Bishop of the Abyss

Chapter 216 216. The highest price contract in history!Form a new coaching team! (4.2K words for subscription)

As the time comes to the end of June, the NBA draft is getting closer and closer.

At this stage, the teams in the league can be described as a group of demons dancing wildly.

For these rookies who are about to participate in the draft this year, various teams in the league have arranged trial training, and most of these young guys are running back and forth for the future, wanting to leave their best side in front of the scouts.

In previous drafts, except for individual talents who had already booked the top three picks in advance before the draft, most players had to participate in a series of trial training for the team.

These trials include multiple assessments such as touching heights, turning back and forth, lateral movement, and actual combat.

However, while all the teams in the league are getting busy, the Grizzlies, who have made a big splash this offseason, have been silent for a long time.

This summer, the Grizzlies got the fourth pick in the first round in the lottery at the end of May. As the existence with the lowest record in the league, the fourth pick in the first round is naturally not high, but it is also very valuable.

Since mid-June, the Grizzlies have not tried out any players, which is undoubtedly an abnormal behavior.

You know, even these guys who have basically locked in the lottery show have their own strengths, and the NCAA is essentially different from the NBA.

Whether players can integrate into the NBA environment from college will be a very important factor. In this case, player assessment before the draft will be very necessary.

In previous years, when Luke was in the Timberwolves, these things were all arranged by the general manager McHale. Although there is not much difference for Luke whether to try out or not, McHale can always do a good job in face engineering.

However, since Luke took office this year, he has been busy with the issue of building a coaching staff, and without Luke's words, Chris Wallace dared not decide these things privately.

This also led to the fact that the Grizzlies hadn't tried out any players until a week before the start of the draft.

The Grizzlies' anomalous behavior naturally entered the media's attention, and the entire league now knows that Luke is very talented in building teams.

And every year in the draft, Luke can find some future star seedlings with his own eyes, which also makes Luke a representative figure in today's league.

But now the Grizzlies don't even bother to try out, and this behavior still attracts complaints from many fans.

Many fans think that Luke is too proud of his vision. In the past, when he was in the Timberwolves, Luke at least went through the process and participated in the trial training.

Now that Luke doesn't even bother to participate in the trial training, it's kind of like opening a blind box in the draft. This kind of behavior is somewhat arrogant.

When Luke heard the news from the outside world, he couldn't laugh or cry.

Recently, Luke has been busy building a coaching staff, but he completely forgot about Chris Wallace, the puppet general manager.

During the offseason, Luke has long been used to planning and designing everything by himself. In this regard, former general manager McHale also acquiesced to Luke's construction ideas, and usually does some dispensable things to deal with the sublime projects.

In other words, McHale is forcing himself to find something to do, so as not to be talked about by the outside world, and in the end he completely becomes a dispensable existence.

However, compared to the relationship between Luke and McHale, Chris Wallace, who has just joined the Grizzlies, is obviously still very unfamiliar.

Luke didn't speak for a long time over there, and Wallace didn't dare to do anything here. He could only sit at the computer desk every day and wait for Luke's call.

Even if he just asked him to make a cup of coffee like last time, Chris Wallace would at least feel better.

As a result, Wallace has waited until now to find out that Luke doesn't even have to make coffee himself, which is really a sad thing.

The busiest existence of the team during the offseason every year must be the general manager and scouts. Fortunately, Chris Wallace finds himself not only a puppet, but also a waste.

If Luke hadn't told him to get in touch with an assistant coach not long ago, Chris Wallace doubted that he would have come to work with the team at all.

Chris Wallace is well aware of Luke's recent formation of the coaching staff. After joining the Grizzlies, the first thing Luke did was to eliminate the moths on the team.

Including the team's former general manager Jerry West and the former coaching staff and many other staff members.

It is worth mentioning that when he left the Timberwolves, Luke joined the Grizzlies with assistant coach Lambir.

The reason why Lambiel joined the Timberwolves was because of Luke. Now that Luke chooses to leave, Lambiel naturally has no need to stay there.

Especially since he can't take the position of head coach of the Timberwolves anyway.

At present, the Timberwolves head coach position is still vacant, and McHale is actively looking for a candidate to succeed Luke.

