the rest, only noise

Chapter 1186 West, who has nothing to do

After Yu Tiancan was reimbursed for the season, there was no suspense in the series between the Lakers and the Suns.

As long as you have basic sports knowledge, you will no longer have illusions about the sun.

Although the third game was held at the home court of the Suns, it was like a death sentence for the public.

Everyone knew that the guy named Sun would die, but there were still people watching, just wanting to see if there would be a corpse change after his death.

This night, Benjamin Wilson, according to Louis' instructions, reduced his personal offense and gave up the stage.

If the boss occupies the center of the stage for a long time, there will be two chain reactions.

One is that the boss himself will be obsessed with the feeling of standing in the center of the stage, and the other is that the boss's younger brothers will gradually lose the ability to dominate the stage, and they will become pure supporters.

This is not conducive to the team's championship.

Louis also doesn't want Wilson to develop into a ball-handling big-core ball bully.

This is why the Lakers were able to beat the Suns cleanly.

Now they need to wait.

The opponents in the semifinals will appear between the Clippers and the Mavericks.

No one expected that the Clippers, the third in the West, would struggle in the first round.

The Mavericks, ranked sixth in the West, will force the Clippers into a tough fight.

In order to find out what happened, Louie went to watch one of the game tapes.

The result left him speechless.

It's not that the Mavericks performed so well, but that the Clippers' team cohesion has declined rapidly.

The cause of the Clippers' problems is their owner, Donald Sterling.

After the regular season, Sterling had a whim and invited the players to a party at his manor.

But none of his players want to party with an owner with a racist label.

Barkley took the lead not to participate, so only a few players and coaching staff from the team attended the party.

Sterling was furious: "How dare those imbecile niggers treat their master like this?"

According to rumors, Clippers coach Jeff Van Gundy planned to resign that night.

It was Van Gundy's assistant who persuaded him to finish the season.

Sterling's remarks came to light the next day.

The Clippers were in disarray, and when the players asked Van Gundy for the truth of the matter, they got an affirmative answer.

This is why the Clippers collapsed.

According to the current situation, even if the Clippers are black six by the Mavericks, Louis will not be surprised.

"I stand with my players," Van Gundy told reporters. "Our request is simple -- to be treated like human beings."

Sadly, in the 20s, NBA owners still had aloof status.

Sterling won't be brought down by one sure-fire racist remark.

Desperate Clippers players decide to sacrifice their work ethic, like the protagonists in "The Silent Truth" defying the law in order to claim justice.

It was a rare crash in the 90s.

The Clippers were eliminated 3-1 by the Mavericks without any injuries.

On the night when Game4 ended, Van Gundy formally handed in his resignation letter, and the few prominent players in the Clippers, without exception, all applied for trades.

Even Barkley, who still has one year left on his contract, took the attitude of "If you don't trade me, I will show you."

The Clippers' civil turmoil will disrupt the entire offseason later, which is a later story.

For the Lakers, this is simply pie in the sky.

Under normal circumstances, the Clippers will be one of the top five in the West -- Lakers, Clippers, Warriors, Jazz, Trail Blazers -- as long as they play well, they are the top team in the West.

It was under them that the Lakers stopped in the semifinals last year.

Before the fans waited for Louis to lead the team to revenge, the Clippers disintegrated by themselves.

How can this not make people feel emotional?

"Let's congratulate the Los Angeles Lakers for making it to the Western Conference Finals for the first time in three years." - Los Angeles Daily News.

On the other side, the Trail Blazers eliminated the Nuggets in three straight games.

The Warriors and the Jazz fought five bloody games. With Payton's defense and Penny Hardaway's all-around performance, they made it through danger and successfully advanced to the semifinals.

The Lakers' opponent in the semifinals is the Mavericks.

Louis did not have any pressure, this is by no means underestimating his opponent.

Except for the Mavericks themselves, no one thinks they have the strength of the conference semifinals.

Although the Western Conference today is not as introverted as it was in the early 90s, the semifinals are a hurdle for most teams.

Being able to reach the semi-finals shows that they have the strength to compete for the championship.

