the rest, only noise

Chapter 1503
"Did I tell you the story of Bob Cousy coming to the Celtics?"

Reid Auerbach always has a story to tell at his weekly luncheon.

Louis' only impression of Cousy was that in the summer of 1979, after John Y. Brown, the boss who had a bad relationship with Auerbach, taunted the former, Cousy angrily threatened to beat Brown.

At that time, Louis felt that Cousy had the recklessness of a country bumpkin.

It's a pity that, except for being an announcer for the Celtics in the early 80s, Louis didn't know what he was doing at other times, and the two sides had no intersection.

Hearing Auerbach mention him at this time, Louis also listened seriously.

"Before he played professionally, Bob was a superstar in New England. He played for the College of the Holy Cross. The locals liked his groundbreaking style of play. The influence of college basketball in that era was much higher than professional basketball. All the media said I should pick him. But I suffered a lot from George Mikan. I didn't believe that Bob could change anything. To be honest, I didn't want him at all."

The situation is far more complicated than what Auerbach said.

That was the first year that Auerbach took over the Celtics. Due to the incompetence of the predecessor, the Celtics at that time were a bad team.A player like Cousy was a smashing college superstar at the time.As long as the Celtics choose him, even if they can't win, the locals will buy tickets to support him.

Auerbach is a person who does not pay attention to market and commerciality, but only to practicality. Therefore, he rejected the heartthrob Cousy and chose Bill Sharman and another unknown player.

"What's interesting is that shortly after the draft, the team that drafted Bob went bankrupt," Auerbach said triumphantly. "In order to make a home for the players who lost their belongings, the league held a severance draft. They picked the three most valuable players from that team and handed them to the three teams with the worst records last season. Bob was my third choice. Unfortunately, I was unlucky and had to be the last pick. He's a short guy who knows how to make a living."

Having said that, Auerbach smiled smugly.

It's strange to say that Auerbach was clearly the wrong story, but in the end he became the big winner.

"That's the story of Bob Cousy coming to Boston."

After hearing this story, Reed's brother Zane said: "Compared with this, I would like to hear Coach Lu talk about why he can endure Isiah until now."

As soon as Zane finished speaking, the atmosphere at the luncheon became much more cheerful.

Because of Isiah Thomas, Louis' golden body was broken, and his perfect resume finally had a slight flaw.

So this group of people would make fun of it if they had nothing to do.

And it's no wonder people like to mention it, because Thomas' behavior unintentionally played a kind of cooperation with this group of middle-aged fun people that Louis could never imagine in his dreams.

This kind of natural cooperation, the Celtics under Thomas will definitely not be able to achieve it.

The first mistake Thomas made was that the use of Yao Yueban was inconsistent with Louis' thinking.

After the start of the new season, in five consecutive games, Yao Yueban averaged less than one three-pointer per game.

In the sixth game, encouraged by Louis, Yao Yueban made five three-pointers and hit two goals rebelliously.

After the game, Thomas expressed the hope that the inside offense could be more inside.

Forced to help, Louis can only interview Thomas.

The ideas he couldn't accept and understand made Louis use the authority of the president to forcefully implement them.

Since then, Yao Yueban has made at least four three-pointers in every game.

Since he has just started practicing three-pointers, his shooting percentage is not impressive, only in the early 30%.

Louis didn't have any doubts about Yao Yueban's ability to practice three-pointers.

Free throw percentage is the most intuitive data that reflects whether a player has shooting talent.

Needless to say, Yao Yueban's free throw.

Through his free throws, Louis can conclude that Yao Yueban is the center with the best touch before Karl-Anthony Towns.

Although he is currently shooting four three-pointers per game with a shooting rate in the early 30s, Louis has already seen the future when Yao Yueban will take eight three-pointers per game, but the three-point shooting rate will approach or even exceed 40%.

Soon, Thomas, who was upset because he couldn't control Yao Yueban's tendency to play, had no time to care about it.