However, Luke's contribution to the Timberwolves during his tenure is too amazing, which makes all those who want to apply for the head coach very scared.

After all, taking over the Timberwolves will definitely be compared with Luke by fans. For those veteran coaches who have been in the league for many years but have no jobs for the time being, this job is simply poisonous.

In other words, even if this group of people would rather lie at home for another two years, they are not willing to take over the Timberwolves.

After all, although the position of head coach of the Dynasty team is attractive enough, it is also a hot potato.

Capable people can't afford to be ashamed of this, and incompetent people McHale still can't see it. This also makes the position of Timberwolves head coach always vacant, and it has not been able to decide on a candidate until now.

Originally after Luke left, Raymond, the assistant coach who had served the Timberwolves for more than ten years, should be the first head coach candidate.

And McHale also hopes that Raymond can replace this position, but Raymond is a salty fish.

During Luke's tenure, Raymond was always based on the purpose of being able to contribute one part and never contributing two parts. After Luke left office, Raymond did not want to go into this muddy water.

Raymond is simply one of the few elites in the league. After playing next to Luke for a few years, Raymond's mind has become more shrewd.

Although the position of the Timberwolves head coach is drool-worthy at first glance, I am afraid most people can tell whether it is a golden mountain or a fire pit.

Occasionally, a few young coaches who are not afraid of tigers want to challenge this position, and McHale is completely despised by them.

To be precise, McHale didn't even bother to raise his eyelids after reading his resume.

No one can imagine that after Luke left, the Timberwolves fell into a dilemma in choosing a head coach.

It is foreseeable that if McHale does not choose to compromise, in the short term, it may be difficult for the Timberwolves to find a famous coach who is willing to take over.

In the end, if there is really no candidate that satisfies McHale, there are only two paths the Timberwolves can choose.

Either find a stunned young man with insufficient qualifications, or McHale will come down to coach himself.

As for trying to persuade Raymond to take this position, the difficulty is probably even more outrageous than McHale's kiss-mother-explosion.

.........

Less than three days before the start of the draft, Luke finally formed his coaching team for the new season.

The Grizzlies' original coaching staff is too broken, even the head coach Mike Fratello is difficult to get into Luke's eyes.

So Luke simply spent some effort to rebuild a complete coaching system.

Grizzlies owner Mike Heisley is a serious businessman, and he has no intention of interfering in these matters.

As long as Luke finally brings him the results that can satisfy him and bring benefits to the Grizzlies again, then Luke has no problem even if he recruits O'Neal's grandma as assistant coach Heisley.

During the offseason, Lukla brought in two assistant coaches, the Suns assistant coach Alvin Gentry and the Supersonics assistant coach Dwayne Casey last season.

These two guys can be regarded as quite capable in later generations, one is good at training insiders, and the other is good at training outsiders, and together they can provide Luke with some help.

Among them, Dwayne Casey naturally needless to say, as Luke's favorite basketball coach in his previous life, Casey has not yet radiated light at this stage.

In the 17-18 season, Casey led the Raptors to a record of 59 wins and 23 losses and won the first place in the Eastern Conference. Therefore, Dwayne Casey also successfully won the first coach of his career in that season.

Casey can be regarded as a basketball coach with a balanced offense and defense, and what he is best at is the system after matching players. This alone is enough to provide Luke with great help.

And Alvin Gentry is a strong offensive and defensive coach. Gentry is indeed relatively average in terms of coaching ability alone, but Gentry is very good at encouraging players.

To put it simply, Gentry is not much different from the famous coach Doc Rivers, both of whom are good at chicken soup.

It’s just that the difference between the two is probably that Rivers can’t play with the wind, and Gentry can’t play with the wind. Luke has thought more than once that if these two people are put together, good guy, the problem will be solved perfectly!

Alvin Gentry has a 17-year coaching career, but only five seasons with a coaching winning percentage of more than 50%.

But even so, Gentry is still able to secure the position of the head coach. From here, it is not difficult to see how good Gentry is.

No, it's how exquisite Gentry's grasp of interpersonal relationships is!

The purpose of Luke's choice to win over Gentry is also more obvious. Compared with the tactical level, Luke hopes that Gentry can bring the players together.

