The Whip of the God of Basketball

On the way back, Wallace complained to Leon, and he felt that Leon's answer was too hasty.

"You can say we like Michael Reid, and then we'll pick up a few other players, and that's a normal answer, but you add 'he's the best player in this training camp,' oh my god, His prediction is in the second round, my good buddy in the second round. Do you think the people in front will die overnight before the draft?" Wallace's complaint didn't mean to blame, after all, he didn't talk to him before the interview. Leon ventilated, this was his first interview, and he performed quite well.

In O'Brien's words, it's remarkable that he doesn't get his name and gender wrong.

Leon just smiled and didn't speak, and he didn't refute, because he didn't have a good reason to convince the Celtics scouts that Michael Reed was the best player in this rookie. When I said that during the interview, it was purely from my intuition.

Just like Auerbach said, Leon decided to trust his intuition for the time being in judging the pros and cons of players, because the data is not reliable enough for the time being, and he has no experience. He only has that intuition advantage, just as in Like Michael Carter-Williams for the Auerbach training camp, he just thinks this guy is the best in the training camp.

"Michael Reid, I know him, if he had entered in 1999, he might have been selected in the top ten in the first round, but this year, you see his declining data year by year, and his physical test, it's mediocre, I really can't think of any reason why he would be selected in the first round, let alone the best player." Vogel looked at the scouting report on Reed and commented.

In 1999, Reid led Ohio University to the Final Four. Although they lost to the University of Connecticut led by Richard Hamilton, they were still in the limelight.

However, he did not participate in the election that year, but played for another year. As a result, the team failed to reproduce the glory of 1999, and his personal data also declined year by year, which made his rating in scouts drop a lot. Great, it fell directly from the first round of prediction to the middle of the second round.

And so far, no team has shown a particularly obvious interest in Reid. On the first day of the rookie training camp, Reed's performance can only be said to be quite satisfactory, and he did not perform particularly brightly to change the scouts' perception of him. his senses.

Only Leon paid special attention to Reed. He carefully observed Reed's mid-range and three-point test training, and he came to only one conclusion: this guy's shooting is really unstable.

Leon's criterion for judging is not the number of hits, nor the shooting posture, and he doesn't know what a standard shooting posture is. Leon pays attention to the final distribution of each shot on the basket.

If you open Leon's notebook, you will see a strange picture on the sixth page.

There is a standard circle drawn in the center of the note page - this is drawn by Leon freehand, and then there are many smaller circles on top of this larger circle, and the faces of these circles are pressed against the sides of the larger circle .

At the same time, this large circle is divided into four parts by two mutually perpendicular straight lines, so that these small circles will be distributed in four quadrants.

The picture on this page is the shooting distribution map drawn by Leon for Michael Reid. These small circles are the approximate positions where Reed missed the shot and the basketball hit the basket observed by Leon through his superior eyesight.

From this picture, Leon can find that these small circles are distributed in four quadrants, and the distribution is very irregular. Throughout the afternoon, Reid missed about 30 shots. Although the sample size is far from enough, Leon can feel from the distribution of these shots that Reid's shot adjustment ability should not be strong. For a shooter, even if he can't make a shot, the position where he hits the basket should be almost in one place.

However, Leon still has reason to believe that Michael Reid will be the best player and the best pitcher.

No matter how other people complained, Leon just sat in the car quietly, perfecting the picture on page six silently. He had an urge to use a distribution function to describe the distribution of Reid's shooting points, but then he thought that shooting is not a random event, and at the same time thought of the impossibility of using a distribution function to predict complex events, so he gave up on this idea.

…………………

The first day of the training camp was spent like this. For Leon, scouting work is a huge challenge, but it is also a great pleasure. Although there will be many difficulties in gaining a foothold and development here, he feels fulfilled and fulfilled. Excited, especially as he discovers that he has access to his beloved figure again.

This may not have been thought of by Auerbach. He only valued Leon's intuition and observation skills, but he did not expect that this guy had a more ambitious goal-to use numbers to describe and predict the sports world.

Of course, Leon didn't think that far at this time. The reason why he fiddled with the numbers is actually very simple - he has too little experience in basketball, so he can only use these past data to reconstruct what happened on the basketball court. .

After returning to the hotel, Leon started working again. This time, he will not only face data, but also video.

When Leon went to the training camp, the anti-record camera filmed for a whole day, and shot all the details on the court, so that Vogel could edit and analyze it after returning to the hotel to discover more valuable information. content.

Video analysis in the NBA is a very important daily work. Every team will set up a video analyst position, allowing them to use sharp eyes to discover various problems in games and training, and show them to coaches and players with intuitive images.

Five people from the coaching team watched the training camp video edited by Vogel together in Vogel's room. Two of the five sat on the sofa, two sat on the bed, and one sat on the floor, all staring at the TV screen. People who don't know will think that five people are watching a small movie.

Vogel focused on editing the training process of several Celtics favorite players, including Przybilla, Samaki, Moiso, Magloire, and of course Vogel added Michael Riley in the end. Germany.

While Vogel played the video, he played some slow motion to explain. At the end, everyone's eyes hurt a little.

"Oh my god, this Michael Reed's shot is like throwing shit. My eyes hurt a little, but now it hurts even more." When Chris Wallace saw the part of Michael Reid, he was already He rubbed his eyes and started calling.

But Pitino said: "This Reed does have some potential. Although various factors before the draft are not good for him, some of the talents he has shown are still admirable, especially his sense of the ball, which is quite unique. But his Shooting is indeed a big problem, not stable enough, and the shooting posture is not standard, I don't know why Leon you are optimistic about this guy?"

This is Pitino's first real communication with Leon on basketball. Before that, he had always had opinions on him and made things difficult for him. But after three days of getting along with him, he found that Leon was a good employee. First of all, he was serious about his work. He is hardworking and responsible. He is strong and strong to do a lot of the work of the team; secondly, he is indeed unique in basketball, at least no one can understand his notebook; finally, Pitino is also tired , I don’t want to engage in unnecessary struggle anymore, since I asked him to be a scout, let’s do it.

Leon stood up from the ground and said to Vogel: "Play the video back, play it back, okay, watch this part."

The video is played back to the offensive training with the ball, which is the part of testing the players to attack with the ball and face the basket.

Then, Leon asked Vogel to replay it several times, watched several parts of the ball-handling training, and then Leon asked everyone: "Didn't you find anything?"

Wallace looked confused, Vogel was thoughtful, O'Brien shook his head, Pitino looked up at the ceiling, and everyone was silent.

Leon didn't give a shit, he said: "Although Michael Reid shoots with his left hand, he is an out-and-out right-hander!"

"Right-handed?" Vogel couldn't help but say, he didn't expect that Michael Reed, the player who shoots with his left hand, would be right-handed.

"That's right, Reed is right-handed. Although he shoots with his left hand, in fact, judging from his other game habits, he is completely a right-handed player. This can be seen from some of the details of his movements. For example, he When facing the opponent with the ball, he habitually protects the ball with his right hand and stretches out his right foot to test." Leon pointed to a video screen and said.

Most NBA players are left-handed, especially guards. You can hardly tell whether he is a left-handed player or a right-handed player just by dribbling.

Only shooting is the best and most intuitive way to tell whether a player is left-handed or right-handed.

However, there are also some players who want to shoot with their non-dominant hand, and the hardships and efforts to come back are unimaginable for ordinary players.

Michael Reed is one of them.

This is one of the reasons why Leon believes that Reid can become the best player. Although this is not a great reason, it makes Leon have a premonition that this will be a player who uses hard work to change his destiny.

Leon understands how important hard work is in a class of rookies without too much talent.