The Whip of the God of Basketball

NBA, the highest hall of basketball in the world, this basketball organization established since 1949, has grown from small to large, from weak to strong, and its influence has grown from a few states in the east to the entire United States, and from the entire United States to the world. It has become a worldwide organization. sports organization.

As the most important source of fresh blood in the league every year, the annual draft in June is the most watched event after the finals. At the same time, the draft also means the opening of a new season.

The rookie training camp before the draft is the Golden Globes before the Oscars, the warm-up before the feast.

The annual rookie training camp is generally held about a month before the start of the draft, and the location is mainly in Chicago or Orlando.

In the training camp, rookies will undergo physical testing, public training and 5-on-5 simulated confrontation. At that time, the managers, scouts and even the bosses of each team will come to the scene to watch the performance of these rookies. Their performance in the training camp The data and performance in the confrontation game will greatly affect their pick in the draft.

For those super rookies, they hope to use their outstanding performances to get a higher draft, which means greater fame and more commercial interests; for relatively ordinary rookies, they want to perform well in the training camp Strive to be selected in the first round, so a four-year guaranteed contract will be offered by a certain team; and those marginal characters must do their best in the training camp to show their every advantage in order to enter the NBA, although That way, no one is willing to choose them.

It can be said that the NBA rookie training camp is the first training for players before they enter the professional circle. From here, the team-oriented, youthful and friendly campus basketball will come to an end. The commercial basketball empire opens its doors to them. Benefits, honors, slander and pressure will follow.

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The 2000 NBA draft will be held in Minnesota at the end of June, and now it is early June, less than a month before the draft. This year's draft training camp will be held in the eastern city of Chicago.

At around two o'clock in the afternoon, after a working meal, Leon, who had a plane ticket to Chicago, left the headquarters building with a notebook, a signature pen and a sports backpack issued to him by the Celtics. Karl told him that every scout should have a laptop, but a laptop was expensive in 2000, and the Celtics didn't have one for a temp on a three-month contract. equipment.

Leon didn't care about this, he didn't want to run around with an old-fashioned laptop that was as thick and heavy as cement board, a well-made calfskin-covered notebook was enough for him.

At the same time, considering Leon's economic situation, Carl also gave Leon a credit card with a limit of 20,000 US dollars for travel expenses; gave him a small phone book, which listed other Celtics who had arrived in Chicago. Carl told Leon that someone would call him when he got to Chicago.

Without exception, Leon flipped the phone book on both sides after leaving the headquarters and threw it in the trash can. For him, this kind of thing is a waste of space.

After taking a taxi to the airport, Leon sent a text message to Khomeinis, informing her of her current situation, and said that she would not go to her home to say goodbye to her, and hoped to contact her again when she returned to Boston.

At this point Khomeinis should be on her way back to Boston from Marshfield.

Leon still wanted to call Auerbach, but he hesitated on the keyboard for a while and still didn't press the number, because Leon didn't know what to say to Auerbach, whether to thank him for the job he introduced, or Ask for some scouting details.

In Karl's office, Karl spent nearly two hours introducing to Leon the main content of the scouting work and the tasks he needs to complete in these three months.

Leon reviewed Karl's two-hour introduction in his mind, and quickly summarized the scouting work into three items: 1. Evaluate a group of talents; 2. Select the most suitable talent for the team from a group of talents; 3. Discover not-so-ordinary geniuses amidst a crowd of more-ordinary ones.

Now, Leon already knows that in the NBA, the team will get more than one draft pick every year, and pick the rookies he wants according to the order in which they are in a group of rookie basketball hands.

Every player who is eligible for the draft is a basketball genius in a broad sense, the elite of all college basketball in the United States, so the job of scouting is not to find talent at all, because everyone knows these guys are all geniuses.

Therefore, the core of scouting work is to use clearer standards to describe and evaluate this group of talents, to make expectations for their future development, and to provide reference opinions for the team's selection in the draft.

The most difficult items of this work are in the second and third items.

Every year, there are always a few players who belong to the geniuses among the geniuses. The main job of the team is to count on their luck and get a higher draft pick to select them.

Therefore, in the selection of this level, the most important thing is luck, and secondly, how the team management operates in a limited space with limited chips to win possible picks and pass in the draft process. Various operations include smoke bombs, robberies, post-election transactions, etc. to pick the most wanted talented newcomers.

The role of scouts here is not prominent.

And when these players are selected, the test of the scouts will come.

Among the remaining group of rookies who look similar but may be very different in the future, the team needs to choose a player who is the most suitable for the team and has the most potential. This kind of pick is generally ranked in the middle and back end of the first round. It is a choice that truly reflects the comprehensive strength of the team's scouting system. From the general manager of the team to temporary scouts like Leon, everyone's intelligence and analysis are very important.

