Carroll got the news that he became the head coach of the East in the All-Star Game after the game with the Kings, who lost to the Kings by 91:111, a 20-point margin at home. After the interview, everyone was stuffy in the locker room, and the atmosphere inside was a little depressing. At this time, Steve Babbitt, a reporter for the Boston Herald, knocked on the door and walked into the locker room, he is a veteran reporter who is very close to the Celtics, not only covering the Celtics at home, but also traveling with the team on many of the closer away games. The Celtic dressing room is as easy for him as his own kitchen, so he can often break some Celtic insider information.

Because the previous interview has ended, now he is clearly not coming in to interview the players but to convey something. He walked up to Carroll and said, "You've become the head coach of the All-Star East Army." ”

Carroll was compiling game stats and writing a summary review when he didn't expect Babbitt to walk up to him and tell him that he was the head coach of the All-Star Game. Carroll was stunned for about three seconds, and a confused expression appeared on his face, because he really couldn't figure out how he, a person who had just changed from assistant coach to assistant coach for less than half a year, could go to the All-Star Game to be the coach of the East Army?

Babbitt didn't sell off, and continued: "Just Byron Scott announced that he was giving up being the head coach of the All-Star Game because of family and physical reasons. Now, Stern has assigned you to be the head coach of the All-Star East Force. ”

Babbitt's words livened up the locker room a little, and everyone began to congratulate Carroll on becoming the coach of the All-Star Game, which is not a great honor, but it is also an affirmation of a coach's coaching career. Although it is currently unclear why Byron Scott gave up the All-Star head coach, perhaps not just for simple family and physical reasons, but now that he has announced this result, then everything must not be changed, because it is now February 6th, and the All-Star Weekend is only a few days away.

Carroll frowned, still looking incredible, the Celtics' record so far has gone from the end of the crane at the beginning of the season to the third place in the East. The Nets are naturally rising strongly, invincible in the Eastern Conference, the Bucks and Philadelphia are still strong in the first half, but the Celtics and Pistons have come from behind, especially the Celtics, in the case of a young lineup and weak inside, relying on the strong play of the twin stars and the team's tactical reform, a green whirlwind has been blowing on the East Coast since January, and for a time the Eastern teams have been swept away.

It's just that once they face the top teams in the West, the Celtics are still powerless, so that on the night when Carroll became an All-Star East coach, they were accompanied by a painful loss, the mighty Sacramento Kings tore them to shreds in the North Shore Garden, and the excessive strength gap on the inside made a mess of the Celtics' rapid offense.

"I still think ...... It's a little incredible, why would Scott pass up this opportunity? Going to the All-Star Game is nothing to lose to anyone...... And, and I think there are many more people who can take on that position. Apparently Carroll was completely unprepared to become an All-Star head coach in the East all of a sudden, and he couldn't understand why Scott would give up such an entertaining task.

"It is said that it has something to do with the Nets' desire to get Mourning, and the New Jerseys are very ambitious this season, they are not willing to be the first in the East, and they want to get an interior player who can compete with the West through a trade. However, it seems that Stern blocked the possible deal, and it is not known for what purpose. It seems that because of this incident, Scott decided not to participate in the All-Star Games, which is also the meaning of the Nets owner, just like O'Neal back then. "Babbitt is still quite well-informed, and years of working as a journalist have allowed him to smell some of the clues from the news. He said that like O'Neal, he was referring to the 1997 All-Star when the league investigated the details of the Lakers' signing of O'Neal, and Jerry West angrily made O'Neal refuse to attend the 1997 Top 50 ceremony.

New Jersey and New York, as sister cities, have been completely unable to compete with New York for many years, but in the 21st century, the Knicks are still a long way off, while New Jersey is ready to be reborn with a clever deal. It's just that when they play against the Western giants, their interior line is still a little inadequate, so they try to bring in a strong center to further improve the team's lineup and enable the team to step into the ranks of the Western Conference powerhouses for the championship.

However, it seems that Stern doesn't want New Jersey to go so fast that New Yorkers can't see them, so as president of the league, he has 10,000 ways to abort a trade before it even starts.

