The Whip of the God of Basketball

Fox-Leon and Auerbach worked together to deduce and prevent all the changes during the draft. Leon's mind's processing ability is so powerful that he can remember no matter how complicated the prediction is, combined with Auerbach With rich experience, they have formulated three sets of plans ABC, and of course they have reserved a set of the worst plan D for the sake of insurance.

In Plan A, the Celtics will select Joe Johnson, Dalembert and Arenas in three picks respectively, among which winning Johnson at the eleventh place will be the first difficulty. Any team in the ten could take the quiet, hard-working guard. For this reason, before the draft, the Celtics did not reveal any intention to win Johnson, so that when Joe Johnson heard that Stern reported his name in the eleventh round, his face showed a bit of surprise. Judging from the news before the draft, they have always expected to get an inside player, and the same is true from the perspective of their team's lineup needs. In the past, Pitino wanted to get a good center.

But in the end, the first step of Plan A was successfully completed. If Joe Johnson is taken away in advance, then they will implement Plan B. Plan B is a trading plan. There are two options. One is to trade No. 11 The draft pick, the second is to win Radmanovic and the Supersonics to exchange Jerome James, which also meets the Celtics' need to reinforce the center position. In fact, even Joe Johnson may be implemented as Plan B and traded directly in the draft, but neither Leon nor Wallace has a good target, and Angie in Boston did not move and did not call.

So plan A continued, and everything was moving in a good direction. Both Dalembert and Arenas were included in the bag. This was not a victory for the Celtics strategy, but their overseas player plan and team To explore the success of the evaluation system, it must be admitted that data workers such as Leon, Weissland and Morey use detailed data and open new data processing methods in the process of discovering new players. The current ability provides strong support.

Especially for the choice of Arenas, Leon's scouting report spoke highly of him, especially from the perspective of an attacking point guard, Leon also paid special attention to his competitiveness and diligence, although he There are also some minor character issues. When discussing the draft strategy, both Wallace and Angie tended to win Arenas directly at the eleventh pick, so as to avoid long nights and dreams, but Auerbach and Leon both believed that they should take a gamble. Select him first, which can maximize the interests of the team. If they win Arenas in the eleventh place, the Celtics will definitely not get Joe Johnson, and they will lose a big bargaining chip. Secondly, Leon has conducted an in-depth investigation on Arenas' growth experience, and knows that this guy is stubborn and unyielding. He is constantly being denied and crushing others' denials along the way. Perhaps choosing him at the 21st place can inspire more His motivation.

In the 1996 draft, Auerbach took the same risk. He wanted both Antoine Walker and Kobe Bryant. Jerry West announced early on that he wanted to win Kobe. Kobe would not go anywhere except the Lakers, so the Celtics missed Kobe. This is the price to be paid for greed.

But this time the Celtics succeeded. Of course, their harvest is far less than the possible successful selection in 1996, but it is enough to make them a moderate winner in this draft.

The San Antonio Spurs paid a lot in order to get their favorite candidate. In addition to the chance to sign Chris Anderson, at the end of the first round of the draft, the Grizzlies, Spurs, and Celtics made a three-way deal. The Grizzlies traded their No. 27 pick, Tony Parker, for Celtics point guard Kenny Anderson, and the Spurs had to trade their backup guard Steve Kerr to the Boston Celtics. The Walters, come and get the Parker they want. The Celtics picked up their fourth player in the draft, a point guard with four championship experience and a smart guy on par with Danny Ainge.

Since Kenny Anderson's salary is as high as 8 million US dollars, as a balance, the Grizzlies also gave the Celtics a future first-round pick, a current-round pick and part of the cash, so that the Celtics The 2001 NBA draft ended successfully. Three potential rookies, one experienced veteran, and two future draft picks. After nearly a month of hard work, the Celtics ushered in a bumper harvest in this draft.

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After the draft, Leon did not return to Boston with the team. The settlement of the rookies, the trading of veterans, the signing of contracts and the handling of follow-up matters were all done by Danny Ainge and Chris Wallace. Leon's affairs may not be a problem for Leon, but Auerbach doesn't want Leon to waste time on these technical tasks. In order to allow Leon to adapt to the job of assistant coach as soon as possible and get out of the role of scout as soon as possible, especially after completing such a successful draft, people will inevitably have a sense of satisfaction. Erbach didn't allow it, and he couldn't wait to send Leon to Los Angeles-Boston's rival city in basketball.

The two cities are one in the northeast and one in the southwest, one is cold and the other is enthusiastic, the other is heavy and the other is brisk, just like their team style, Los Angeles will never lack radiant superstars, and the Celtics will always be there no matter how big the star is. To pursue the concept of team basketball - throughout the history of the team, they have never had a single-season scoring champion.

As the two major basketball meccas in the United States, the two cities and the two teams are not inseparable or completely unrelated as people imagine, not to mention that Paul Pierce, the head star of the Celtics, is a Los Angeles long man. Big kid, and soon Arenas will join the ranks.

And if you look through the history of the Lakers, there are also people of green blood in their team, that is, the Celtics' championship guard in the 1950s and 1960s, the Lakers' championship coach in the 1970s and their championship manager in the 1980s, Bill - Sharman.

The person Leon was going to visit on this trip was the old Bill Sharman. On the night of the conference, he received a call from Auerbach, asking him to buy a plane ticket for the next day to go to California, and then go to Redon after arriving in Los Angeles. Many, Sharman lives in a house by the sea.

"I've already contacted William. You go to him, learn something and come back, he will arrange for you. Before the training camp starts, I hope you have the appearance of a coach. You can give me those stupid things again. The numbers are like a mathematician's, I'll screw your head off and use it as an ashtray. Also, the preparations for the Development League have entered the final process, and their draft is expected to start around November this year. Reece Anderson is a good boy, although he is not very easy to discipline... To be honest, there are quite a few bad boys in our camp this year, I hope you will gain something from William!" This is what Auerbach said to the old lady Leon on the phone Nagging instructions, William is Bill Sharman's original name, because the nickname "Bill" is so famous that people forget his real name.

This is not the first time that Leon has come to Los Angeles. In fact, in the past year, Leon has often come to Los Angeles. Apart from games, a lot of work related to scouting will be carried out in Los Angeles, because California is the most developed place for basketball in the United States. , here are the most NBA teams, the most NBA players in history and the most complete basketball leagues at all levels.

Leon's plane landed at LAX International Airport in Los Angeles, and it took only ten minutes by taxi to reach Redondo Beach, a famous seafood restaurant town in Southern California.

Although Auerbach wished to use a whip to whip Leon to run around to complete the characters he arranged, Leon still gave himself a little vacation after arriving in Redondo. In the sea breeze at night, he went to Redondo's most famous At Tony's Seafood Restaurant, I had a delicious seafood meal for the first time, and then enjoyed the beautiful scenery of Redondo and the vast and deep Pacific Ocean in the night.

However, Leon still underestimated Auerbach's impatience. Early the next morning, Leon was planning to go to the beach for another stroll, but he received a call from Bill Sharman: "Come here directly, boy. Arnold was dying of anxiety. As soon as I woke up in the morning, he called and asked if you were here yesterday. I said no, so he gave me the phone and asked me to find you quickly. You will have time to look around, but now I want See you. Can you drive? I'll take you to USC this afternoon."