The Whip of the God of Basketball

When Antawn-Walker finished his 20-minute shootaround, he felt a little depleted. And when Leon told him from the side that he would be asked to practice defensive skills for 15 minutes, Walker felt a little bit broken. This is Walker's punishment for being late today. Walker was late only half an hour after the training officially started. He just took a plane from his hometown of Chicago to Boston last night, and then he slept a long time, woke up and drove to the training hall.

At the beginning, Leon didn’t criticize Walker, but asked him to change his clothes and warm up to join the training. Walker thought that his lateness would be over. Anyway, he used to be late and leave early. As the team’s number one star, Coaches generally don't say much.

When Walker got a 6-year 71 million contract with the Celtics, what he gained was not only money and status, he also understood a lot of truths in his six-year career. For example, this is a league of superstars, and fans love stars, so as long as you can score on the field and save the team, then they will be particularly tolerant to you. Correspondingly, the coach will be very tolerant of you, and many of your actions are allowed, such as eating high-calorie food, taking too many shots on the court, or yelling at the referee for a technical foul. And being late for training is just a very small thing, and Walker didn't take it to heart at all.

Even if the team has a lot of Celtics celebrities, what does it matter? How many other young fans will know them?

But when the team's official training ended at 2:30 in the afternoon and Walker was about to return to the locker room to change clothes, the team's new head coach Leon stood in front of him. He threw the basketball in his hand into Walker's hand, then waved to him, motioning for Walker to come with him to the video room.

If there is anyone in the Celtics management that scares Walker, then Leon must be the first to bear the brunt. Walker is a witty and cheerful person who is nicknamed "comedy", while Leon is a ruthless king of Hades. When he was an assistant coach, he was awed by the players for his strict training and his honesty to the players, and his super high IQ and strong memory made Celtic players more afraid of arguing with Leon. Because you will be speechless in response.

So Leon asked him to follow him to the video room, and Walker obediently followed. As a result, in the video room, Leon first stated that Walker needed to be punished for being late this morning, and the content of the punishment was on a videotape that Leon played for Walker.

It was Leon's videotaped 20-minute warm-up session with Steve Nash that morning at Team Canada's practice facility during the World Championships in Indianapolis. Although it is just a so-called warm-up exercise, it is actually a very high-intensity shooting exercise. Nash uses him to warm up before training and after training.

Leon believes that this 20-minute uninterrupted training is a very good way for a single player to improve and maintain his state, and it is also a good exercise for a player's actual shooting ability.

This 20-minute training mainly consists of several parts, starting with jumpers on both sides of the free throw center line, turnaround jump shots at the free throw line, and then five fixed-point three-point shots, step-back jump shots after dribbling, jump shots after simulated pick-and-rolls, and finally The free fall quick three-point shot. In addition, according to the position and technical characteristics of different players, turn-around jump shots and fast mid-range jump shots will be added.

A major feature of this set of practice methods is that players only use one basketball for practice throughout the whole process. No one will pass you a basket of basketballs. After each shot, you have to pick up the ball by yourself to continue. Moreover, each shooting training method has both a time limit and a quantity limit, which means that a sufficient number of balls need to be shot in a short period of time, otherwise the time will be increased.

Walker thought it would be a piece of cake for him, and he could do it easily, but he didn't realize that the intensity was really great after practicing, especially when Leon was counting with a stopwatch, which made Walker feel every minute. It was extremely difficult.

So when Walker finally finished the 20 minutes, when Leon told him to do defensive training, Walker began to doubt his life. He made an uncooperative expression, lowered his face coldly, pouted his mouth to show that he was unhappy, it would have been useful in the past when facing O'Brien or Carroll, when they would all tell Walker that he could Go back to rest, and at the same time tell him to pay attention to injuries.

