA. Before the start of the season, reporters and fans will always take the trouble to pay attention to and dig out every detail and change of the team. Who has come, who has left, who is training where today, who will go somewhere to meet that old-timer tomorrow, and who will learn skills from a certain retired superstar. In short, people who are hopeful will always be very interested in things and eager to discover something they want to see - for example, our team will rise next season.

And when the season really begins, and those lineups, combinations, and new players and new technologies that were fantasized during the offseason all come to naught due to one defeat after another, they no longer pay attention to those trivial news. Everyone is clamoring for trades, substitutions, a new coach, or simply, looking forward to next season.

Now, Phoenix Suns fans and media are in the first phase of drawing up a blueprint for what the Suns will look like next season. But it seems that many people are not very satisfied with the Suns' operations this summer. Although they got three consecutive championship coach Fox Leon, they lost the Brazilian Lightning Barbosa in the draft, and then added some players who were not good enough but not good enough, such as Jasco, who has been proven not to adapt to the NBA. Visius, Brent Barry, who is old and can no longer fly, and towel master Turiaf, and the Mavericks also traded a young boy from Puerto Rico, all the signings look like None are reliable.

As for the two players picked up in the draft, one is Gasol’s younger brother, yes, everyone only remembers that this guy is Gasol’s younger brother; and there is Dudley from Boston College, who can’t run fast or jump high. forward, people don't know what the point of drafting such a guy is besides adding another guy from Boston to the Suns.

The core lineup of the team is still the same. Nash is still at the MVP level, but he is another year older; Stoudemire still doesn't seem to be able to defend, and will continue to be like this; Shawn Marion still can't. Shooting, and with the return of Stoudemire, his role is weakening; Boris Diaw faces a similar problem. When Stoudemire is there, it is difficult for him to play his maximum role. The magic of 2006 The performance was non-existent; as for LaGabell, he was good, but not just good.

Faced with this situation, the entire Phoenix basketball community is talking a lot. The only news that makes them feel good is that D'Antoni is willing to stay in the Suns to coach, and then that damn Fox-Leon has not won the trust of the city. . Yes, people in Phoenix call Leon "the-damn-Lion." Damn Leon. It’s not just the people in Phoenix who call it that, the entire Western Conference, no one likes Fox Leon and his Boston Celtics for any team that likes to attack.

In recent years, no matter what kind of gorgeous whirlwind offense the Suns play, they are always helpless when encountering two teams, one is the San Antonio Spurs and the other is the Boston Celtics. Especially the Boston Celtics. Every time Leon, who was still coaching in Boston, came to Phoenix, he would always lead the Celtics to kill the Suns' offense with tough defense, including some ugly methods.

Now that this guy has come to Phoenix, many people are worried that he will make the Suns look as ugly as the Celtics. The passionate Arizonan does not like his team to become a defense-first team that pursues "ultimate defense." team. They need hot dunks and hot three-pointers.

Under this kind of doubt, at the end of September, the Phoenix Suns' rookie training camp opened as scheduled. This is one of Leon's habits. When there are major changes in the team's personnel, he will open a training camp for the newcomers. Meet everyone and train and adapt together. This will make it less unfamiliar when the team's real training camp starts in October.

Because Marc Gasol still has to fulfill his contract in Spain, there are a total of five players in this rookie training camp, and they are just another lineup to play.

The training camp was held in the Arizona State University gymnasium. On the first day of the training camp, Leon got up very early. Now he lives in a high-end apartment in Phoenix and bought a second-hand Toyota. In the morning, he drove directly to Lake Oaxu City.

Arizona State University has a total of five campuses and one branch. This branch is located in Lake Oaxu, west of Phoenix. It is a small undergraduate college. After Leon arrived at the gym in Lake Wahasu City, he contacted the school and opened the door, and then some Suns staff arrived. Boss Savo felt very confused about Leon's insistence on opening a rookie training camp and putting the training hall in this place. This not only requires extra rent, but also requires employees to come here to work. You must know that the players need to train, and the help of trainers is indispensable.

But as the team's new coach, Leon insisted on this. Before the new season started, the boss of course tried to be satisfied. Leon looked at the gymnasium on the Wahasu Lake City campus. It was relatively small, a bit crude, with insufficient equipment and no physical therapy equipment. It was indeed not suitable for professional players to train here. However, Lake Oaxu City is a good place. It is a famous tourist destination in Arizona. Because it is very close to Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, many tourists come here. The most famous entertainment project here is of course the Jet Boat.

Around nine o'clock in the morning, five players arrived at the arena one after another. In addition to the five of them, there were also some other fringe players who came here to participate in the training camp and strive to get a contract and occupy a spot in the Suns. Such as Brian Skinner, Sean Marks, Lyndon Johnson and so on. Facing the players arriving one after another, Leon stood on the sidelines without saying a word, while everyone else dared to talk to them, including old players like Brent Barry.

Leon is well-known among players, and his iron fist is also notorious. After all, he is the first and only coach in NBA history to fight with players during games, and he also beats players all over the floor. tooth. When he leaned against the wall with his arms crossed, no one dared to come forward and say a word. Everyone spontaneously started chatting and warming up with the ball on the sidelines.

However, everyone is uneasy. They don’t know when Leon will start training. It is said that he has a terrible off-ball training method, which requires everyone to run and play through imagination. This is unheard of. The training method is said to be good by those who have practiced it. However, Fox-Leon did not seem to have any intention of leading them in off-ball training. He had been observing silently from the sidelines, not knowing what he was looking at.

Jose Barea was the first to be unable to bear it. Ever since he accidentally took another look in the crowd during the summer training camp, he was forced to leave his beloved Mavericks and coach Carlisle and go to Phoenix and Fox- Leon is here. He still remembered the day he was traded. Carlisle called him in the evening. He said on the phone that Fox-Leon was a coach who was good at observing and discovering. Although he looked cold, as long as he communicated with him attentively, he would The wisdom is amazing.

So Barea stepped forward to say hello to Leon, but Leon looked at him, said nothing, and continued to look up at everyone's training. Barea didn't know what medicine this guy was selling, so he could only return to the court and train aimlessly. Unexpectedly, Leon didn't speak all morning. When he knew that the training was coming to an end at noon, Leon finally clapped his hands and gathered everyone together.

Everyone thought that Leon would say something meaningful. For example, he observed everyone's training in the morning and discovered something. A few fringe players trained particularly hard in the first half, just to let Leon see it. But Leon said: "In the afternoon, after lunch, everyone will go to Lake Wahasu to play motorboating." After that, Leon left the training hall and went to find a place to eat.

The players and staff in the arena were left confused. Did they come here just to play motorboating?