Coach, I don't want to retire yet

Chapter 495 Coach D’s Status

Los Angeles, the training facility of UCLA University, is where Du Kang brought the Bobcats to the Lakers.

Du Kang is a direct descendant of UCLA University, and even its leader.

The Bobcats' rookie this year, Norman Powell, is also a famous veteran who played at UCLA for four years.

If Du Kang's arrival in Los Angeles is equivalent to returning to his hometown, then returning to UCLA is definitely returning to his home.

Well, actually his home is right next to UCLA, very close.

The relationship between the Lakers and UCLA is very close. Even the Lakers' new training center was built together with UCLA.

Therefore, as a visiting team, being able to play away games in Los Angeles and receive such hospitality as UCLA, Du Kang is probably the only one in the entire NBA.

In fact, although Du Kang is highly respected by UCLA as the head coach of UCLA, in fact, this kind of respect is just respect, and Du Kang does not have that much say in UCLA.

He is more highly praised by UCLA. Du Kang has never interfered with UCLA's development and future plans. After all, the current head coach of UCLA is his mentor, Ben Holland.

It can be said that UCLA can definitely be ranked among the top three universities that have trained the most stars for the NBA in the past 12 years.

At that time, the whole world of Westbrook was crying for Westbrook. Are you going to be so stubborn? ! ! !

Ben Holland has coached UCLA for 0304 seasons since the 12 season. In 12 seasons, he has not won any NCAA championship. With UCLA's status as the number one powerhouse in NCAA history, it has not won a championship in 12 years. And it has been getting worse recently. Ben Holland should have left long ago.

In the end, Westbrook resisted all kinds of persuasion from relatives and friends and gave up the opportunity to become a real American master. Instead of engaging in mathematics research and becoming Dr. Wei, he went to UCLA, which did not give him any protection.

In these 12 years, Ben Holland has trained a lot of NBA players. Although UCLA has had a poor record in these 12 years, players like Ariza, Farmar, Afflalo, Darren Collins, Mbah a Moute, Wei Sbrook, Love, Jrue Holiday, Zach LaVine, Lee Kyle, and of course Norman Powell, who was selected by the Bobcats in this year's draft.

It can only be said that Westbrook really loves basketball and his brothers. His high school best friend accidentally fainted and passed away on the court. Westbrook has always insisted on realizing his dream of entering the NBA with his brothers and insisting on playing basketball.

Well, Westbrook is a math genius. In high school, because of his outstanding math scores, Stanford was willing to give Westbrook a scholarship for his mathematics major. It was not a sports scholarship, but a mathematics scholarship. Moreover, this is the mathematics department of Stanford University, all over the world. One of the temples of mathematics.

This is very rare. For example, Du Kang’s good friend Zhu Holiday was among the top three high school students in that class. Love was also among the top three high school students in that class. They played as they should and cannot be regarded as their own. Holland's training.

Even Du Kang's ability to shine in the NBA is considered to be due to Ben Holland.

Finally, the top management of UCLA took a look and found that Ben Holland, although his coaching ability was not very good, was a team builder and had good abilities in developing players and assistants.

But players like Westbrook and others who were not so famous in high school were able to enter the NBA in the end, beat those five-star high school students to successfully draft, and shine in the NBA. This can definitely be attributed to Ben Holland.

In fact, after the end of the 12-13 season, there were rumors that Ben Holland would be fired by UCLA. However, something magical happened. Du Kang rose strongly with the Lakers in 2013 and finally saved himself for Ben Holland. The position of head coach at UCLA.

He likes to take players who are not that talented.

And what’s even more commendable is that Ben Holland is different from Old K. Old K likes to collect talented monsters, the top ten five-star high school students.

This is rare. The coaching level may be a bit low, but you are really willing to use new players and give opportunities to ordinary people. Players like Westbrook will probably be benched if they are placed with old K. After four years of college, I got my diploma and went out to find a job.

Naturally, most of the credit for Du Kang's ability to shine in the NBA must be attributed to the system, but Du Kang still respects Ben Holland very much.

This is a very big shortcoming, but Ben Holland's advantage is indeed respectable. He is very able to provide his players with opportunities to grow freely.

And what about Ben Holland?

