The Whip of the God of Basketball

(Chapter 1 on New Year’s Eve, I wish you all a happy new year. Interested book friends can add me on WeChat jiangleiyu001, and join the group to send red envelopes to everyone. Without him, I just hope everyone is happy in the new year.) Before the start of the preseason In the past few nights, Jim O'Brien had trouble sleeping at night. For the Boston Celtics' work in the new season, he has only slept three or four hours a day for several days. Compared with last year when they just took over the Celtics, this year's team undoubtedly requires further progress, and the pressure on the head coach can be imagined.

In the position of NBA coach, unlike other jobs, the longer you sit, the more proficient and relaxed you will be. On the contrary, the head coach who has just taken office is often the best to carry out his work, and it is also the easiest to unite people and achieve results. As time goes by, the longer you stay in the coaching position of the same team, the greater the internal and external pressure will be. When the team's record collapses one day, the coach will become the first scapegoat .

Throughout the history of the NBA, those coaches who led the team to the championship often reached the peak in the first three years of taking over the team, such as Pat Riley, Phil Jackson, Tomjanovich, Lenny -Wilkens, KC-Jones. This is why Larry Bird is only willing to coach the Pacers for three years, and he will be laid off if he can't win the championship. Three years is a hurdle for the coach. It is too difficult to win the championship. At this time, the team will generally choose to change coaches. This is also one of the reasons why Pitino can't continue to stay in the head coach position. It has been three years, and everyone, including himself, has no patience.

O'Brien, who took over the Celtics for the first year, had a very good season last year. The devastation left by Pitino made the fans in Boston quite tolerant of O'Brien. Deman's stable performance on the court and decent off-court life, as well as Michael Reid's unexpected potential, all gave the Celtics under O'Brien a strong vitality. Not to mention re-entering the playoffs, the Celtics also showed the potential of a strong team among the coaches of the Bucks. Although the total score of 3:1 is not good, but except for the first defeat in Milwaukee, other The Celtics fought the powerful Bucks to the last moment in all three games.

Such a result undoubtedly exceeded the expectations of Boston fans, especially the matter of leading the team back to the playoffs, making O'Brien one of the most watched sports figures in Boston for a while, and the Boston media even started Compare him to NFL New England Patriots coach Bill Belikic. This undoubtedly made O'Brien, who has been an unknown assistant coach under Pitino, turn around and become one of the representatives of the NBA's new coaches, but it put a lot of pressure on O'Brien in the new season. And the media will no longer be satisfied with reaching the first round of the playoffs and then losing once, especially after experiencing a bumper draft, some media even use this draft as an analogy to the Celtics in 1980. It was a salty fish turnaround draft. That year, they got Kevin McHale in the No. 3 pick, and then traded for Robert Parish. The lineup that dominated an era was built overnight.

Boston is eager for such a miracle to be repeated. O'Brien is their new Bill Fitch. For such a team with such a glorious tradition but has experienced such a long darkness, any gradual, brick-by-brick The rebuilding of the team can no longer satisfy the people here. Moreover, the Celtics have never spent more than ten years honing a lineup and tactics like the Utah Jazz in history. Like the Lakers, they like to reach the sky in one step. Only championships and victories can satisfy them.

O'Brien's pressure came from this, and even greater pressure came from inside. He found that as the head coach, he could not control the direction of the team, especially in this draft, his opinions hardly played any role. A head coach should have put forward important opinions in the draft and trade, and some powerful coaches can even decide who to choose and who to trade.

In a special period when the power of the Celtics was restricted by the general manager-president-head coach triangle, the head coach completely lost the right to speak on team building, and the general manager completely fell to the side of Danny Ainge. The two of them completed the draft decision in Madison and the trade process in Boston. In those two days, O'Brien's job was to sit in the stands of the Garden Square and watch the scene.

Of course O'Brien knew that it was not Danny Angie and Chris Wallace who really decided all of this, but Arnold Auerbach, the big master behind the Green Corps, and Orr who returned to the Celtics Although Bach's power is smaller than in the past, his influence on the Celtics is no less than before. Now there are Auerbach's protégés in almost every department, and the boss Gaston has appointed Auerbach. It is rumored that the Boston consortium that is about to buy the Celtics also has a lot of ties to Auerbach. No matter how successful O'Brien was last season, he and Pitino came to the Celtics "outside group" after all. They were born in Kentucky and have Kentucky blood. In New England and Massachusetts, it's always been so out of place.

