Start coaching the Thunder, starting with Westbrook

Chapter 197 All-Star Weekend Night
February 2014-2, 14 is the NBA All-Star Weekend.

In the past few days, except for the All-Star players, all the team players are resting. For them, it is a rare holiday in the long regular season, and they can relax.

For the players selected to the All-Stars, this is not only an honor in itself, but also an entertainment to play and relax.

The most important thing is to maintain a relaxed and good mood. Anyway, Li Sheng heard Uduka say so when he came over.

Last year, as the head coach of the All-Star Western Conference, Popovich brought Udoka with him. Li Sheng had no part to participate, so this was the first time he participated in the All-Star in his memory, and he suddenly became one of the protagonists.

But the All-Star Game is the main event, and it will be on the last day.

The morning of the 14th is the time for rookie training, and then the All-Star Media Day will start in the afternoon. The stars will gather together, participate in the media meeting, and arrange community care activities.

Afterwards, the list of Hall of Fame inductees was announced. Among the 15-man list this year, "The Dream" Olajuwon is undoubtedly the most shining one. In addition, there are Ewing, Mullin, Dantley, etc., as well as coaches such as Nelson and Pat Riley.

Every year, the NBA announces the list of inductees into the Hall of Fame. The Hall of Fame is naturally a reward for those who have achieved achievements in the past or have made special contributions to this event.

For example, Dayao's selection into the Hall of Fame in the future is largely related to his role as a bridge of communication between China and the United States at a certain level.

And if Li Sheng wins enough championships or has enough influence in the future, he also hopes to be selected into the Hall of Fame as a head coach.

Of course, there are actually players in the Thunder team who are sure to enter the Hall of Fame after retirement, and that is Durant.

As for Westbrook, he may have to accumulate honors for another two years, which is still not enough for now.

But now that Li Sheng has come over, his career trajectory has been changed in the future. If he does not have the MVP and the triple-double season, his historical status may decline.

But on the other hand, if he has a few more championships, maybe his evaluation will improve instead.

At [-] o'clock in the evening, the All-Star Weekend Night competition officially began. The first was the Celebrity Competition, and then the Rookie Challenge.

The Rookie Challenge is a rookie team selected by two retired NBA stars, including first-year and second-year rookies, to form a team and then compete.

This year's two celebrities are Chris Webber, who once led the Kings to the peak, and Grant Hill, who once attracted much attention as Jordan's successor and became the All-Star vote leader as soon as he entered the league.

Antetokounmpo and Gobert were lucky, and they were selected by Chris Webber together. They also had Davis, McAway, Hardaway Jr., Trey Burke, Kelly Olynik and Mason Plumlee on the same team.

The players of the Hill team are Lillard, Beal, Zhuang Shen, Harrison Barnes, Terrence Jones, Oladipo, Valanciunas, Dion Waiters and Pero Antiche.

This saves Li Sheng and his troubles. When the younger brothers of the team participate in the game, Li Sheng and the others naturally have to come to cheer, Durant, Westbrook and Reggie are also present, and Ennis and Robertson who are free and have nothing to do, just come to "holiday" and cheer for their good friends.

After the start of the game, they only need to help Webber cheer. It can be seen that Weber obviously watched the Thunder game. In addition, he originally played in the Princeton system, so he naturally prefers the Thunder's style of play. This may be why he chose Antetokounmpo and Gobert, two big men who can pass the ball.

But the game is another matter. Even after training, it is not so easy to cooperate tacitly. Passing the ball requires more coordination.

On the other hand, on the Hill team, the players' personal abilities are stronger, and they are more suitable for exhibition games like the All-Stars.

In the end, the Hill team defeated the Weber team 145:142. The Weber team played chaotically in the first half, and finally played some tacit understanding in the second half. Then, 1.3 seconds before halftime, the cousin showed his strength and made a super long-range three-pointer two steps away from the three-point line, helping the Hill team to seal the victory.

However, the MVP of the rookie game was finally won by Drummond, who scored 30 points and 25 rebounds. This number of rebounds also set a new record for the rookie challenge.