His mentor's coaching skills are indeed not very good. He led UCLA and missed three NCAA national championships in five years. This is simply a trick. Not to mention winning the championship every year, UCLA competes in the March Madness national championship every year. , isn’t this what it should be?
Ben Holland's record at UCLA in recent years is almost equivalent to leading the Lakers and Celtics to the lottery every year.

For example, Norman Powell was 53 in that class, Zach LaVine was 49 in that class, Darren Collins was 98, and Westbrook was almost unknown in high school, not even in the top 100.

These are the celebrity stars who have made a name for themselves in the NBA over the years, and there are actually more role players.

Isn't it a brother's dream?
Your brothers are all gone. Regardless of your own life, you still want to fulfill your brother’s NBA dream. What if you can’t enter the NBA?
You're just a little kid who's only 1 meters tall. Do you deserve to be in the NBA?

Among those little guys in the NBA, none of them are amazing at shooting. Don’t you know how good you are at shooting?
Even if you practice shooting every day so hard that your arm hurts and you can’t let it go after practicing straightening it, so what?
The NBA never believes in hard work and tears!

The NBA has never believed in hard work and tears, but God showed up this time.

Westbrook grew 16 centimeters in one summer.

If we say that Westbrook, who is 1 meters tall, has shortcomings everywhere, there is no hope for the NBA at all.

Then the 1-meter Westbrook gives people a little hope, and the efforts and tears are also used a little bit, because he has such a little talent.

At the same time, Westbrook was lucky. He met Ben Holland, who is also a rare person who believes in hard work and tears.

Even more fortunately, I went to the NBA and met Durant, who also believed in hard work and tears.

In the end, Westbrook finally became Megatron, Du Kang's eternal senior and number one idol.

As long as you understand Westbrook's growth experience, as an ordinary person, it is difficult for you not to respect Westbrook. He is a person who really changed his destiny despite the pressure of the world.

He is also really stubborn. Anyone in a situation like Westbrook's would find it difficult to withstand the pressure of Westbrook and make such a choice.

Of course, I was also lucky to meet Ben Holland and Durant.

If you meet Old K and James, or most of the head coaches and most of the NBA bosses, Westbrook will send you, damn your efforts and tears!

This is also the reason why Du Kang likes UCLA very much. This team has poor performance and the level of coaching is not good enough. Therefore, even if it has trained a large number of NBA stars such as Coach D and Westbrook, UCLA’s attraction to real talents is still the same. worse and worse.

This year is particularly tragic. As the top powerhouse in the NCAA, it cannot even attract a five-star high school student. It only attracted two high school students, one ranked 36th in the United States and one ranked 60th in the United States. Not to mention the five-star high school students. There is no way to attract even outstanding four-star high school students.

Only two of the 100-star high school students in the year were attracted, and they were very ordinary. If you tell me this, others would probably think they were at the level of the University of Washington.

Today's young stars are very utilitarian, which is why NCAA fans don't like current NCAA stars. Today's outstanding NCAA stars do not want to be trained by the NCAA. They come to the NCAA not to study, but to get gold. It is best to enter the NBA directly after playing for one year. Therefore, in the NCAA, the phenomenon of five-star high school students teaming up is extremely serious.

Five-star high school students gather together to find a famous coach with excellent coaching ability, and then they succeed in the NCAA in a year or two, successfully enter the NBA, and make a lot of money.

As for the cultivation of personal strength and the improvement of personal tactical literacy, that is not important.

From this aspect, UCLA still adheres to the traditional basketball before the NCAA due to the mediocre coaching of the team's head coach and the lack of willingness to form a team.

For example, Norman Powell played for four years before participating in the draft and was finally selected by the Bobcats.

Many of the players from UCLA who have entered the NBA in the past decade or so have played for three or four years. There are actually only a few players like Westbrook and Love who entered the NBA after playing for one or two years.

And this also makes the UCLA team atmosphere very good.

For example, after two seniors, Norman Powell and Kyle Lee, returned to the team, they immediately felt like home.

If you go to Duke, I'm sorry, you left. Now the team's boss is a young five-star talent, the No. 1 high school student in the United States. They will not respect a so-called senior who left after playing four years. The young player has no talent, and such a talentless player deserves my respect.

