super small forward

Chapter 395 395. Sanders' Helplessness
On December 12th, the game between the Lakers and Timberwolves started at the Target Center.

The game was led by the Lakers from the very beginning, and the Lakers players worked very hard to defend. They didn't want Kobe's milestone to turn into a sad milestone.

Bryant hit another shot, bringing deafening cheers from the away fans.

Although this is an away game and the Timberwolves' home target center, the Lakers are more popular here than the Timberwolves!
After all, the Lakers have had a glorious history here.

It is in this city, in this old arena in this arena, where the former Minneapolis Lakers won five championships in six years and established the first NBA dynasty.

If you want to say how deep this place is with the Lakers, you can tell from the name of the Lakers.

Minnesota is a famous granary in the United States, because there are the most lakes in the United States, and agriculture is quite developed.

There are more than 5000 lakes in Minnesota, and Minneapolis, once home to the Timberwolves and Lakers, has more than 1 of them.

That's where the name of the Lakers came from, people from the City of Thousand Lakes.

As the former base camp of the Lakers, the Lakers won 5 championships in Minneapolis, leaving the city with the imprint of the Lakers.

The statue of George Mikan, the world's number one basketball player at the time, still stands at the entrance of the Timberwolves Arena.

The Lakers moved from Minneapolis to Los Angeles. There was no NBA team here for 30 years. It was not until 1989, when the Timberwolves joined the NBA, that the city had a new NBA team.

Originally, the Timberwolves built the team and built a new arena to remove the statue of George Mikan, but the local fans collectively objected, saying that if the Timberwolves did this, they should not build a team here.

Not only that, Minneapolis also has a museum of honor for the Lakers in those years. From all aspects, it can be seen how deeply the local fans love the Lakers.

In fact, for the Timberwolves, the people of Minneapolis were full of expectations from the beginning, just like the expectations for the Lakers back then, expecting this team to become a top team like the Lakers.

But the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment. After all, the Timberwolves are just the Timberwolves. Even if they get the three-headed monster combination of Garnett, Sprewell and Cassel later, they only reached the Western Conference Finals once. lotto.If it weren't for the glory Garnett brought to the city, people here really don't have a sense of belonging to the Timberwolves.

In the season after reaching the Western Conference finals, the Timberwolves' pettiness and short-sightedness let Cassell go and did not renew the contract with Sprewell. The three-headed monster of the Timberwolves collapsed and became a lottery team directly. Haven't made it to the playoffs yet.

It is said that Sprewell is greedy for money, but is it too stingy not to give a 18 million contract to a 4+3+[-] outside core?And the salary of the Timberwolves is far from paying the luxury tax.

The strategy of the Timberwolves boss is to save money, save money and save money.

So even after more than 40 years, in the eyes of Minneapolis people, the Lakers are their home team. In 04, when the Timberwolves and the Lakers played in the Western Conference Finals, the Lakers could hear cheers here.

With Kobe's 18 years of popularity in the NBA, coupled with the origins of the Lakers and Minneapolis, the fans at the scene were very excited to see that he was about to break Jordan's record, just like seeing their own players break the record.

Whenever Kobe made a shot, the fans cheered loudly.

Kobe and Jordan scored only 12 points before this game. Jordan's career total score is 22292 points, and Kobe has reached 22280.
With only a 12-point gap, Kobe only needs to make eight shots at most to complete the honor.

However, Kobe did not focus on scoring at the beginning, but used his ability to attract defense to create many opportunities for his teammates.

Therefore, Kobe only scored 6 points in the first quarter, which made the fans expect him to complete this milestone soon. Every time he scored a goal, he cheered loudly, expecting him to have more desire to score because of the cheers.

But Kobe didn't mean that. He was very interested in the Timberwolves' new No. [-] pick and used various methods to tease Wiggins.

Wiggins has a great defensive talent, which has been shown since college, which is also the most important reason why he was selected as the No. [-] pick in the NBA without any suspense.

But in front of Kobe, Wiggins was too young. Kobe played Wiggins with fake shots countless times, and then finally attracted other players to help defend and pass the ball, playing Wiggins unnecessarily.

Regarding Kobe's old urchin mentality, the Timberwolves coach Mr. Saunders on the sidelines really wanted to ask the referee directly if he could count Kobe's 40 points and let him go off the field.

Sanders is a headache. He wants to train young players, but most of the young players today can't stand the blow. He doesn't want his No. [-] pick to lose confidence because he was teased by Kobe.

Sanders is very depressed, why is it so difficult for him to train another Garnett-level star for the Timberwolves?
The owner of the Timberwolves wants to win and enter the playoffs. This team is the only team that has not made the playoffs since 04.But the Timberwolves lineup, although able to play, can't reach the point where they can make the playoffs in the West.

Now Sanders has a very difficult problem in front of him. Facing most opponents in the West, the Timberwolves can't win even if they try their best.

After trying their best and still losing, it will obviously cause a great psychological burden on these young players who are full of enthusiasm. It will make these rookie players feel frustrated and have doubts about themselves. There will be a chain reaction, slack training, and game attitude will gradually change. In the end, talent can only be talent.

The Timberwolves' rookies have been like this for so many years. Since the Timberwolves' lottery show in 05, only Love has played it.

And those rookies who were called once-in-a-decade talents before entering the Timberwolves disappeared after playing in the league for a few years.

This is why when the Thunder trained Durant and Westbrook, they didn't care about the record at all, they lost as much as they wanted, and lost in various fancy ways.

It's the same loss. If the rookie knows that the team is to cultivate himself and loses without caring about the record, it will be different.They will not be frustrated by a temporary loss, but will continue to hone their skills.

The 76ers did this more than ten years ago, the Cavaliers, Heat, and Nuggets in 03, and the Thunder in 07 all did this, and they all cultivated era-level stars in the end.

The owner of the Timberwolves is eager to win, and often holds team meetings to emphasize winning, which will undoubtedly bring a huge psychological burden to young players.

Even the boss in the forest wants to rely on those veterans to hit the playoffs and let young players play as substitutes.

Although there are also superstars like Kobe who came out of the bench, Kobe's growth path is so different from ordinary people that it is difficult to replicate.

Sanders really wants to be a bad player. It is not suitable to assist Wiggins and replace all the players. He can cultivate this talented No. [-] pick with peace of mind.

But Sanders is working for others, and the boss's arrangement must be accepted. He can only try to give Wiggins, Gion, Sabas and others more opportunities to perform.

As for Bennett, Sanders is busy training Wiggins, as well as Shabas, Gion and others, the parallel importer can't take care of it.

It is actually very difficult for Sanders to train young players. This team has a lot of players who can play more than ten to twenty minutes per game in the NBA. However, they cannot help the current Timberwolves win, but they must Give them playing time.

Seeing that Wiggins felt a little bit broken in the constant teasing by Kobe, Sanders quickly asked Wiggins to switch defenses and asked Rubio to defend Kobe.

Sanders was really afraid that Wiggins would be spoiled by Kobe.

but……

He didn't remember...

If Wiggins doesn't defend against Kobe, he can only defend against Liu Ren...

(End of this chapter)