Gobert scored 11 points, 12 rebounds and 4 assists, and Antetokounmpo also scored 15 points, 7 rebounds and 6 assists. They helped Webber's offense to be organized in an orderly manner, and they almost changed their fate, but they still lost to Lillard's last goal.

It is worth mentioning that the award presenter Will Perdue accidentally dropped the trophy on the ground during the process of giving the MVP trophy to Drummond, and the trophy was damaged and split in two. It was more or less an accident.

Although they lost the game, Antetokounmpo and Gobert still showed "thunder basketball" in the rookie game, which also made them admired by the outside world.

It is also due to Li Sheng's teaching. After all, as the head coach, he must have some credit for the players' good performance.

Even if he doesn't take credit for himself, the players will mention and thank him in interviews. What's more, the Thunder has indeed improved a lot this season compared to last season. If Dewey's ability remains the same, the only changes in record are the role of the coach and new players.

And the new aid was brought out by the coach, so who else could have it if it weren't for the coach's great contribution?
Of course, the better you play in the regular season, the more ugly it will be if the playoffs are suspended. For example, if something goes wrong, it will be a black material that will always accompany you before winning the championship.

Afterwards, I went back to the hotel to rest. I had nothing to do in the morning of the next day, so I basically rested in the hotel.

After all, New Orleans does not have so many interesting places like New York and Los Angeles, and they are not familiar with them, so Li Yong and Udoka stayed in the hotel.

In the afternoon, there will be All-Star training and interviews first, and there will be an All-Star Game of the Development League three hours later, after which everyone will be open for a break.

Wait until the press conference of NBA Commissioner Adam Joke at eight o'clock in the evening, and then the next day's game will start.

The events on the second day are all small events, but the attention is not low. For example, the three-point contest and the slam dunk contest are all "desserts" for the All-Stars.

Of course, if it tastes good, it’s dessert, if it doesn’t taste good and smells bad, it’s shit.

Durant also participated in the shooting star contest that was held first. He was on the Western Conference Second Team, working with the retired legend Karl Malone and the WNBA Tulsa Shock team's Szila Diggins.

It is worth mentioning that there are two pairs of father and son partners on this shooting star, namely Tim Hardaway and his son of the first team in the East, Knicks player Tim Hardaway II, and Warriors star Stephen Curry and his father Dell Curry in the first team in the West.

But in the end, the second eastern team represented by Chris Bosh won the shooting star championship, and he is also the defending champion of this event.

And in the future, next year's All-Star Shooting Star Contest, he will achieve three consecutive championships.

It's a pity that he had to retire due to injury in the end, and failed to prove himself again after James left.

In the subsequent skills challenge, Lillard and Trey Burke's team won the championship by 0.1 seconds. Antetokounmpo also participated in this skills challenge, but the Thunder did not help him sign up, and the Eastern side "replaced" him. Caldwell-Pope of the Pistons.

But another player from the Thunder participated in the game, and that was Reggie Jackson, who teamed up with Dragic of the Suns.

Although they finished second in the preliminaries, because the rule of this year is that the winners of the eastern and western divisions will be determined before the finals, they regrettably stopped the preliminaries.

However, Reggie's progress this season is obvious to all. This game is more like a game, and everyone has a lot of fun watching it, and they don't feel uncomfortable at all.

Among other things, the Shooting Star and the Skills Championship are really nothing compared to other honors, and they won't even add much to the players.

The following three-point contests will be at least one level better, because three-pointers are becoming more and more important in today's NBA, which also makes this event receive more and more attention.

In particular, more and more stars are participating in it, which has fueled the popularity of the game.

This year's three-point contest is definitely star-studded, with Aaron Afflalo from the Magic and Marco Belinelli from the Spurs being the youngest among them.

Bradley Beal of the Wizards and Damian Lillard of the Trail Blazers are both second-year rookies.

Participating in the three-point contest is actually a way to accumulate popularity, especially for new stars like them.

If you can win the championship, the progress will be faster.

Kyrie Irving of the Cavaliers has been very popular since before the draft. Being able to win the No. [-] pick at the point guard position shows his talent. Moreover, he was able to enter the starting backcourt of the Eastern All-Stars with super popularity, which shows his popularity.

