NBA: The man who passed the ball to Yao Ming

Zhang Jinshui was taken aback for a moment, not knowing which teammate Uncle Mu was talking about.

At the side, Mai Di threw a piece of changed clothes on Uncle Mu's head, and scolded with a smile: "Zhang Jinshui, don't listen to this old guy's nonsense."

The teammates next to him chattered a few more words, and Zhang Jinshui finally figured it out: Everyone was talking about McGrady inviting all the Rockets players to dinner.

He just remembered that before the Rockets' first away game against the Kings this season, McGrady made a bet with two rookies Zhang Jinshui and Luther Head. The team ate at the most expensive western restaurant in Houston with an average per capita of US$20.

Luther Head made a three-pointer at the end of that game, which just made the total score of the two exceed 20. McGrady complained to Luther Head in the locker room.

Later, because the Rockets' schedule was too difficult, even if they occasionally stayed overnight in Houston, the tired players would go home to rest as soon as possible after the dissolution, and no one mentioned that meal again.

Zhang Jinshui thought that the bet was over, but he didn't expect it to be brought up again now.

Although McGrady is not known for being generous in the league, he is definitely not so stingy that he doesn't bother to treat him to a meal. Uncle Mu is naturally joking with McGrady.

But daring to make such jokes with the team's leading star also shows how approachable McGrady is and how good the Rockets' team atmosphere is now.

Everyone laughed for a while. Sprewell stepped on the 8:[-] minute hand and came late. He looked sleepy and complained as soon as he entered the door: "My God, why do you have to train so early? Our coach It must be a brain tease, doesn't he know that sleeping is the best training for athletes?"

However, his words did not receive a warm response from the brothers in the locker room.

On the contrary, the already noisy locker room immediately fell silent. Every player sat in place, looking obediently at Sprewell and...Van Gundy behind him.

"You know too much, Sprewell, my brain is really crazy. Go, go and run 20 laps around the field first."

Sprewell woke up immediately with a big black face, straightened his chest and shouted: "Okay, coach!"

Then, he changed into his training uniform indiscriminately, put on his sneakers and ran out of the locker room.

The look of embarrassment made others laugh.

After a while, all the players appeared on the training ground with Van Gundy's coaching staff. After a 20-minute warm-up training, the players were divided into two groups.

Under the leadership of Hughes, the old players practiced traditional basic skills such as back and forth running, lateral footwork, dribbling and passing.

Players such as Sprewell, Sean Battier, and Birdman Anderson were called aside by Van Gundy to systematically explain all the defensive positions and tactical moves of the Rockets.

An hour later, the old and new players officially started training together.

Van Gundy grouped Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady, Zhang Jinshui, Chuck Hayes and Shane Battier, and also grouped Huo Ershuo, Birdman Anderson, Sprewell, Rutherhead and Alston , for group confrontation.

During the process, Van Gundy frequently stopped the confrontation, and then corrected the small flaws of the main lineup in defense and offensive movement bit by bit.

Frankly speaking, this training is actually not even a confrontation. It is mainly to help the main lineup polish their defensive system and offensive running positions, which is a bit boring.

With Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady as the core of the team who lead by example and devote themselves wholeheartedly, other teammates can barely enter the state and work hard to cooperate with training, but the Rockets' new recruit Sprewell can't sit still.

This kind of drill confrontation only lasted 15 minutes, and he started to desert.

At first, he just dangled around his teammates while Van Gundy called a stop to explain.

Later, it became more and more boring, so he took a basketball to dribble and shoot for a while, and even stood behind Van Gundy and put the basketball on Van Gundy's head, making other players laugh .

Van Gundy looked back at the madman, annoyed and funny at the same time, immediately cursed a few words, and asked this troublemaker to run another twenty laps.

But at this time, running circles is better than practicing lineup with the main players here. Sprewell fully agreed and ran away with a smile.

