Basketball Legends: Strikers Are King

In the Bankers Life Arena, home of the Pacers, Vogel came to general manager Bird's office as soon as he got off the plane.

When Bird saw him, he stopped talking and threw away the documents in his hand.

"Can you tell me,"

Bird looked at the dusty Vogel and asked:

"What's going on in this game?"

Vogel could feel the irrepressible anger just from his voice, and quickly explained:

"It's our performance that's not good..."

"Bad performance?"

It's okay if he didn't say it. As soon as he said this, Bird was stunned for a moment, and he laughed angrily:

"My performance was not good, so bad that I lost 23 points at halftime. Do I have to thank others for holding back, otherwise I would have lost 58 points in the whole game?"

Seeing Vogel's silence, Bird became even more angry.

"Look, come."

He took out the game statistics from his desk and pointed them out to the team's head coach one by one.

"Everyone, ah, give me a shooting percentage of less than 35%. Do you think you are shooting three-pointers?!"

"Look at them, they made 12 of 21 shots and had a plus-minus of +31. Where is our forward?"

"Didn't you assure me before the game started that our forward line is definitely the first in the league? Where is it?"

Vogel believes that people with strength can succeed in anything, and similarly, people who can talk trash can also talk trash in any position.

What's terrible is that he is now standing in front of a top trash talker, even the trash talker Jordan, welcoming the breeze blowing in his face.

Finally, Bird's vocabulary was almost the same and his speed slowed down. Vogel quickly expressed his stance:

"Don't worry, I'm confident that I can help the players adjust and we won't lose when we meet the Heat again."

"snort!"

Bird snorted coldly and said:

"Not losing? Do you think we are the Celtics who have won eight consecutive championships?"

"The Celtics have never won a single season."

Once the anger is gone, only reason remains.

He sighed, threw the almost wet paper in his hand on the coffee table, and turned to walk behind his desk.

At this time, he finally returned to his usual hard-line Pacers general manager.

"There is no game that can win 100% of the time, so I don't care about winning or losing, but you have to pay attention to the problems exposed in this game!"

"As for how to do it, that's your business!"

He said firmly, and then waved his hand to let Vogel go out.

Vogel knew that if not for the 4-1 start, ranking third in the Eastern Conference had given the management and fans too high expectations, and the Pacers had lost so miserably this time, it would have been a slap in the face to them.

Bird probably doesn't want to get involved in the team's coaching staff.

Because Bird believes that professional people doing professional things and meddling indiscriminately will only make things worse.

Vogel said:

"Actually, I already have an idea for the next game..."

Bird waved his hand to stop him, and instead said:

"Frank, you are the new head coach, and I know you are unsure."

"But you have to remember that I signed a three-year contract with you. As long as you don't go out of your way, you won't be fired after only one year with the Pacers."

He raised his eyes and looked deeply at Vogel.

"I have patience, but you should know what I want in return."

Vogel immediately straightened his back and expressed his stance:

"Don't worry, general manager, the Pacers will definitely become a strong contender for the championship in the next three years!"

"Okay, coming here so late will affect you, go back and rest."

Bird lowered his eyebrows, looked at the ornaments on the desk in a trance, and sent Vogel out of the office.

"Huh~"

After closing the door, Vogel did not take the elevator, but walked up the stairs, letting out a sigh of relief as he walked.

The team suffered a disastrous defeat, and the directors would most likely want an explanation. Bird scolded Vogel, which was equivalent to giving an explanation.

Bird may not really want to scold Vogel, because this is just one game in a long regular season, but he has to make a statement.

Also because the general manager has already expressed his position, it is difficult for other directors to say anything else.

This is just a little bit of tacit understanding between Vogel and Bird.

"The next game..."

Even so, the pressure was still really on Vogel's shoulders. He was about to take the car home, but turned around at the door and returned to the tactics room. He pulled out the video of today's game and planned to watch it all night again.

Time waits for no one.

In the general manager's office where there has been no sound for a long time.

"Oh."

Bird laughed to himself, stood up, and looked out the window at the dim street scene.

Many people know that Bird and Magic supported the NBA at that time. In the ancient times, in addition to Russell, Chamberlain and Dr. J. Irving, the only three consecutive MVPs in the 1980s were enough to firmly place Bird among the top ten stars in history.

ranks.

But few people know that Bird's basketball life after retirement was equally exciting. In 1997, he won the NBA's best coach award just after he became the coach of the Pacers. Later, he was promoted to the director of basketball of the Pacers until he became the president of the Pacers.

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It was Bird who injected a tough gene into the Pacers. The "never give up" Pacers stood up again after the 2004 Auburn Hills Palace incident.

Recruiting West and trading for George Hill is what Bird believes is an important opportunity for the Pacers' rise.

Coupled with Granger and Hibbert in the team, the Pacers in the next few years, Bird thinks, will really be the most powerful contender for the Eastern Conference championship.

But no one expected that when the team that had high hopes faced last season's Eastern Conference champions, with Wade absent, they would be beaten by their opponents and defeated in a panic.

This also made Bird lose his sense of normalcy for an instant, and he rarely got angry.

Vogel didn't know that Bird's anger just now was indeed true.

"Is Granger really going to be the leader that leads the team to the next level?"

At this moment, Bird began to think seriously about this issue.

Granger's approachability is only a minor flaw in the eyes of the arrogant Bird, but facing James, being beaten by his opponents on both offense and defense, this is indeed a big problem.

In particular, the rise of George, who is very similar to Granger in the playoffs last year, made the management overjoyed.

After the surprise, there are two practical questions:

Can two small forwards who need the ball coexist harmoniously on the same team?

Once coexistence is no longer possible, which one do the Pacers need to keep?

It is really difficult to choose between a rookie who is younger, has more potential, and may even be stronger offensively and defensively, and a 29-year-old star. It is really difficult to make a bet on the future or win in the present.

Bird probably didn't expect that he would need to make a choice in this multiple-choice question in the near future, and that not long after, he would face this dilemma again.