When Antoine Walker finished his 20-minute shooting drill, he felt like he was a little out of the woods. And when Leon told him that he had to do 15 minutes of defensive skill practice, Walker felt a little broken. It was Walker's punishment for being late today, and he was late for half an hour after the training session officially began. He flew from his hometown of Chicago to Boston last night, and then he slept a lot and woke up before driving to the training gym.

At first, Leon didn't criticize Walker for anything, but asked him to quickly change his clothes and warm up to join the training, Walker thought that his tardiness was over, anyway, he used to be often late and leave early, as the team's number one star, the coach generally doesn't say much.

When Walker got a six-year, $71 million contract with the Celtics, he gained more than just money and status, and he learned a lot in his six-year career. For example, this is a league of superstars, and the fans love the stars, so as long as you can score points on the court and save the team, then they will be very lenient with you. Correspondingly, the coach will be very lenient with you, and many of your actions are allowed, such as eating high-calorie food, taking too many shots on the court, or yelling at the referee for a technical foul. Being late for training was a very small thing, and Walker didn't take it seriously.

Even if the team has a lot of Celtic celebrities, what does it matter? How many more young fans will know them?

But when Walker was about to return to the locker room to change clothes at the end of the team's official training at 2:30 p.m., the team's new head coach Leon stood in front of him. He tossed the basketball in Walker's hand, then beckoned to him, motioning for Walker to come with him to the video room.

If there is anyone in Celtic's management who still scares Walker, Leon must be the first to bear the brunt. Walker is a witty and cheerful man who is nicknamed "The Comedy", while Leon is an iron-masked Hades. He was rigorous in his training during his time as an assistant coach. He is in awe of the players for his unpretentious affection, and his super high IQ and strong memory ability make the Celtics players more afraid to argue with Leon because they will be dumbfounded.

So Leon asked him to follow him to the video studio, and Walker had to obediently follow. As a result, in the video room, Leon first stated that he needed Walker to accept punishment for being late this morning, and the content of the punishment was on a tape that Leon showed Walker.

It was a 20-minute warm-up session for Steve Nash, which Leon recorded on video camera that morning at Team Canada's training gym during the World Championships in Indianapolis. Although it is only a so-called warm-up exercise, it is actually a very intense shooting exercise. Nash uses him for pre-workout warm-ups, post-workouts.

Leon believes that this 20-minute non-stop training session is a very good way for individual players to improve and maintain their condition, and it is also a good exercise for a player's actual shooting ability.

The 20-minute workout consists of several parts, starting with a jumper on both sides of the free throw line, a turnaround jumper at the center of the free throw line, then a five-point three-point shot, a step-back jumper on the dribble, a jumper after a simulated block, and finally a quick three-point shot from a free drop. In addition, depending on the position and technical characteristics of different players, under-basket turn-over jumpers and quick mid-range jumpers will be added.

One of the features of this practice method is that the players only use one basketball to practice the whole time. Someone won't be holding a basket of basketballs to pass the ball to you, and you'll have to pick it up yourself after each shot to continue. And each shooting training method has both a time limit and a number limit, which means that a sufficient number of balls need to be thrown in a short period of time. Otherwise, it will increase the time.

Walker thought that this would be a piece of cake for him, and he could do it easily, but he didn't know that he really practiced and realized that the intensity was really quite large, especially Leon holding a stopwatch on the side. This made every minute of Walker's life extremely difficult.

So when Walker finally got through those 20 minutes and Leon told him he had to do defensive work, Walker began to doubt his life. He made a non-cooperative face. Coldly putting down his face and trying to show that he was unhappy, it would have been useful in the past against O'Brien or Carroll, when they would tell Walker that he could go back to rest, and also tell him to pay attention to injuries.

