Legendary star

Chapter 199 The beginning of a new season

On October 2000, 10, the Spurs ended all 29 preseason games of the season. In these 8 games, the Spurs achieved an "excellent" record of 8 wins and 2 losses. In these 6 games, the Spurs' main players Meng Xu, Mario Ellis, Sean Elliott did not participate in all 8 games, David Robinson and Avery Johnson only played in a few games at home Yes, and the playing time is very short. Duncan participated in all 8 games, but only played for about 8 minutes.Almost all 10 preseason games were played by Derek Anderson with a bunch of substitutes and undrafted rookies. In these 8 games, Derek Anderson also scored 8 points and 22 rebounds. The data of 6+5.5+20 with 5 assists.

Finally, after the preseason ended, the Spurs cut several role players and compressed the final roster to 15 players, and the Spurs' idea of ​​finding a backup center was stillborn.During the offseason of this season, many teams in the league sent requests to the Spurs to trade Meng Xu, and since the end of the Olympics, this trend has intensified, facing the US team's three-man double-team , scored 3 points in a single quarter, 27 points, 48 assists, and 9 rebounds in the game. Meng Xu's future has greatly exceeded people's expectations for him. This is definitely a player with the potential to become a super giant .But these trade applications were rejected by Popovich without exception.Among these transactions, the Celtics, Pacers and Trail Blazers are the most persistent.

The Celtics are undoubtedly the most infatuated with Meng Xu. Since the regular season last season, the Celtics have been seeking the possibility of trading Meng Xu from the Spurs. The eighth fax from the Spurs has arrived. This time the Celtics' offer is directly for All-Star forward Antoine Walker and backup center Vitaly Potapenko, who averages 8+10 per game.Meng Xu's performance in this season's playoffs and the Sydney Olympics has proved Larry Bird's excellent vision, and Meng Xu's upper limit may be higher than Larry Bird.

The Blazers are also tireless in their pursuit of Meng Xu. In the confrontation between Meng Xu and Pippen in the Western Conference Finals last season, Meng Xu's outstanding performance also left a deep impression on the Blazers owner Paul Allen. The Blazers have sent multiple trade applications to the Spurs in a row.The fax of the trade application sent by the Trail Blazers to the Spurs is directly using Steve Smith and Jermaine O'Neal plus next year's first-round pick to exchange the Spurs' Meng Xu and Sean Elliott and the future picks.Even the head coach of the Blazers, Mike Dunville, personally called Popovich and picked two All-Stars at will.Facing the conditions offered by the Blazers, the Spurs' management was already full of enthusiasm, but Popovich said: Do you have money?I got kicked back.

Compared with the Celtics of the Trail Blazers, the best offer is undoubtedly Larry Bird's Pacers. After losing the finals last season, Larry Bird resigned as the head coach of the Pacers , but still continues to serve as the vice president and general manager of the Pacers. Larry Bird, who has always been obsessed with his successor Meng Xu, also called Popovich many times. As mentioned in the finals, apart from Reggie Miller picking at will, and at the same time in order to maintain parity in salary, the Spurs can also give all the garbage contracts to the Pacers, but even with such favorable conditions, Popovich is still in the end. It was rejected without hesitation.Because in Popovich's heart, ten stars are not worth a super giant. Meng Xu and Duncan are likely to create more than one dynasty combination, and this season's Spurs are very likely to create a dynasty of their own And times, in this case, Popovich would not trade out the core players of the team anyway, even Sean Elliott, Popovich persuaded him to play for another season.

"Greg, the regular season is about to start, but our team's tactics for this season haven't been finalized yet. Are you not in a hurry?" Popovich was leading several assistant coaches in the video room. Watch the video of the game, and the few videos I watched today are the Bulls in the post-Jordan 3-game period.Looking at Popovich with a calm face, Mike Budenholzer is now a little anxious. The regular season is about to start in two days, but the Spurs haven't even started basic tactical training.