After all, sometimes, things like chicken soup can really excite players, otherwise Gentry wouldn't have been a coach in the league for 46 years with a career coaching rate of 17%.

As for Bill Lambir, who followed Luke to the Grizzlies, he still serves as the player development coach.

He is mainly responsible for the internal atmosphere of the team and the interpersonal relationship of the players. As for whether Lambiel's means of controlling interpersonal relationships are serious, Luke really doesn't bother to ask about these things.

Many people will question the role of a player development coach in a team. The simplest example is to make up for the cracks on the court caused by players' conflicts.

As long as the Lakers in the OK period had an excellent player development coach, the relationship between Kobe and O'Neal would not have been so stiff.

Players play on the same team, but the relationship is not necessarily very good. At this time, the role of player development coaches will become very important.

At least Luke has always felt that Lambiel is very suitable for this position, and even once considered whether to invite Rick Mahon to work together.

In addition, Luke left behind some staff who have worked for the Grizzlies for many years, and these people were arranged by Luke in their respective fields without being transferred.

The teaching assistant team is not necessarily the more luxurious the better, often a reasonable combination can play more roles.

There are too many people talking, Luke only needs his assistant teaching team to share the pressure for him at a certain stage, as for the rest, Luke is more used to dealing with it by himself.

If nothing else, the configuration of the Grizzlies coaching staff in the new season is roughly the same.

Compared to Bill Lambir, who is as calm as water, Casey and Gentry are obviously excited. Being able to serve as assistants next to Luke in the new season is definitely a skyrocketing opportunity.

The new season has not yet started, and Casey and the two have already made sufficient preparations, planning to assist Luke in the new season to make a big difference, so that the Grizzlies can re-enter the playoffs stage.

…………

Before the draft, a piece of news about Luke's new contract also caused widespread heated discussions in the league.

Luke and the Grizzlies management held press conferences before, indicating that Luke will serve as the head coach of the Grizzlies in the new season, but the two parties did not disclose much about the contract.

It was not until June 6 that the Grizzlies officially announced that the team had officially signed a three-year, $25 million contract with Luke.

As the news spread, the outside world immediately fell into endless discussions, and even felt shocked.

Three years of 2600 million, converted into an annual salary of about 860 million US dollars, slightly higher than the previous highest paid coach "Zen Master" Jackson.

At this point, Luke also officially broke the record of "Zen Master" Jackson and became the coach with the highest annual salary in NBA history.

The outside world still received a lot of shocks for the Grizzlies' three-year salary of 2600 million US dollars. Naturally, some people said with a sour mouth that the Grizzlies will definitely regret this decision.

Some people also questioned whether Luke's coaching ability is excellent, but the head coach's qualifications are still short after all. Whether there is something wrong with such an astonishingly high-priced contract, and whether it will cause a burden to other veteran coaches in the league.

But under Luke's social media, there are more expressions of celebration. After all, Luke's coaching ability has been proved very powerfully in the Timberwolves.

In the three years since he entered the league, Luke led the team to win the NBA championship three times and was elected as the best coach once.

These honors are probably areas that many veteran coaches will not be able to set foot in throughout their lives.

Although the 38-year-old Luke is indeed very young, Luke is strong enough to step into the ranks of the league's top coaches.

As one of the only two three-peat coaches remaining in the active league, Luke's value can definitely match this three-year $2600 million contract.

There are even gossip rumors that if Luke didn't want to get 20% of the shares of the Grizzlies, Luke would have already become the first coach in NBA history with an annual salary of over [-] million!
Tens of millions of coaches have never appeared in the history of the NBA. Even the "Zen Master" Jackson is difficult to challenge this goal in the short term, but the emergence of Luke has brought more miracles to the coaching industry.

No one questioned Luke's method of building the team, and no one questioned Luke's coaching ability. What the outside world is most curious about is what level of team Luke can make the Grizzlies into in the new season.

After all, the annual salary of Grizzlies star Pau Gasol is only about 1200 million US dollars.

The most lucrative sky-high contract in history has made Luke famous in the coaching world, but at the same time, this sky-high contract will also become Luke's next burden.

　The same two big chapters today, asking for a monthly ticket, asking for a recommendation ticket, asking for support!

　　
　
(End of this chapter)