Van Gundy called JR Smith, who was practicing individual running positions accompanied by assistant coach Hughes, to replace Sprewell.

Since joining the Rockets with Birdman Anderson the day before yesterday, JR Smith has been looking a little sullen.

Zhang Jinshui can fully understand his feelings.

After all, in the game the day before yesterday, Birdman Anderson immediately got a stable playing time, and also contributed wonderful alley-oops and three-point caps on both ends of the offense and defense. He has successfully gained a foothold in the Rockets.

And JR Smith only got less than 10 minutes of playing time in garbage time in the game the day before yesterday. Although he also made a three-pointer, it is obviously useless.

And in the joint training just now, he didn't even have the qualifications to accompany the main lineup to correct the defensive system and offensive running positions, so he was sent directly to the old Hughes.

Obviously, in the current Rockets team, he is only No.12 or No.13.

Fortunately, after spending another half an hour with the main lineup, Van Gundy returned to the sidelines and officially started the group confrontation within the team.

In order to punish Sprewell for always messing around, Van Gundy directly stretched him and some other fringe players, and then replaced him on the bench with JR Smith.

Sprewell, who has always disliked wasting time on the training ground, was happy to go to the sidelines to chat and spank with Uncle Mu, who was exempted from confrontation training because of his age.

However, JR Smith cherishes the opportunity of group confrontation that the madman abandoned.

He has almost regarded the group confrontation as an official game, and he has tried his best in every offensive and defensive round.

Gradually, Van Gundy's coaching staff, who hadn't put JR Smith in the Rockets' future plans, began to seriously look at the sophomore who was kicked out by the Hornets.

It can be seen from the offensive running position that JR Smith has a good understanding of the Rockets' tactical running position that Van Gundy just explained.

And more importantly, his autonomous offensive ability is quite outstanding. Facing the defense of the Rockets' main lineup, he can not only break through with the ball in a decent manner, but also, when there is a fleeting open three-pointer , He shot quite decisively, not at all ambiguous.

Of course, facing Sean Battier's defense, JR Smith's offensive success rate is not very high, but Van Gundy's eyes have moved repeatedly on him and Luther Head.

After 20 minutes of confrontation between the main force and the substitute, Van Gundy shouted to stop the confrontation on the sidelines.

After the players rested for 15 minutes, Van Gundy re-disrupted the lineups of the two sides, allowing JR Smith and Luther Head to directly face each other.

Soon, JR Smith dominated the matchup.

Luther Head's open three-pointer is his best offensive weapon. In this regard, JR Smith is actually no better than Luther Head.

However, JR Smith's ability to independently create offensive opportunities with the ball is much higher than that of Luther Head. Although the success rate is average, but under the premise that the Rockets' bench lineup has always relied too much on Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady and Zhang Jinshui. His ability to attack independently is very commendable.

Zhang Jinshui, as a bystander, watched Van Gundy from the beginning to notice JR Smith, to his gaze dangling between JR Smith and Luther Hyde, and then to staring at JR Smith with glowing eyes.

As a traveler who has seen the future of JR Smith and Luther Head, Zhang Jinshui naturally knows that JR Smith's upper limit is much higher than that of Luther Head.

He knew that Van Gundy would see the bright spots in JR Smith sooner or later, but Zhang Jinshui was a little surprised to see it after only one training session. Van Gundy's vision is indeed very sharp.

As for Luther Hyde, he may no longer have the same stable playing time with the Rockets as he did in his previous life.

However, in the future schedule, the Rockets should have many rests.

And in the middle and late part of the season, Van Gundy will also protect the core players such as McGrady and Yao Ming to rest some games, and Lutherhead will definitely have the opportunity to express himself on the court.

Unknowingly, the time came to 12 o'clock at noon.

The Rockets' logistics staff have prepared nutritious training meals for the Rockets soldiers and coaching staff.

After the meal, Van Gundy gave the players a break of more than an hour, and then resumed training at 1 o'clock in the afternoon.