Because the top four in the Western Conference that year had a luxurious lineup.

Over the past few years, retirement, aging, injury and injury, the competitiveness is not as good as in the past, but it is still an important benchmark for measuring the strength of the team.

The Mavericks were lucky enough to make it to the semifinals. For the young team, this is an opportunity to boost their confidence.

But that's about it.

In addition to gaining self-confidence, they will also be severely taught by their opponents.

Rather than studying the Mavericks, Louie is more willing to evaluate the chances of the Lakers and Trail Blazers winning the Western Conference Finals.

For this matter, Louie gathered assistants and invited Jerry West and Mitch Kupchak to analyze together.

The result is that the series can last until Game [-], even if the trip to the conference finals is not in vain.

Although the Lakers and the Trail Blazers played against each other in the regular season, they have always had a tradition of "transformation" in the playoffs.

Once in the playoffs, Jordan spontaneously flipped a switch on his body.

The Blazers only have two problems.

Thomas is no longer a star, and the conflict between Olajuwon and Mourning's style of play remains unresolved.

But there are only these two people, and the Lakers can't finish ten problems.

Unless Wilson averages 66 points per game, there is no way.

Seemingly no chance, Louie still seriously studied the Blazers' game, trying to find some flaws.

At this time, Jerry West came without warning, holding in his hand the "Victory Moment" Coke specially launched by Coca-Cola Company for Louis.

"Coach, are you watching the video?" West asked flatteringly.

"Yeah, Jerry, what's up?"

"I heard that you like to drink Coke...uh...just passing by, and brought one along the way...hope it suits your taste."

Louis glanced at the Coke that West brought "by the way, just in time".

At least, he didn't buy Pepsi.

"Thank you, I like it very much."

At this time, the video played for a round. Jordan hit back and passed Olajuwon with both hands without looking at anyone, and assisted the latter with a dunk.

West praised: "MJ is indeed an impeccable player."

Jim joked, "Not necessarily?"

West couldn't imagine that this dude would dare to question himself.

"What do you think, Jim?"

Buss Jr. smiled like a clown: "I admit that I can't criticize his skills from my perspective, but Michael is not an impeccable player. I think that if an ET alien really visits the earth in the future, the first few things he will know are that the United States won the Cold War. Coach Lu is the best coach in history. A lion is better than a tiger.

What West hates most is the only champion theory.

Because if the championship is everything, then his good brother Baylor doesn't even have a chicken history.

"The championship can't explain everything!" West said with a sullen face. "Big O only has one championship, but no American will rank him in the top ten in history."

These words really made little Buss speechless, because what he thought was—who is Big O?
Louis had a different opinion, but he didn’t say it—the Big O’s historical status was mainly made up for by a series of off-court contributions. For NBA players, he was as great as Ai Iijima breaking the industry’s dimensional wall. Unfortunately, his glory was finally tarnished by another person named Russell.

Because Russell averaging a triple-double is as easy as drinking water, so some fans feel that the historical status of the Big O is about to decline precipitously.

In fact, for Big O, averaging a triple-double is a bonus to his historical status⑴, but fans of later generations will basically not understand other things. They only look at honors and statistics, so there is no solution to this matter.

Therefore, Louis felt that when the generation who knew how great the Big O was was old, the divinity in the Big O would disappear, leaving fans with only a championship and an average triple-double.

Louie turned West's attention back to business.

"Jerry, do you need anything else for me?"

"Yes, I really can't hide it from you." West smiled flatteringly, "About that kid in Philadelphia..."

Louie immediately changed his face: "Jerry, I've said it a million times. I'm not interested in adding another high school player to the team. Stop talking about it!"

It seems that this is a major issue that cannot be solved even by asking Louis to drink Coke.

But West will not give up just now, that boy named Kobe has a unique power, if he misses him, he will live in regret for the rest of his life.

⑴ At the end of his player career, Big O didn’t know what a triple-double was. At that time, there was no such name. It wasn’t until the 80s that the media found that the magician scored double-doubles in two consecutive games, so he coined this term. Then, after checking the data, it was found that there was an ancient beast that averaged a triple-double in a season.
(End of this chapter)