Pick Westbrook

Chapter 385 Willing to do anything for the players
From a distance, Li Lai heard the booing of the locker room door.

He opened the locker room door and saw Anthony Davis who was pressed to the ground and kneaded for a while, his trousers and clothes were thrown to nowhere.

Li Lai turned and left with a chuckle, and said, "Thick eyebrows, the locker room of the Pelicans is very interesting."

Day two.

Intra-team confrontation.

Li Lai began to coach the players in Group A, and Anthony Davis played the main attack throughout the game.

At the same time, Li Lai designed many tactics for Davis, including holding the ball outside the three-point line, low-post singles, the core of the triangle offense, and the pick-and-roll executor.
A series of tactical core plays made it difficult for thick eyebrows to adapt. Even when the NCAA was killing the Quartet, he never gained so many tactical positions.

The Pelicans require thick eyebrows to participate in almost every round of offense, and his running, jumping and moving frequency on the court is not even lost to defenders.

Of course, Nongmei used to be a defender, but now that he is so tall and strong, it is really too much for him to play like this.

"Amei, can you be tougher, you're as soft as a bitch!"

Du Feng's roar sounded again on the court.

Davis, who made a mid-range shot, turned and returned to defense with a helpless expression.

He didn't blame Du Feng for blaming him. The B team coached by Stevens had been defending against Davis, so he faced great defensive pressure.

This is Davis' three consecutive mid-range shots.

After roaring, Du Feng sat back on the bench with a smile on his face, and said to Li Kai.

"Coach, we have really selected a talented big man. You can see that Amei's ability to run, move, help defend and attack the basket on the court is really amazing."

Li Lai nodded in agreement and said: "Kentucky's head coach John Calipari is a very good coach. He has determined the correct way of playing for the thick eyebrow from the very beginning."

"Offense and defense are equally important."

"So thick eyebrows don't play like fudge on the court."

The more Stevens listened, the more he felt that this jellyfish looked like a person's name. He reminded: "Coach, Anthony Davis made 21 of 7 shots in this intra-team match. This is not a very good efficiency. For inside players To say that the hit rate is even more unqualified."

"In the playoffs, those teams' defenses will only be higher and stronger than ours now. How can Davis be strong at that time?"

Li Lai took a deep breath.

Davis in his previous life relied heavily on mid-range shooting, because he played point guard most of his high school years, and mid-range shooting was a skill package that all players in that period needed to practice.

So strictly speaking, Davis cannot be blamed for this, it's just that he has long been used to this way of playing.

But after all, Davis's current height is no longer possible to play in the way of a point guard, especially in mid-range singles. This technical and tactical action has extremely high requirements on knees and ankles.

If Davis still plays in this way for a long time, it will only cause very serious damage to the body.

In 2012, during Anthony Davis' rookie season, he suffered a stress reaction in his ankle and missed 18 games.

In 2013, Anthony Davis broke his hand in a game against the Knicks, which sidelined him for 11 games.

In 2014, near the end of the season, Anthony Davis missed the final five games of the season due to back spasms, and the Pelicans were only one game away from the eighth-place Mavericks in the playoffs. Negative difference.

In 2015, Anthony Davis sprained his left toe, which caused him to miss a total of 13 games.

In the last 2016 games of the 14 season, Anthony Davis, who had been immersed in shoulder injuries throughout the season, finally suffered a severe shoulder injury in the game against the Portland Trail Blazers. Anthony Davis bid farewell to the rest of the team. In 14 games, the Pelicans failed to make the playoffs.

Anthony Davis injured his knee in 2017
In 2018, Anthony Davis strained his left groin.
In 2019, Anthony Davis missed nine games with a sprained finger.
"Never has a young player had so many injuries early in his career, and never has a talented player had so many injuries that kept his team from making the playoffs."

"In the first 777 games of his career, Anthony Davis missed a total of 176 games, and his attendance rate for his entire career was only 77%."

"This also caused Anthony Davis to miss the MVP and DPOY almost every year."

Li Lai is very clear that the thick eyebrows are like a double-edged sword. The Pelicans will definitely rely on the opponent's talent, especially on the defensive end, when they select the opponent.

But this kind of dependence will collapse once the thick eyebrow is injured, and the entire defensive system will collapse, so there are two things that Li Lai must do now.

One is to find ways to reduce the possibility of injury to thick eyebrows, and the other is to change his playing style as soon as possible.

This is also the reason why Li Lai would choose the skill Master of Healing as soon as he chooses the opponent.

Once the thick eyebrow is really injured on the court, this skill will improve the recovery period of the injury and reduce the impact of the injury.

Coupled with the previous health and fitness skills, the thick eyebrows who played under Li Lai's hands naturally would not suffer as many injuries as in the previous life, and were injured so frequently.

Of course, even so, Li Lai still doesn't think it's safe, because Anthony Davis is too easy to get injured, and he doesn't want to see the opponent suffering from injuries during the playoffs.

