Legend of Tomorrow

The American Airlines Center Arena, also known as the Sky Corridor Arena, was built in June 1992 and was renovated this summer. It can accommodate 19,000 spectators. It is currently home to the NBA team Suns, NBA team Phoenix Mercury, AFL Home of the Arizona Diamondbacks. At 10 a.m., the Suns will be open here for interviews and photos.

Guo Xu made an appointment with coach Mike D'Antoni, the team's first assistant Larry Drew, and manager Brian Colangelo to arrive at the arena at 8 o'clock, chatting over coffee in the manager's office, and discussing the new season. .

Guo Xu must make some suggestions, otherwise they will have to suffer in the playoffs this season. It is Guo Xu's job to lead the team on the court, but D'Antoni has the final say on how to arrange the players' playing time.

D'Antoni currently has two fatal weaknesses. In his previous life, he didn't get better until he coached the Rockets.

First, his rotation of personnel is very rigid. Whether it's the Suns, Knicks or Lakers, Depang often stubbornly rotates seven or eight players. When players reach a certain level of fatigue, they begin to suffer injuries to the main players, and then the role players shine. This routine has been repeated several times for De Pang.

The second is that he didn't rehearse defense at all last season. Finding an assistant coach who emphasizes defense may be able to solve this problem.

The Suns signed Larry Drew, an assistant coach who emphasizes defense, this summer, which was an unexpected surprise. The coaching staff accepted their fate and Guo Xu didn't raise any objections. Brian knew that the team needed to strengthen its defense, and there happened to be a ready-made free agent who was blinded by him.

Drew was a point guard as a player. In his peak season of 1982-83, he averaged 20.1 points, 8.1 assists and 1.7 steals per game with the Kings. After retiring, Drew began his career as an assistant coach. Starting from the 1992-93 season, he successively served as an assistant coach for the Lakers, Pistons, Wizards and other teams. He just left the Wizards after three seasons this summer.

Since the Wizards have been very unsuccessful in the past three years and messed up Jordan's comeback performance, Drew is not a sought-after assistant coach. Brian signed him largely because it was cheap.

He attaches great importance to defense and likes to warn his players that they would rather let the opponent go to the free throw line than give up the defensive position easily and give the opponent an easy scoring opportunity. In Guo Xu's previous life, Drew was the head coach of the Eagles. He traveled to the first round twice and reached the second round once.

Drew's most famous deed is that he served as the head coach of the Cavaliers for a period of time in 2018, replacing Tyronn Lue who was recovering from injury, and achieved an excellent record of 8 wins and 1 loss.

In the absence of Tyronn Lue, the Cavaliers' rotation and technical and tactical levels have significantly improved, which has been recognized by the majority of Cavaliers fans. Some fans even said on the forum: Larry Drew should have replaced Tyronn Lue long ago!

In terms of coaching qualifications, Drew completely surpassed Tyronn Lue. At that time, he had been in the NBA coaching position for 18 years. Compared with Tyronn Lue's stubborn use of the Suicide Five\

,"Drew's rotation adjustments to the team's lineup are obviously more reasonable and convincing.

It's a pity that tactical genius Tyronn Lue came back before the playoffs, and the Cavaliers immediately changed back to the give the ball to James tactic...

D'Antoni's idea is to stick to small ball, let Diop and two veterans be marginal players, and young people who can run play more. He looked down on a rough blue-collar guy like Diop who couldn't shoot at all, but he was very interested in James Jones, a low-draft pick who could shoot three-pointers and had a body that could serve as a guest at the 4th position.

Drew suggested that the team ensure a rotation of at least 10 players. With the exception of Guo Xu, the playing time of others should be limited to less than 30 minutes. This way, role players can ensure offensive and defensive efficiency, maintain sufficient physical strength, and reduce the possibility of injury. In addition, this will allow young players to get more training in the regular season and play their role in the playoffs.

Drew is a coach who likes to rotate. In his previous life, when the Eagles were coached by Mike Woodson, they played a long time in the starting lineup. Joe Johnson averaged more than 40 minutes per game in many seasons. After Drew took over as coach, he played a lot of minutes in the starting lineup. 12 players rotated out, and core Joe Johnson and Josh Smith only played about 35 minutes.

His shortcoming is that his offensive tactics are terrible, mainly based on basic pick-and-rolls and singles. Not to mention leading the team to score more than 100 points. In the three playoffs, he averaged not even 90 points per game and relied on defense to win.

The two coaches come together and complement each other in terms of style.

Guo Xu didn't listen at first. He waited for the two coaches to discuss how to allocate the playing time of the inside players and asked him what he thought before he expressed his opinion.

Mike, don't blame me. This time I will stand with Larry, even though he is a newcomer. Guo Xu smiled.

When Drew signed the contract, he was a little worried that Guo Xu liked offense too much and ignored defense. Now that his ideas have been supported, he is very happy. He doesn't like players who go to extremes and feels that such people can't succeed.

D'Antoni had to give Guo Xu face and sighed: Do you also think that the playing time of role players should be increased?

Yes, otherwise it will be difficult for newcomers to perform in the playoffs. They will feel nervous due to their lack of game experience. I think Diop must have playing time, just about 10 minutes per game, and let him play when he encounters opponents who attack the penalty area. Go up there and push for a while. This will boost his confidence and his physical fitness is great. Guo Xu explained.

Brian then said: We brought him here to defend O'Neal and Duncan. It doesn't matter if the offense is weak. Let's try the effect in the regular season. When the opponent's inside offense is poor, let him sit on the bench.

3 to 1, D'Antoni has to listen even if he doesn't like it.

It was Guo Xu who suggested that everyone sit together and chat. What he wanted was an occasion where he could take sides. Disagreements during private discussions would not hurt the harmony.

Guo Xu also gave D'Antoni enough face. In terms of offensive tactics, he fully supported D'Antoni's decision, and the veterans can rest. The mission of the veterans is to teach the newcomers game experience during training and to be the captains in the locker room who maintain good relations among everyone. In terms of strength, they are not as good as a group of young supermen.

Laga Bell, a 27-year-old player, must be reused. He has a lot of game experience, although he is not in the NBA most of the time.

In addition, the key to Deshi's running and gunning is the point guard, and his teammates can rotate. Guo Xu has to play more. Of course he has no objection. If he plays less, he will not be able to get good data.

Manager Brian also supports rotation, so that the data of role players will be more even. If the starting data are very good, the management will not be able to renew their contracts in the future.

When talking about core makeup photos, Guo Xu suggested taking five people this year.

Is it too much? D'Antoni thinks three people are enough.

Not many. Now the strong teams in the Western Conference have four or five stars. There is no need for us to lag behind in this regard. When I am interviewed, I plan to say that the Suns are also among the top five. Guo Xu said with a smile.

Brian clapped his hands and said with a lewd smile: High, really high!

The three of them couldn't help but shrink their necks. This guy's expression really didn't look like a good person.

Brian explained excitedly: If we don't do this, I'm afraid we won't get as much attention as those teams in the new season. It will be different if we do it. They are famous players, and we are young players. If we play well, the fans will definitely Support us more.”

Guo Xu admired Brian's analytical ability. In fact, he didn't think much about it. He just believed that his talented young teammates would definitely improve this season, so he would praise them in advance when taking pictures together.

Simply taking a few photos can boost the confidence of young players, so why not?