"One, Michael Jordan will return this season, two, the Lakers will win three consecutive championships in the 2002 season, third, Chinese football will qualify from the World Cup qualifiers and enter the World Cup, what else, what else...... By the way, the United States will fight Afghanistan...... But what's the use of that? One night after returning to Boston, Leon stayed in his cabin, took out a large blank piece of paper and began to pick out all the memories in his head, especially some events that had a significant impact. These events left a deep impression on Leon's mind, and Leon probably wrote them down when he saw the TV news at the time.

What makes Leon more strange is that in July this year, China's bid for the 2008 Olympic Games was successful, and Leon did not feel the slightest feeling when he saw the news, as if such a major event did not leave too deep an impression on Leon's mind. Leon estimated that these events should have been memorized randomly, because he was still young at the time, and perhaps he wrote them down one day when he went home and the TV news was broadcasting, and if he didn't hear it, he didn't remember it.

Now Leon is repeatedly searching his brain for some memories related to American basketball, but unfortunately, apart from Jordan's comeback and the Lakers' three-game winning streak in the 02 season, it is difficult for him to recall other news. And the whole time period of memory came to an abrupt end in the summer of 2002, and he only remembered that he went to his uncle's house to visit the zoo that summer, and then it was all cut off.

Leon is a pragmatic man who has no intention of exploring the life that has disappeared, but only wants to pick something useful out of the broken fragments. As a child, he wasn't a sports-friendly person, and it seemed that trying to piece together NBA-related information was purely a matter of luck to see if he overheard NBA-related news as a child.

In that era when the media was not particularly developed, a child who didn't care about basketball didn't have many opportunities to see NBA-related news, if Leon really cared about the NBA at that time, then when he saw Wang Zhizhi on the court, he should be able to think of something.

"It seems that I really didn't care about sports in my last life......" Leon thought to himself, but he was still a little unwilling, he was very confident in his memory, he knew that many things were not completely forgotten, but only hidden in the deep consciousness. Many things may not necessarily come to mind when you try to think about them, but when you encounter a stimulus from a similar or related event, it will suddenly come to mind, which is also a characteristic of unconscious memory.

Leon was convinced that a significant part of this memory was hidden in the deep subconscious, and that he needed a special stimulus to find information related to basketball. So Leon found all the newspapers and magazines in his home and began to browse NBA-related news over and over again, hoping that some words and sentences would bring back some deep memories.

Leon flipped through the newspaper as fast as the wind blew, and those words flowed through his mind one by one, and finally when he saw a piece of news related to the New Jersey Nets, a memory popped out of his mind.

"The team that will play the Lakers in the Finals in 2002 will be the New Jersey Nets!" Before, Leon only remembered that the champion in '02 would be the Lakers, but he couldn't remember who their opponent in the Finals would be, after all, who would remember the loser?

Leon still turned to this information in the depths of his memory, which seemed to be of little use, but it was very important to Leon, far more important than the news of Jordan's comeback.

This starts with the evaluation of public opinion after this draft meeting. Overall, the 2001 draft was a great harvest for the Celtics, with the trio of Durham Porter, Arenas, and Joe Johnson proving to be very promising players in the subsequent Summer League, with the trio of Celtics Summer League undefeated throughout the summer, and Arenas and Joe Johnson sweeping the Orlando Summer League in the backcourt.

But it's only summer league after all, and there are still many who think that the Celtics have over-leaned towards perimeter players in the draft in the last two years, especially since they have drafted three offensive guards for two years in a row. Even within the Celtics, there has been some disagreement that Joe Johnson, Arenas and Michael Reed should be traded for a better and more useful interior player as soon as possible. Especially after the Toronto Raptors and Orlando Magic acquired Hakeem Olajuwon and Patrick Ewing, respectively, such discontent has become increasingly prominent in Boston, and criticism of the draft results has grown.