It can only be said that in the past, the NBA that the bald man wanted to be in charge of was becoming less and less dignified. It lacked the flavor of the previous NBA, and it became more and more annoying to the old NBA fans.

And so is the current NCAA. In a world where capital is prevalent, even the NCAA, which is considered the pure land of American basketball, has received a huge impact.

"Du, this is why we love you so much. In today's NCAA, we actually need a coach like you more."

Looking at the Bobcats and UCLA players who were training on the court at this time, Ben Holland sighed.

Under such a general trend of eager for quick success and instant benefits, there are actually fewer and fewer head coaches in the NCAA who still insist on the same old style.

In the past in the NCAA, the head coach was the god. He was full of ideals and worked hard to realize his own basketball ideals and tactical ideals. He also used his tactical ideals to shock the world. The head coach was the absolute God and the players could not compare with the head coach at all.

Now, the relationship between NCAA head coaches and talented players is slowly beginning to become that of collaborators.

Therefore, now within the NCAA, many old-school head coaches like Ben Holland, who are unwilling to transform like old coach K, have actually been looking forward to one thing, that is, they hope that Du Kang can change like The NBA's ethos returns to the NCAA to change the current NCAA's ethos.

"Du, if you want to return to UCLA, I am willing to be your assistant coach."

Du Kang looked at his mentor with a very serious expression in front of him and was a little stunned.

When I returned to Los Angeles this time, I didn't expect that there would be so many things related to him.

Not only the Lakers want him, but UCLA and even the NCAA seem to have many people looking forward to him.

Moreover, Du Kang can also clearly feel Ben Holland's sincerity.

This is the position of UCLA's head coach, and he really doesn't seem to care at all.

Facing Ben Holander's invitation, Du Kang was naturally unable to give any response. Seeing Du Kang's reaction, Ben Holander sighed. He naturally knew that it was impossible for the time being.

In fact, when Du Kang chose to go to the Bobcats, many old-school coaches in the NCAA felt it was a pity. Why go to the Bobcats? Come to the NCAA. A mere Michael Jordan could not achieve as much as changing the NCAA.

Therefore, Ben Holland not only invited Du Kang on behalf of himself and UCLA, but also represented the thoughts of the old-school NCAA coaches.

Because while Du Kang and Ben Holland were chatting, many famous NCAA coaches came to the UCLA training ground one after another.

This NBA opening game between the Lakers and Bobcats is not only extremely influential in the NBA, but also extremely influential in the NCAA.

Then, these famous NCAA coaches also took the opportunity of this game to come to Du Kang and test Du Kang's attitude.

Nowadays, these old-school coaches in the NCAA have high expectations for Du Kang. Even Du Kang himself is surprised.

If it was before Jordan's comeback, this would definitely have attracted Du Kang, but now...

Du Kang refused the NCAA's invitation without responding. After these famous NCAA coaches learned about Du Kang's attitude, they did not reduce their respect for Du Kang. Instead, these famous coaches discussed tactics and systems with Du Kang.

Moreover, it was a discussion tactic surrounded by Du Kang.

Because of the popularity of the NBA in China in recent years, the popularity of the NCAA in the country has also continued to rise.

Although the NCAA is still not a mainstream basketball league in China, it is definitely not like before when you didn't even know what the NCAA was.

Now many fans and professionals know that in the United States, the status of the NCAA is even higher than that of the NBA.

The other American reporters and players at the scene actually took it for granted that these NCAA coaches were so courted.

But this is still very shocking to Mr. Zhang Lili and other Chinese journalists.

"We have always talked about Coach Du's status in the American basketball world. We had no idea before. Now, we finally know a little bit about it."

"Coach Xiao Du's current status in the American basketball community may not be that exaggerated..."

Especially for many new reporters who saw Du Kang's reports in China, many felt that it might be too exaggerated.

But now, the reality is here. Du Kang, the Chinese head coach, has influence and status not only in China!

"It's just that with such pursuit, what should I do if I lose the game tonight..."

In such a battle, coach Xiao Du can actually discuss the tactical system with the famous coaches of the NCAA in such a leisurely manner...

(End of this chapter)