the rest, only noise

Chapter 472 Strong attitude

"Coach Lu, do you have any thoughts on the results this year?"

During the media day, Louie was asked a question by a reporter.

He looked at the reporter and said confidently: "Last season, we reached the Eastern Conference finals with the highest score in the league, which shows that the Knicks already have the power to compete for the championship. Therefore, from this year on, our goal is not to think about anything other than the championship."

Saying these words means that the Knicks will no longer use youth as an excuse for their failures.

It takes guts for Louie to officially position his team as a championship contender.

If you don't say it yourself, others will think you are a young team, and the future can be expected if you lose. After all, the Knicks are indeed very young.

Once you regard yourself as a championship team, others will naturally demand you by the standards of a championship team.

The difficulty for the Knicks to win the championship is arduous. What they have to face is the Boston Celtics, who have achieved four consecutive championships and whose core players are at their peak.

The Lakers started the road to reconstruction when they started to dismantle the Show Time lineup, got David Robinson's future signing rights, and had young talents such as Scottie Pippen, Dell Curry, and Tyrone Corbin.

Lakers fans can say that the Celtics ruined this home.

Five-year losing streak in the finals, losing to the Celtics for four consecutive years.

It even derived LAAL, an acronym specifically referring to the Lakers as eternal losers.

After the Lakers were rebuilt, the West looked and looked, and only the Blazers had the potential to succeed.

In other words, the Lakers, who defeated the Blazers for three consecutive years, were broken up by the Celtics without being counterattacked by Jordan.

Plus, the Suns could be another potential strong team.

With Brad Doherty as the core, coupled with Michael Thompson, Fat Lever, Ed Pinckney, William Bedford (William Bedford C), Kevin Johnson, Byron Scott, there are strong players inside and outside the line, but the wing position talent is too poor. If they encounter the Blazers, they will take advantage of the wing position and radiate to all positions.

In general, in the 1987-88 season, the NBA will be a situation where the top three will stand.

After the Celtics supplemented Reggie Lewis, their strength did not decline significantly. The Knicks got Miller and Cooper, and the lineup was greatly enhanced. On the contrary, the Blazers hardly changed.

During the training camp, Louis felt the player's progress.

Now, Ewing's weight has reached 120 kg.

For him, this weight is enough.

And his game influence has improved by a notch compared with last season, his rebounding position is impeccable, and his defensive deterrence is extremely powerful.

He was selected for the second defense last season, and this season, he may be able to compete for DPOY.

The other is Wilson.

He gained ten pounds during the offseason. The direct impact of the weight change is that he can use the technical movements that were restricted due to his underweight last season, and now he can use them freely.

Perhaps, his performance will exceed imagination.

There is another point that Louis did not expect. In his previous life, Kevin McHale reached his peak in the regular season in 1987. Before his leg and foot were injured, he averaged 25+10+5 assists per game. After the injury, KC Jones let him mess around.He played the entire playoffs with a foot injury and never got back to that level.

Because Louie would rather be hated by McHale than have him come back in the Eastern Conference Finals, the same bad luck didn't befall McHale.

In this life, his peak period may be longer.

Others have also changed, and the Knicks are still too young.

The biggest characteristic of young players is that they change every year.

This year's preseason, the Knicks are very busy, they need to go to Europe to play.

The Knicks seem to be a mirror used by the league for external publicity. They chose the first Chinese player in NBA history. The head coach also went to China as a consultant for the delegation to sign a broadcast agreement. Now he is leading the Knicks to spread the influence of the league in Europe.

The trip to Europe, the Knicks need to play four games.

This allowed him to see the strength of the four contemporary European geniuses.

Sabonis scored 19 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists against the Knicks.

At this time, he is not the image that future fans will be familiar with.

The Sabonis that fans are most impressed with is the big Jokic who seems to be able to do anything on the offensive end.

However, at this time, Sabonis was only 23 years old, he could run and jump, and he still had long hair. Although he did not steal Ewing in rebounds, he was on par with Ewing because of his golf quotient.

Three others, two of whom Louis knew.

In effect, they were quasi-Knicks.

Brazil's Hand of God Oscar Schmidt and Yugoslavia's Drazen Petrovic.

Petrovic was selected by the Knicks in 1986. Louis knew that he would land in the NBA in the future, and Schmidt probably would not land in the NBA.He was selected by the Knicks in 1984. He dedicated himself to playing for the national team and was arrogant. He couldn't accept that he might have to serve tea and water to a group of arrogant Americans in the NBA, and he couldn't play for the national team.

Although Louie knew that the Olympic ban would be lifted soon, it was meaningless to forcefully lobby Schmidt to go to the NBA. Therefore, in the preseason, he presented Schmidt with a Knicks jersey with Schmidt's name on it on behalf of the Knicks.

As for Petrovic, Louis gave him a very high opinion.

"He's strong enough to start in the NBA. I'm very much looking forward to him coming to the United States one day in the future." Louis also joked about him, "Of course, he has to find a way to change his accent, otherwise I might not understand what he said."

The Knicks won all four of their preseason games in Europe.

They are as popular as a pop band wherever they go.

The only bad thing is that when Ewing was in Europe, he was exposed for blatantly recruiting prostitutes in nightclubs.

This is a blow to his personal image.

Although Ewing said that he only talked about love affairs with the flowery lady who lost his footing, but there were probably not many people who would believe him.

"If you fucking can't control that thing in your crotch, buy a pistol and lock it!" Louis cursed anxiously.

Except for Ewing, everyone's expressions were wonderful: "***? Coach, you're not right."

"Do you think a right person can communicate with a wrong person?" Louis blamed Ewing, "When I saw him, it was like seeing a super beautiful woman without any curves!"

Fortunately, this happened in Europe. Although the Americans know about it, they don't take it seriously. After all, there are too few celebrities who keep themselves clean.

The Knicks returned to the United States and are preparing to play the last two preseason games before the regular season. By the way, they will also decide on a 15-man roster in these two preseason games.

Because Dale Ellis and Song Tao couldn't return to the team in time due to various affairs, Louis has been looking for their short-term substitutes.

In New York, the Knicks host the Milwaukee Bucks.

In the summer, they lost their head coach, and now the army is demoralized and lacks fighting spirit.

The Knicks knocked them out without breaking a sweat.

The only bright spot was Wilson scoring 20 points in 30 minutes, efficient and ferocious.

133 is better than 99
The Knicks took this opportunity to investigate Song Tao's short-term backup, short center Bob Thornton (Bob Thornton C).

He is only 203cm tall, but he can't play power forward very much.

Because his shot sucks.

The shooting is bad, the basic skills as a center are complete, can play back, have footwork, support well, single defense is very good, there is no problem with being stuck, but he is too short.

The registration height is 203CM, which may actually be less than 2 meters.

These players who try to use hairstyles to increase their invalid height always make people laugh, and it's not that they don't have eyes.

Louie decided to give him a chance and signed him to a 10-year, non-guaranteed contract.

At this point, the preseason is not over yet, and the Knicks' 15-man roster for the new season has been decided.

In the final game of the preseason, the Knicks played against the New Jersey Nets.

The Nets were both winners and losers in the offseason.They got two good picks, but the front one went to the blue-collar Polynice, and the bottom one got Mark Jackson right.

In addition, their general manager Harry Weltman and Louis still have some grievances, and the two sides will be serious when they meet.

Because of the strength gap, the Nets were sent away.

The Knicks beat them to 40 points.

As a result, the Knicks ended the preseason journey with a record of victory, and ushered in the regular season with a very strong posture.

(End of this chapter)