Du Feng looked at Li Lai cautiously.

He has never seen a coach take a player so seriously, and pay special attention to his physical condition.

Stevens said: "I think it is absolutely necessary to be so serious about Anthony Davis' injury situation, because he missed a key game because of an ankle injury in the NCAA."

"Fortunately, Anthony Davis was not absent in the final quarter-finals, semi-finals and finals, which ensured Kentucky's success in winning the championship."

After the training, Li Lai specifically found Anthony Davis.

The latter spread his hands and said in frustration: "Coach, I messed up today's team training game. I missed too many shots."

Davis, who already knew that Li Lai had high hopes for him, no longer complained that his teammates defended him too hard, but Group A did lose because of his performance.

After seeing Coach Stevens and his teammates in Group B happy, Anthony Davis knew that the coach must rarely lose in team matches.

Li Lai shook his head and said that he didn't care about it. He said, "Today I designed a total of 8 tactics for you, and these 8 tactics will become your main tactics in the future."

"No matter where you are, whether your head coach is me or not, the offensive tactics they design for you will not exceed these 8 tactical categories, and there will only be some minor adjustments."

"But judging from your performance today, the pick-and-roll, the core of the triangle offense, and the pick-and-roll are the three tactics you can do well at present, and they are also the tactics with the highest offensive efficiency."

"Of course, this is because you are a guard, so you are very used to this kind of support tactics, so if nothing else, these three tactics will become your main offensive tactics in the Pelicans this season."

"And in individual singles, three-threat offense, low-post play, and singles with the ball, these three tactics are particularly low offensive tactics for you."

"You are different from other inside players. You are a point guard player, so you have the ability to execute singles tactics. To be honest, the Pelicans also very much need you to execute singles tactics in certain rounds."

"But it doesn't look like you can do that yet."

Anthony Davis was said to be ashamed. After he came to the team on the second day of the NCAA, he realized that the NBA and the NCAA are very different.

Davis feels lucky that he was able to be pointed out to such shortcomings before the regular season even started.

"Coach, I know you built the Bucks dynasty, brought out MVP players like Westbrook and Curry, and also developed DeMarcus Cousins ​​into a very good big man."

"In fact, DeMarcus Cousins ​​is my senior. Coach John Calipari said that Cousins ​​and I play very similarly. We both like to attack with the ball. If I can get your teaching, I will definitely will grow rapidly."

"So I'm ready, I can do anything you tell me."

Li Lai nodded, very satisfied with Nong Mei's attitude towards this matter, but he didn't think that after he made his request, the other party could really continue to implement it.

Li Lai still said seriously: "The first thing is, you are not allowed to wear the low-top basketball shoes that defenders like to wear. You can only wear high-top basketball shoes that inside players should wear."

"The second thing is that your height is 208cm and your wingspan is 227cm, but your weight is only 100kg, which is too light. I will arrange coach Du Feng to manage your weight and gradually increase it to 110kg before the playoffs."

"The third thing, you can try to shoot from the mid-range and you can play the way you are used to, but most of the time you have to do more post-ups to get to the basket."

"This is also the reason why Coach Du Feng said you are soft. With such a good talent, why don't you kill more at the basket? Mid-range is used to finish, and only by hitting the basket can you form dominance."

"I said the same thing to Cousins."

Hearing the thick eyebrows here, he really felt very embarrassed. He glanced at the Kobe 1 under his feet. This is a masterpiece that Nike officially launched after Kobe's 2006-point night in 81.

Among all the sneakers, Anthony Davis likes this pair the most. He was a fan of Kobe Bryant in high school, and he didn't start to fan James until he went to college.

But Davis didn't like James' sneakers.

Seeing that Davis was still hesitating, Li Lai patted him on the shoulder and said earnestly.

"Thick eyebrows, you should have become the most dominant player at the power forward position, and even qualified to challenge Tim Duncan's position."

"I don't want to wait for you to regret after 7.8 seasons. Why didn't I listen to the coach and reduce the way of playing that seriously hurts ankles and knees from the beginning."

"When you can only sit on the bench one day and watch your golfers lead the team forward, you must understand this sentence and the feeling very deeply. It's uncomfortable."

By this time Davis had stood up.

Li Lai looked at Davis who got up and left. He didn't know whether the other party would follow his suggestion, but he really hoped that the other party would not be full of regrets like in his previous life, suffering from the fans under the talent of a man of destiny. their abuse.

Davis, who was walking into the player tunnel, stopped suddenly, his eyes turned away from Li Lai, and his eyes were already rolling.

This was the first time Davis felt that Li Lai was exactly like his mentor John Calipari, willing to do anything for the players.

He turned around and said, "Coach, Paul is right, you are really a very good coach."

"But, can you stop calling me thick eyebrows in the future?"

Li Lai nodded in agreement and said, "Okay, thick eyebrows."

(End of this chapter)