Of course, all this is just media speculation, after all, the Nets' trade with the Heat is just a rumor, and it seems that the Nets don't have enough high-quality chips in exchange for fifth center Alonzo Mourning, as for why Pat Riley, the old fox, would move the idea of sending Mourning, only God knows what he knows.

And the result of these speculations is that John Carroll, who was not favored by everyone at the beginning of the season and temporarily replaced O'Brien as the head coach of the Celtics, once again took the spare tire and became the head coach of the All-Star Game, so this season's Carroll can also be called the No. 1 high-quality big spare tire.

"It's also important to note that the All-Star Game also has assistant coaches, and the All-Star assistant coach is generally the head coach's assistant coach under the parent team, so, Fox, and Mr. Hart, congratulations, you've become an assistant coach for the All-Star Game." Babbitt left Carol, who was still frowning, and turned to Leon and Hart.

Contrary to Carol, the expressions of the two were surprisingly calm, and the elder Hart just spread his hands, and then said, "It's all All-Star Game, and you won't let me rest for an old bone."

Leon nodded without a hint of expression, and it didn't look like he was interested in the All-Star Game. As a scout for the Celtics last season, he was eligible to attend that year's All-Star Game, but he passed up that opportunity and chose to go fishing with Ayatollah Khomeen. This time he had planned to go on vacation to Rhodes Island with Khomeenes, but now it looks like his plans are going to be ruined, and Khomemenes will be complained about.

So he wasn't happy at all, the Celtics' assistant coach was originally the least in the league, Leon did twice as much work as the average assistant coach, Leon had suggested to Danny Angeli that it would be best for him to hire one or two more competent assistant coaches in the summer to share his pressure, even if his brain turned faster than others, then he only had one head and two hands, twenty-four hours a day.

Looking at Leon's face, Babbitt was also a little embarrassed, in the Celtics team, this assistant coach is not easy to deal with, his mouth is tighter than anyone else during the interview, but his brain is faster than anyone else, but this guy has a lot of sources that I don't know where to get it. Babbitt was convinced that Leon had his own basketball news network, and that the center of that network should be in New York, much to the displeasure of the veteran Boston reporter. New York and Boston have been rivals in the East since the '60s, and because the war of words between the two basketball cities is no less than that on the court, the team's nominal future successor is not close to the media in his own city, but close to New Yorkers, which naturally makes Boston's media people quite suspicious.

But Auerbach never cared, didn't know what the archbishop had in mind, and didn't seem to want Leon to take over his media resources in Boston.

……………………

After receiving this important news, the first half of the season for the Celtics is over, and Leon is on his way home to pack up and leave the locker room, thinking about the team's progress and gains in the past half of the season. They went from the end of the Eastern Conference at the start of the season to third in the East, and his two-fast-break strategy proved to be a good fit for the team, and they began to explode in January. The players are starting to train more and more energetically, no longer the twilight of the start of the season, there are more and more people arriving early and returning late every day, young people are starting to compete with each other, and the veterans are also full of energy.

Of course, Leon does not take all this credit back to himself, Carol's tolerance and humility, Dick Hart's strictness and strictness, Danny Angie's personal affairs, Chris Wallace's full support, and Auerbach's efforts behind the scenes, plus Leon's hard work day and night, allowed the Celtics to finally get out of the quagmire, and their future began to show a bright and clear appearance.

On the drive back, the night in Boston was lit up by the lights of the streets, buildings, rivers and vehicles, and Leon couldn't remember the last time he came home before the sun went down, and he would work until dark with or without a race. The advantage of coming home late is that there will be fewer cars on the road, and you don't have to endure traffic jams. Boston is not a city with wide roads.

Because of this, Leon was able to relax in the driver's seat to drive his four-handed Chevrolet, and his nerves and countenance, which had been tense, were slowly relaxed. At this time, a smile appeared on his face, as if the joy of being an All-Star assistant coach had just reached his brain. That's right, Leon is actually quite happy in his heart, not because he likes All-Star, but because he finally has the opportunity to meet those superstars face-to-face.

What could be more gratifying for an assistant coach who evolved from a scouting to poaching?