The consequence of not being able to participate in the draft and trade decisions is that O'Brien is not satisfied with the current team's lineup, especially with three young talents with outstanding talents at the guard position, but the inside is as weak as ever. Although Fox Leon promised to sign a potential defensive insider after the start of the new season, O'Brien doesn't think there are such players in the current free market. Dennis Rodman is one year older. No one knows when he will suddenly lose his nerve and kick over the drink bucket on the sidelines to retire directly. And Rodman has never been a basket-protecting insider. O'Brien longs for a solid, reliable, and strong defensive insider to deal with the offensive beasts that are now rampant in the NBA.

Dalembert has the possibility of such growth, but he is still too young. O'Brien feels that he can't wait until the Haitian really grows into a towering tree. He needs immediate combat power and players that suit his style of play. Not running around the world with a bunch of little guys who can only shoot hoops from the outside -- that's what O'Brien thinks anyway.

As the preseason approaches, the Celtics' training camp is about to start in full swing, but so far O'Brien has not come up with a clear coaching idea to establish the direction of the Celtics this season. He stayed up all night thinking about this matter. He kept calling Vogel and Dick Hart to communicate, and they would talk late at night, but they were still at a loss because they lacked power, and many plans could not be carried out.

After struggling for a long time, one night, O'Brien still picked up the phone. This time he didn't call Vogel or Hart, but directly called his father-in-law, Jack Ramsey. . It was already eleven o'clock in the evening, and ordinary old people had already fallen asleep, but O'Brien knew that his father-in-law had always had the habit of going to bed late, and he would not go to bed until two o'clock in the evening. Lan Blazers left when coaching.

As a famous champion coach in the NBA, Jack Ramsey's most glorious moment was also in his first year of coaching the Portland Trail Blazers. They won the only championship trophy in team history. After Walton's injury, he and the Blazers never reached the peak again. When O'Brien first coached the Celtics last season, the new head coach O'Brien had to call his father-in-law almost every night to discuss the day's work. This habit did not stop until the offseason. .

Now O'Brien knows it's time to pick up the phone again and ask the experienced Ramsey to answer questions. Maybe Ramsey can also bring substantial help, because O'Brien was able to directly become the Celtics last season. As the head coach, there is the friendship between Ramsey and Auerbach in it.

The phone connected after two beeps, and Ramsey's rough voice came from the receiver: "I know it's you, Jim, is there any problem with the team again?"

O'Brien really wanted to say, "Father-in-law, you still understand me," but he held back and cleared his throat and said, "Sorry to bother you so late. The preseason is about to start, and the team's lineup is exactly what I expected. It's not the same, I don't know how to adjust, I can't speak in management."

O'Brien talked almost everything with this old man, and he could only talk to Ramsay about such issues. This also seems to be a big problem for Ramsey, who is not ignorant of the Celtics' team structure. Moreover, he has been silently watching his son-in-law's development in the Celtics. The special situation he faces is something that Ramsey has never encountered before. He thought for a long time on the microphone before saying to O'Brien: "If you are not in the team's plan from the beginning, then prepare to leave early, especially if your competitors are very strong. If you're not willing to be a transitioner, then I bet they'll have a new transitioner. You know who they're really going to inherit the throne in the end, and he's very sharp right now."

O'Brien knew that Ramsey was referring to Fox Leon. He was indeed very sharp. Almost everyone knew that he became Auerbach's heir. He jumped from a scout to an assistant coach. will become the head coach. The speed of his ascent is astonishing, but his performance is also solid. The data and video analysis system established by him and Vogel last season has become an important reference data for O'Brien's coaching. In the draft, he gave an excellent scouting report and also played an important role in the establishment of the Development League. In the summer, it was also rumored that he went to the University of Southern California to complete the special coaching training, and everything was moving towards becoming the head coach.

In the next ten minutes, O'Brien was in no mood to continue chatting with his father-in-law. They talked about family life and ended the conversation. After hanging up the phone, O'Brien sighed deeply. He didn't expect that the scout he met for the first time in Chicago had grown into the current successor, but O'Brien didn't want to give up the position of coach and A hard-won reputation.

He decided to lead the Celtics on the path he designed for himself.