But Walker squinted Leon, he was unmoved, and had already started calling Dave Cowens over to give Walker one-on-one defensive training. Cowens, as a well-known tough guy center in the NBA back then, was able to gain a foothold in the league against a group of giants with a height of 6 feet 9, relying on his extremely tough defense. Before being called by Leon, he was "abusing" Chris Anderson on a half court. Anderson was also punished for extra practice after training because of being late. Anderson had no objection to this and could only accept the test obediently. Ernes' training.

Seeing Cowens approaching, Walker couldn't help but feel a little angry. He didn't practice systematically because of the treatment of knee and ankle injuries throughout the summer, so his physical reserve was very poor. Today, he had a day of tactical training and 20 minutes of shooting. During the practice, he felt a little tired. At this time, he missed the big bed at home so much that he could lie on it, drink beer, eat fried chicken, and watch his favorite soap operas. The team's new coach at the time, Fox Leon, stood in his way. He felt that his personal time had been violated, and he had the right to freely control his life after the team's training.

Walker frowned. He was about to turn around and leave and go back to the locker room. Even if he had a conflict with the head coach on the first day, it didn't matter. He wanted to rest. But a detail of Leon's movement dissuaded Walker. He saw Leon, who had clasped his hands on his chest before, lowered his hands and clenched his left fist. Walker thought of Dennis Rodman, who often drank and went to nightclubs with him last season. Once Rodman talked about why he came to Boston after drinking. He said that he was like playing a wrestling match in Sydney, Australia. He didn't want to go to Boston at all. He didn't expect Leon to go to Sydney alone to find himself, and he wanted to fight himself. As a result, in ten minutes, Rodman couldn't even touch Leon's hairs, and Leon actually had several chances to KO Rodman.

Walker thought again of Malik Siri, who was in the gym recovering from leg strength training when Leon knocked him down in a Boston bar, smashing his jaw.

Walker broke out in a cold sweat. Although he told himself in his heart that it was impossible for Leon to hit his players as the head coach, he was really afraid that Leon would hit his jaw into six pieces with an uppercut. After hesitating for three seconds, Walker decided to give in and started one-on-one defensive training with Cowens. This is the training program he hates the most. wrestler.

………………………

By the time Walker finished his punishing workouts, he felt like his lower body didn't belong to him anymore. He almost sat on the ground with his ass slumped, and the lack of systematic training in a summer made his physical fitness a little lacking. In contrast, Paul Pierce is still discussing some technical details with Leon. Although Leon doesn't know how to play, his eyes are really accurate and easy to use.

After a while, Leon called everyone together. In fact, the team's training ended an hour and a half ago. If some players would leave and go home last season, some hardworking players would stay and practice. Today, everyone is either voluntary or forced to stay for additional training, combining their technical shortcomings or strengths for targeted exercises.

Leon distributed a training form to each player. In addition to the daily team training plan, there are also personal training suggestions for everyone. These are Leon and the coaching staff. During the time, through a large number of video viewing and data analysis, reasonable opinions are given.

"My Celtics have worked hard. On the first day of training, we had one and a half hours more training than last season. Some people may not be used to it, but I think this is very important for the team's new season and everyone. The future of the players is beneficial. Because this one and a half hours of training will be part of my 'career best' plan this season, it will improve your personal performance. And your strength, It is the root of the team's strength." As he spoke, Leon pulled out a large tactical whiteboard, which was covered with pieces of paper, and each piece of paper belonged to a player.

"Starting from the next preseason game, each of you's data will be counted on the paper form above, and on the top of the form, there is your average data from the previous season. I will use your scores, Rebounds, assists, blocks, turnovers, fouls and playing time, calculate several indexes, some of these indexes represent your efficiency, some represent your contribution to the team's victory, and some represent your shooting level. For each Players, whether you are a rookie who has just entered the league or a veteran who has been in the past, I hope you can play the best performance of your career." This is the real center of Leon's work in the summer, by him and Morey, Weiss Rand co-designed and developed the 'Career Best' program, quantifying the performance of players with data to motivate players to keep moving forward.

After finishing speaking, Leon announced the end of today's training, but the Celtic players present, especially the young people, seemed to have no intention of leaving the training hall and going home.