Due to the replacement of the new system and new tactics, the Celtics' game style has completely changed.

However, Louis asked Thomas to use the method of combining the two systems, which was beyond Thomas' ability.

He couldn't control the number of turnovers his team made, and he didn't know how to adjust.

The assistants are also helpless, because they can't go over the head coach to train the team alone, they can only give Thomas suggestions, and then let Thomas implement them.

If the plan of a genius is carried out by a fool, the result will still be a complete failure.

The Celtics are off to a 3-7 start.

The accusations and doubts against Thomas are getting stronger day by day.

At the end of November, the Celtics challenged the Grizzlies away. When Thomas held a timeout at the last minute and watched the team miss a good game and be reversed by the opponent, the furious big Kemi Bill Simmons wrote a long article on ESPN's column.

The title of the article is "NBA Coaching Summit."

Whether this article is conceived, offensive, or ridiculed and humiliated Thomas himself, it can be called full marks.

In the article, Simmons selected the ten stupidest head coaches in NBA history, including Thomas, and then asked them to explain the stupidest game they have coached in the No. 1 way in the article.

The ending is that the real Isiah Thomas stole their "idea" and made full use of "predecessor wisdom" to let the Celtics lose fancy.

The article put Thomas off guard.

When a reporter was not afraid of death and asked Thomas what he thought of this article, Thomas said with a gloomy face: "I don't have any opinions. I just want Bill Simmons to be careful on the road. If he meets me, I will reward him with a bullet."

Because of this incident, Thomas' reputation plummeted, and his personal image accumulated as a player went bankrupt. At first, everyone only had doubts about his coaching ability, but now, even his personality has to be questioned.

In order for Thomas to avoid the limelight, Louie announced that he would be banned from the team for three games.

Thomas had to call a press conference to make a formal apology.

Then, the thing that excited the media the most happened.

During Thomas' suspension, Lambiel led the team to 2 wins and 1 loss.

The media ignored that the three opponents the Celtics encountered were all bad teams this season. They just pointed out that during Thomas' suspension, the Celtics had a 66% winning rate.

Lambiel, who was in charge of leading the team during the period, knew very well that Thomas could win those two games even if he came to coach.

But now Thomas has lost the ability to judge things correctly.

He really felt that Lambiel might take his job as manager, the demands on the players became stricter, the patience for mistakes and mistakes disappeared, he became violent and irritable, and abused players who made mistakes like a devil.

This momentum of devil coaching has indeed effectively reduced the number of turnovers.

But it also makes the players lose their aggressiveness. No one wants to be scolded bloody for a mistake.

As a result, everyone no longer ran complicated tactics, nor played difficult block and cut, and the game rhythm and running speed dropped several notches. For NBA teams, this kind of offensive intensity is no threat at all.

A more dire problem than the high number of turnovers has occurred.

The Celtics' offense became stagnant, unable to find its direction like a headless chicken.

Thomas knew why players lost their spirits, and he began to screen personnel on a large scale, find those who could withstand high pressure, and then greatly increased their playing time.

In order to win, Thomas increased the playing time of Yao Yueban and other core players. The Celtics also had a good half a month, and their winning percentage was close to [-]%.

Then, Yao Yueban suffered an injury, and he was stepped on his toe while grabbing a rebound.Although it was not a serious injury, Louis asked for a big raise.

If the players are not allowed to display the sportsmanship of fighting with injuries, it will take at least half a month for Yao Yueban's toe injury to heal.

Louis is not in a hurry, but Thomas is in a hurry. Yao Yueban is not here, and the other main core needs to take on greater responsibilities.

Then there were more injuries.

The Boston media began the countdown to Isiah Thomas' dismissal.

This is also the reason why Louis was ridiculed at the luncheon. How tolerant he is, he has been able to endure until now and not fire Thomas.

(End of this chapter)