Since the start of the new season, Zhang Jinshui has not experienced such a tight training rhythm like a pre-season training camp for a long time.

In the afternoon, Van Gundy still spent all his time on the two points of the team's defensive system and offensive running position, and constantly disrupted the combination of group confrontation, so that players who would appear on the field together had the opportunity to interact with each other. familiar.

Sprewell, who was still complacent about skipping training in the morning, saw all his teammates immersed in training in the afternoon, and gradually became infected, clamoring to return to group confrontation.

Van Gundy had Madman run another 20 laps around the field before allowing him back into the lineup.

But at this time, he added players such as Uncle Mu and Barry Sr., blurring the concept of rotation and giving all players a chance to get acquainted with each other.

At 5 p.m., near the end of practice, Van Gundy called a halt to the on-court practice.

He called the players to the sidelines and called out the names of 10 players.

"Center Uncle Mu."

"Power forward Birdman Anderson."

"Small forward McGrady."

"Shooting guard Sprewell."

"Point guard Alston."

"Five of you, form a white team."

"Center Yao Ming."

"Power forward Chuck Hayes."

"Small forward Shane Battier."

"Shooting guard JR Smith."

"Point guard Zhang Jinshui."

"Five of you, form a red team."

"Next, your two teams will return to the field and play the best 10 rounds according to the attacking time and rules of the regular game. I hope you can play out all the effects of today's training in these 10 rounds."

After the words fell, the faces of several Rockets players on the sidelines were happy and sad, with different expressions.

The faces of Birdman Anderson and JR Smith, who had just been transferred, were full of joy.

Especially JR Smith, he turned his face and confirmed with Zhang Jinshui again that he was called by his name and was a member of the red team.

The faces of Lutherhead, Uncle Huo and Qiongbali were full of disappointment.

Because they all know that the 10 players whose names were called just now are the 10 regular rotation players of the Rockets in Van Gundy's mind at this stage.

Not being called by name means that in future games, most of their time will be spent on the bench.

Uncle Huo and Qiongbali are actually fine. After all, they have been in the league for many years. They have seen too many similar things, and they have long been mentally prepared. Sooner or later, they will have such a day when they are not young.

The most difficult thing to accept is Luther Hyde. Luther Hyde, who has always been a fringe figure on the team, has just entered the rotation in the last few games. Will be McGrady's number one backup.

Unexpectedly, after only half a day of training, he was replaced by JR Smith, the abandoned player of the Hornets.

Zhang Jinshui saw Luther Hyde's red eyes from the side, and couldn't help feeling secretly in his heart, the NBA is really a cruel world.

But what can be done.

The NBA has never believed in tears. Only strength, record and championships are the rules here.

The atmosphere on the sidelines froze for a while.

But after the confrontation between the red and white teams began, everyone's eyes and emotions were immediately attracted to them.

For the red team, under the deliberate handover of Yao Ming and Zhang Jinshui, JR Smith got a lot of offensive opportunities.

He used 2 breakthroughs, a three-pointer, and an overall shooting rate of 6 of 3 shots to let all his teammates see that he is worthy of being placed in the rotation.

At the back, even Luther Head took the initiative to applaud JR Smith.

In the final analysis, the players training together today are all a team. As long as the Rockets win, everyone can feel the glory in their hearts.

The performance of the white team was also quite good. McGrady took the lead in making two shots, and then he began to create opportunities for the madman Sprewell. At the last moment, after the two teams reached a 9-9 tie, he called the Birdman Anderson helped himself set a pick-and-roll, and after breaking into the paint, he tossed the ball high and successfully assisted the latter to complete an alley-oop dunk, ending the confrontation.

In the confrontation, the two teams advanced and retreated between offense and defense, which well demonstrated the effect of today's training.

In the end, Van Gundy clapped his hands happily and shouted: "Players, you are simply amazing! Tomorrow, let the Eagles see our true strength!"