"Mike, the most taboo in coaching games is the same, so that the opponent can easily find out about you, so as to grasp your weaknesses and make targeted arrangements. And David is one year older this year, and he was injured in the playoffs. The playing time and game state of this season will definitely not be the same as last season, so this season we will give up the twin tower tactics. Moreover, the Lakers are much stronger than last season. This season, we want to rely on a combination of internal and external tactics. It is already very difficult to beat the Lakers, so we should find another way out." In the playoffs last season, David Robinson was injured and reimbursed, which also gave Meng Xu a chance to take the lead, and Meng Xu's outstanding performance in the playoffs The performance also gave Popovich the idea of ​​making him the core. Fortunately, the Spurs' previous tactics have always been the dual core of David Robinson and Tim Duncan, but Xiang Mengxu and Duncan, two players with different styles The combination between them has never appeared in the previous basketball history. The closest combination is the combination of Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. However, compared with Magician Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Duncan and Meng Xu are very different. , So in order to allow the two to achieve a seamless connection, Popovich also racked his brains this offseason.

Since the finals, Popovich has been looking for a tactic that can integrate Meng Xu and Duncan. Duncan is better to say that Duncan's tactical adaptability is far better than Meng Xu, but Duncan has his own tactical system. It is destined that only with him as the core of tactics can he play his greatest role.At present, Meng Xu's tactical system seems to be to break through and score the ball, but the Spurs' inside line is very crowded. It is difficult to play Duncan's role if Meng Xu is allowed to break through.So in this offseason, Popovich looked at almost all the tactics, and then overturned the feasibility of using these tactics in the Spurs one by one. In the end, Popovich still wanted to try the triangle offense. After all, This is a tactical system that once combined Jordan Pippen's two super giants.

Mike Budenholzer nodded, did not speak, but continued to watch the video, the levels are different, and the situation is different. Regarding Popovich's "obsession", Mike Budenholzer is not now. What is the solution, in the eyes of Mike Budenholzer, as long as Meng Xu can be trained into a player like Reggie Miller, then with the addition of a few qualified role players, the Spurs will be beneficial to the championship in the next ten years Contenders, 10 championships in 3 years are relatively conservative statements.But Popovich insists on pursuing a historical combination like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Magician, and Popovich's ambition is far more than three championships, so for Popovich's goal, Mike Budenhall While Ze was shocked, he also admired him very much, but he just didn't know if Popovich could succeed, so he didn't want to be beaten in the end.

After returning to the Spurs, Meng Xu's training was basically carried out alone. During the long offseason, many players would choose to travel and eat and drink by the way. By the time they returned to the team, their bodies were already out of shape. He even had a small belly, so when these players returned to the team, they were greeted with a lot of weight-loss exercises, so Meng Xu naturally couldn't train with them.Because of this, during lunch time, many players on the Spurs salivated enviously when they saw that Meng Xu had extra meals besides lunch.After gaining weight for almost a month, Meng Xu's weight has also successfully increased to 93 kg, and he still has solid muscles. Although he is still far behind the muscular clubs in the team, Meng Xu's current physical resistance ability has already improved. greatly enhanced.

After a day of training, the first thing Meng Xu did when he returned home was to enter the system space for additional training. During this month, Meng Xu did not cooperate tactically with his teammates, especially those new ones. The training is over, and the first regular season game against the Pacers will start tomorrow, so today Meng Xu reluctantly spent a lot of points, simulating a San Antonio Spurs team of this season, and this season's team. The Los Angeles Lakers played a game.The Lakers this season are ranked among the top 20 legendary teams in history in the system.

"Meng, your breakthrough and vision, as well as the accuracy of passing and passing are very good, but you are a little bit poor in grasping the timing of passing. You can only accurately predict the next move of your teammates, or Use your own pass to guide your teammates to move, so that you and your teammates can perform better, instead of simply waiting for your teammates to appear open and then pass the basketball to him, I suggest you learn a pass as soon as possible Ball skills." The Lakers, where both O'Neal and Kobe are at their peak, surpassed their own Spurs by a large margin in terms of coordination and personal ability, so in this simulated game, the Spurs ended up winning 90-107 Lost to the most peak Lakers in this system by a big score.After the game, Popovich in the system also put forward some suggestions of his own to Meng Xu.It can be clearly seen that the Popovich in front of me is much better than the current Popovich in terms of temperament and on-the-spot ability, but the difference in strength is too great. One of the top five head coaches is also unable to recover.

"Thank you, coach." After Meng Xu smiled at Popovich in the system, what he thought in his heart was that there are not enough points. If there are enough points, I will change to a passer In terms of skills, after winning the bronze medal in the Olympics, various rewards also brought Meng Xu more than 2000 points, but he barely got together 3000 points, and Meng Xu all pointed to the tactical system of breaking through and scoring.

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(End of this chapter)