Because with the destruction of the Los Angeles Lakers on the road to dominance, and the near-invincible performance of the big shark O'Neal, the whole league has set off a wave of containment of O'Neal, many teams have learned from the Portland Trail Blazers or Indiana Pacers, hoarding a large number of defensive interior lines, especially in the West, where there are many forward talents, and the accumulation of interior players by various teams has been almost crazy. Such a trend has more or less affected the East, especially since the Pacers and 76ers who have entered the Finals in the past two years are typical teams that pile up defensive interior lines, so this makes Celtics fans who once had the strongest frontcourt lineup in NBA history very nostalgic for the era of controlling the interior, and public opinion has also been affected, and they are dissatisfied with the Celtics' continuous selection of backcourt players and then trading for an old point guard.

Head coach O'Brien is one of them, influenced by conventional thinking, he, like Pitino, has always hoped to get a good player who can support the Trail Blazers' interior line, originally thought that the Celtics would trade after the draft, but unexpectedly, until the preseason was about to start, there was still no news from management. For Leon, who dominated the draft, he began to be under a lot of pressure. In particular, he is now the team's assistant coach, and after returning to Boston to start training, he will be responsible for optimizing the team's tactical play and system, and in discussions with O'Brien and Vogel, they have disagreed on the issue of imaginary opponents.

O'Brien and Vogel believe that while the entire league is strengthening the interior, the Celtics' top-heavy lineup model and corresponding tactical play are bursting with rebounds on the field, and their rebounding was not good last season. Leon thinks that since they are in the East, there is no need to target O'Neal and the Western Conference champions, the Raptors and Magic will not succeed even if they get Olajuwon and Ewing, and the success or failure of the Philadelphia 76ers is completely dependent on Iverson alone, Leon believes that the Bucks who will really dominate the East next season are likely to be the Bucks who missed the Eastern Conference finals this year.

Now it seems that Leon should have guessed wrong, but in terms of team structure, the Nets and the Bucks are very similar, both are based on a flexible backcourt-forward combination, especially the Nets traded Marbury to get Jason Kidd this summer, although the outside world is not optimistic about this switch of guards, but Leon already knows that this will be a reborn exchange for the Nets.

Recalling this message, Leon knew it in his heart, and strengthened his views on the current team construction and tactical line, insisting on giving priority to talent and fighting for future operations; On the premise that there is no decisive super inside joining, adhere to the route of taking the outside line, refuse to hoard defensive inside lines, improve the flexibility of the style of play, and give full play to the talents of the players in all aspects.

This was not Leon's idea alone, but the general policy proposed after many discussions with Auerbach, who finally decided to abandon the idea of picking a superstar for the draft pick in the past to change the team overnight, and the league's crackdown and Stern's targeting made such an old trick no longer work. Auerbach and Leon have repeatedly argued that if they can't pick a superstar who can completely change the team, then pick the best players they can pick, accumulate enough leverage, and then look for opportunities to make big deals to get the superstar who can change everything.

It was not easy to convince Auerbach to accept such a strategy, the old man played a lifetime of intrigues, robbery, and small fortunes, but he did not expect that one day he would also embark on the game of "saving five zero votes for the whole ticket". Danny Ainge and Leon are on the same page, Chris Wallace is also following this approach, and only O'Brien and Vogel insist on selecting and trading players who are best suited to their current style of play on top of their current roster and believe they can lead the team to the next level. It's just that under pressure from Auerbach, their voices didn't go mainstream.

If the Celtics start the season with a poor record and a chaotic roster, it's hard to say how things will play out.

Leon can't help but feel a little difficult thinking about these things, O'Brien is a very good guy, very liked by the players, and Leon and him have no personal discord. However, the discord in basketball philosophy will one day erupt, and as Leon understands basketball more deeply, their contradictions will deepen, which is completely different from the grudge between Pitino. León has realized that the year of the assistant coach is going to be a very difficult one.