In the second round, which is the third job, to find not-so-ordinary talents among a group of more ordinary talents. This draft generally does not have the core players of the team, but it is often easy to produce some excellent role players. , It is a good opportunity for the team to supplement the bench and deepen the depth of the lineup.

This level of draft is the most test of the strength of scouts. Those second-round picks are often not very popular. Every player must have relatively obvious flaws, but also has its own advantages. How to clarify the relationship between these flaws and strengths, and focus on the future. Development depends on the skills of those scouts.

Leon was thinking about these problems in the taxi, but he didn't notice when the phone rang, so he missed Khomeinis' call.

He picked up the notebook and wrote down many of the new terms he learned today with a signature pen, such as "Pre-Draft-Camp (draft training camp)", "Lottery (Lottery show)", "Green-Room (little Green House)" and so on.

It's not that Leon can't remember these things, even if he uses a notebook to write them down, it's meaningless to carry out his work. He just doesn't want to make his notebook space. After all, Karl said so many things, there is nothing particularly worthwhile for him From the excerpt, he already had a general understanding of the job in his mind.

But how to do it, he still has a lot to learn. Leon only regrets that he doesn't have a "scouting work textbook" at hand, so that he can learn this course on the way to Chicago. Eighty-nine is close to ten.

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On the other hand, in Chicago, this year's rookie training camp is scheduled for June 5th. As early as a week before the official opening of the camp, the managers, head coaches, scouts of each team, and agents from some agency companies People, hired scouts, all gathered in this city to prepare for the upcoming rookie brawl.

This time the Celtics scouting team continues to be led by Rick Pitino, because the former chief scout Leon Popper has been promoted to the team's player director, so Popper stayed in Boston for data collection With the finishing work, the first-line survey work was handed over to Pitino and team general manager Chris Wallace, as well as Celtics assistant coach Jim O'Brien and video analyst Frank Vogue. you.

Because Pitino's assistant coach in Kentucky, Weston Bennett, followed Pitino to the Celtics as a senior scout for three years, and was hired by Kentucky State University as the head coach in May this year. So the current Celtics team has no full-time scouts.

According to Pitino's vision, he hopes to transfer the video analyst Frank Vogel to the team's chief scout, and the work of the video analyst will be handed over to Jamil Young alone. But just yesterday he received a call from Michael Karl, the team has hired new scouts, and will join the team in the early morning of the 3rd, when they will form a complete team to complete the summer tasks.

Pitino knew that this scout was introduced by Reid Auerbach, and Carl directly reported it to the bosses of the team owner. For Paul Gaston and others who had already moved the idea of ​​selling the team, It is really good that Auerbach is willing to recommend candidates, which means that the red head will start to re-intervene in the daily affairs of the Celtics, which will help the bosses to transfer the Celtics, because Auerbach is the old man of the Celtics. Shop sign.

What's more, what Auerbach recommended was just an ordinary scout position. A career like a scout is neither important nor important in the NBA. The important thing is that no team can do without them. The unimportant thing is that the team Anyone here can be a scout.

This is not a profession that requires a professional technical title, but a job that relies heavily on experience, qualifications and connections. Vision and news are the most important, at least in the current NBA. Some teams don’t even set up full-time players. Exploration, but by people in other positions.

The Celtics working group stayed at the Chicago Athletic Association Hotel. After receiving the news from Carl, Pitino gathered all the team members into his room for a brief meeting.

This year is a difficult year for Pitino. Not only has the record not improved, but the team he built is also facing the danger of falling apart.

Assistant coach Jim O'Brien and senior scout Weston Bennett who just resigned are both old partners who worked with him during his coaching at the University of Kentucky, and now one person has left.

The assistant coach Andy Anfield, whom he poached from the Bucks the year before, also chose to leave this year; As a result, Auerbach directly pushed up a new scout, which made Pitino very unhappy.

After being humiliated at Marshfield on June 1, Pitino directly left the training camp and returned to Boston. He never thought about the possibility of courting Auerbach, and was ready to resign if there was any sign of being fired.

Unexpectedly, after the visit on June 1, the voice about Pitino's dismissal in Boston suddenly became much quieter. It seems that although Auerbach embarrassed Pitino on the surface, he secretly supported Pitino. So he can safely lead the team to Chicago to prepare for the draft.

In the room, the three most important figures, O'Brien, Vogel, and Wallace, are all present. These people have been partners of Pitino's colleagues for many years, and they have a close relationship and cooperation. Pitino didn't talk nonsense. Tell everyone about the news from Boston.

"Do you know who he is?" asked Wallace, the No. 2 man behind Pitino.

"No, I don't know. Carl didn't disclose this person's personal information, but said that he will be here tonight." Pitino shook his head and replied.

"What is this? Sand mixed?" Vogel said bluntly.

"Maybe, I'd like to see what kind of sand this is." Jim O'Brien added at last, expressing the feelings of everyone in the room, who are curious about who this new scout is.