Kevin Love of the Timberwolves would not have thought that his opponent would be his future teammate. Now he is firmly seated as the boss of the Timberwolves, and the Timberwolves are also expected to hit the playoffs this season. Their current record is actually good, but the West is too introverted and the competition is fierce.

Joe Johnson of the Nets, the King of the Eagles back then, was unfortunately unlucky after coming to the Nets. Fortunately, several big brothers were responsible for the team's failure, but this also shows that he is not popular. He is basically an invisible man with certain strength.

And the future three-point champion, Stephen Curry of the Warriors is now leading the team to break through from the West. His three-point ability has been affirmed, and many people even call him "three-point boy". He and his teammate Thompson led the team to set off three-point waves many times this season.

But in the end, popular players Curry, Irving, Love, Lillard and others failed in the preliminaries. Instead, European shooter Belinelli broke through from the west and Bill broke through from the east, and the two faced off in the final.

Both sides scored 19 points in the first round. The two were tied and had to play in an extra 60 seconds. Belinelli scored 24 points, beating Bill's 18 points and winning the three-point contest.

However, this tournament championship may not be as important to Belinelli as a three-point rain in the playoffs, although there is a bonus.

After all, this kind of game is not the same as shooting three-pointers in official games...

After that is today's highlight, which is also the most watched "appetizer" before the All-Star Game, the dunk contest.

Since its establishment in 1984, with Jordan, McGrady, Kobe, Carter, generations of balloon stars contributing explosive performances in this competition, the popularity of the dunk contest has also unknowingly become the finale product of the All-Stars, which is only lower than the attention of the main game.

Of course, attention and excitement are not necessarily directly proportional. Just like last year, the players who participated in the competition were basically role players, and their popularity was not high. In addition, the performance was so-so. In the end, it is hard to say that it was a failure, but it is certain that it failed the expectations of many audiences.

However, this year’s slam dunk contest has already excited many fans from the participants. Paul George, who was selected as an All-Star last year, released pigeons, Wizards boss John Wall who also won the No.

Lillard is really the most diligent person in the All-Star this year. He first participated in the Rookie Challenge, then the Skills Competition, and now there is the Slam Dunk Contest.

It's a pity that because of Westbrook, Lillard, who was supposed to be selected as a substitute for the All-Star Game this time, has no chance this time, otherwise he can make another one.

Li Sheng even suspected that if it was not after the three-point contest or the dunk contest was too tight, he even wanted to participate in the three-point contest.

This year's slam dunk contest has also changed the new rules. In fact, it is the same as before. The eastern and western teams form teams to compete first, and then the slam dunk champion is voted by the audience.

In the end, the Eastern team defeated the Western team, and Wall became the slam dunk king.

For Li Sheng, after watching the slam dunk contest for 16 years, it feels really meaningless to look back at the previous slam dunk contest.

There is neither punch nor creative surprise.

Even for Wall, who won the slam dunk king, his leaping mascot's dunk, in Li Sheng's mind, pales in comparison with the "uncrowned king" Gordon's leaping mascot's dunk.

What left a deep impression on him was the exaggerated performance of the judges of the slam dunk contest. The NBA usually invites some celebrities to serve as the judges of the slam dunk contest. There are usually five people.

Then the score for each dunk is the sum of the scores of five people. In this regard, the most impressive thing for people later should be the "9 points" given by Wade in the dunk contest, so that it became a small black spot for him.

After all, saying "I want to watch another round" is really not an appropriate statement in this kind of game.

As soon as Wall's dunk came out, the judging panel collapsed and exaggerated, which made Li Sheng feel that it was a pity that they didn't go to act.

But it was originally a show, and everyone came to the All-Star Game to play, including the All-Star Game on the last day.

In the All-Star Games over the years, they have been caught in a real or fake decision.

Most people just come to relax, and they don't care much about performances or All-Star MVPs. Only a few, like Westbrook and later Antetokounmpo, can make All-Stars like regular seasons.

(End of this chapter)