But Walker's eyes squinted at Leon, and he was unmoved, and had already begun to call for Dave Cowens to come over and give Walker one-on-one defensive drills. As a famous tough guy center in the NBA at that time, Cowens was able to gain a foothold in the league with a height of 6 feet 9 against a group of giants, relying on extremely tough defense. Before being called over by Leon, he was "abusing" Chris Anderson on a half-court, and Anderson was also punished for being late, but Anderson had no objection to this, and could only obediently accept Cowens' training.

Seeing Cowens coming over, Walker couldn't help but feel a little angry, he didn't practice systematically because of the treatment of knee injuries and ankle injuries all summer, so his physical reserves were very poor, today's day of tactical training and 20 minutes of shooting practice, he felt that he was a little tired, at this time he missed the big bed at home, being able to lie on it, drink beer, eat fried chicken, and then watch his favorite soap opera. The team's new coach at the time, Fox Leon, stood in his way, feeling that his personal time had been violated and that he had the right to spend his life after the team's training was over.

Walker frowned, he was ready to turn around and leave straight back to the locker room, even if it was a clash with the manager on the first day, it didn't matter, he wanted to rest. But one of Leon's movements made Walker dispel the idea, and he saw that Leon, who had been holding his hands in front of his chest, lowered his hands and clenched his left fist. Walker remembered Dennis Rodman, who used to drink and go to nightclubs with him last season, once Rodman talked about why he came to Boston after drinking, he said that he originally played wrestling in Sydney, Australia, and didn't want to go to Boston at all, but he didn't expect Leon to go to Sydney alone to find himself and have to fight with him. As a result, for ten minutes, Rodman couldn't even touch Leon's hair, and Leon actually had several chances to knock out Rodman.

Walker thought of Malik Ciri, who was in the gym doing a restorative training on leg strength, when he was knocked out by Leon in a Boston bar and his jaw was broken.

Walker's cold sweat fell, although he said to himself in his heart that Leon would not be able to play his own players as a head coach, but he was really a little afraid that Leon would come up with an uppercut and hit his jaw into six pieces. After hesitating for three seconds, Walker decided to give in and began one-on-one defensive training with Cowens, the most hated part of his workout, which he felt was less like a basketball player and more like a wrestler.

…………………………

By the time Walker finished his punishing workout, he felt that his lower body was no longer his own. He almost sat on the ground, and the lack of systematic training in the summer left him with a little lack of fitness. In contrast, Paul Pierce was also on the sidelines with Leon on some technical details. Although Leon can't play himself, his eyes are really accurate and good.

After a few more moments, Leon gathered everyone together. Actually, the team's training ended an hour and a half ago, and if last season some of the players would have left for home, some of the hard work would have stayed and practiced. Today, everyone is either willing or forced to stay and practice, taking into account their technical shortcomings or strengths.

Leon distributed a training sheet to each player, which not only had a plan for the whole team to train together every day, but also individual training suggestions for each person, which were all reasonable opinions given by Leon and the coaching staff over a month's period through a large number of video views and data analysis.

"It's been a hard work for me, the first day of training, we had an extra hour and a half of training than last season, maybe some people won't get used to it, but I think it's good for the new season and the future of every player. Because this one-and-a-half-hour training session will be part of my 'career best' plan this season, and he's going to improve your individual performance." And your strength is the root of the team's strength. With that, Leon pulled out a large tactical whiteboard covered with scraps of paper, each belonging to a player.

"From the next pre-season game, each of you will be counted on the top of the paper, and at the top of the table, there will be your average from the previous season. I'll calculate a few metrics based on your scores, rebounds, assists, blocks, turnovers, fouls, and playing time, some of which represent your efficiency, some of which represent your contribution to the team's victory, and some of which represent your shooting skills. For every player, whether it's a rookie who has just been in the league for a long time or a veteran who has been in the league for the past year, I want you to play the best of your career. "That's the real center of Leon's summer work, the 'Best of Career' program, which he devised with Morey and Wesland, to quantify the performance of players and motivate them to keep moving forward.

After saying that, Leon announced the end of today's training, but the Celtics players present, especially a few young people, didn't seem to have any intention of leaving the training gym to go home. (To be continued.) )