On June 5, the 2000 NBA Draft kicked off at the Impact Sports Center on Chicago's West Side.

Basketball rookies from all over the country gathered here for the first time before the NBA Draft.

The impact sports center is not too far from the Athletics Association Hotel, and early in the morning of the 5th, Leon followed the Celtic team of eight people to take a rented business car and set off for his destination.

Except for a breakfast yesterday, Leon never appeared in the sight of the coaching team, in fact, they also have their own things to do.

Chris Wallace has reached out privately to Moiso, who also arrived in Chicago on the night of the 4th, and Wallace has revealed his intention to pick Moiso in the draft.

It's a common occurrence in the NBA, where teams and rookies go back and forth before the draft and end up tying the knot at the conference.

Of course, some high-ranking players tend to have more than one team interested in them, and it depends on the skill of each team's general manager and the attractiveness of the team as a whole.

Judging from the news that Wallace has gotten, there are not many teams interested in Moiso, and it is not known whether Wallace should be happy or sad.

Frank Vogel is similar to Leon, a workaholic, who locks himself in his room for almost the whole day, and his main thing is to watch the videos.

As a video analyst, it's their mission to dig up useful information from precious raw footage.

Vogel has focused his energies on Purzbila and Somalia Samaki, who was once favored by the team's former scout Bennett. It looks like the Celtics really want a reliable interior lineman.

Only Leon, who has put his probe on some defenders. Apparently he didn't know that the NBA has always had a tradition of "if you don't know who to pick, you pick the inside", and he relied on only one thing - the data in his hands.

When he went to the training camp today, he wanted to confirm whether there was an inevitable connection between his data and his intuitive impression.

Pitino watched Leon reading carefully with a stack of materials in his hand, thinking that this guy was pretending again, and couldn't help but want to ask questions to make things difficult for Leon. But when the words came to his mouth, he swallowed them back, because he had learned enough about Leon's excellent memory, and he didn't want to ask for trouble to slap himself in the face, and at the same time gave the other members of the coaching staff who didn't know the truth the illusion that Leon was very awesome.

Therefore, Pitino still decided to hand over the work of embarrassing Leon to the reporters in the training camp, and then the Celtics will be entrusted with the task of covering Leon.

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When Leon and his team arrived at the impact center, it was already ten o'clock in the morning, and the entrance of the sports center was full of various commercial vehicles, as well as media interview vehicles.

At the gate of the center, there are also TV hosts and cameras doing program shooting, and it seems that even if the newcomers are generally not favored, the training camp before the draft is also in the spotlight.

Leon experienced the commercial side of the NBA to the fullest, learning that the entire training camp was open to the media, and before entering the center, he was told not to turn down reporters, especially if he was wearing Celtics overalls.

Although Leon feels that his chances of being interviewed should be low, after all, his youthful appearance, coupled with his strong figure, wearing a Celtics work T-shirt, looks like a moving equipment, not a sharp-eyed scout.

The Impact Sports Center is a large two-court basketball training hall, in addition to having two basketball courts, there is also a comprehensive fitness center, and this morning the players will have a physical fitness test.

Leon followed the coaching team to the stands next to the basketball court, where the league has a special place for the Celtics.

Leon carried a small video camera on his shoulder, and it looked like he was moving equipment.

Once he got to his seat, Leon saw that many of the rookies had already warmed up on the field, and a few had even started testing the touch height, the round-trip run in the penalty area, and the three-quarter run.

There are four physical tests for rookies, of which in addition to the above three are conducted on the field, there is also an off-court test, which is the limit number of bench presses at the standard weight (185 pounds).

Leon set up the camera and looked at the other seats in the stadium, the other teams were almost there, but everyone didn't seem to be interested in the physical test.

Moments later, Pitino, Wallace and O'Brien all left their seats and wandered around the rest of the stadium to chat with acquaintances. In some parts of the venue, there are reporters with cameras dragging microphones around for interviews, and some text reporters are sitting next to coaches or general managers with small notebooks for interviews.

Obviously, the camp wasn't as intense as Leon had envisioned, but rather loose, with the organizers and rookies concentrating on their own testing projects and others doing whatever they liked.

Even Wesland didn't know where to go, leaving only Leon and Vogel in their seats.

Since yesterday, Vogel hasn't bothered much with Leon, this weird guy from New Jersey who speaks a New England dialect obviously doesn't look at Leon very well, not because Leon's arrival has delayed Vogel's path to becoming a scout, he doesn't care about the position, otherwise he wouldn't have been working as a video editor in Kentucky for five years.

Instead, Vogel held his breath in his heart, feeling that he loved basketball more than Leon, knew the sport better, and was more worthy of the Celtics scouting name.

He thinks Leon is just a bombastic basketball keyboard warrior who has become a scout for the Celtics by looking at the information and bragging, and maybe he is still a guy who is good at slapping horses.

The two of them sat in the stands in a daze and watched the rookies on the court take physical tests one by one, those young faces were full of childishness, no matter how unoptimistic the outside world was about them, they were the best wave of basketball newcomers this year, and they were the stars of hope in the basketball world.

"Speedy Claxton, it's fast, a little over three seconds, really a little, but it looks a little thinner." Leon's eyes were fixed on the three-quarters of the field, and he muttered.

Vogel also looked over there when he heard this, and saw a small black and thin man who had just finished running, his face was full of excitement, and it seemed that he was indeed running fast.

"Who is he?" Vogel asked subconsciously, because the distance was a little far, he couldn't see the little man's face clearly, and this guy didn't look very familiar, Vogel thought about it, and it didn't seem to be this person on his watchlist.

"Speedy Claxton, a graduate of Hofstra, is a point guard, has a lot of speed, has a good breakaway shot, but has a limited vision. I've seen his profile and photos, and although I can't see his face clearly, my body shape can match, and you know, you don't have to rely on your face to recognize people. Leon replied as he continued to stare at the test on the field.

Vogel snorted coldly when he heard this, and said, "A little more than three seconds, how much is a little bit?" 3.1 is also a little more, 3.2 is also a little more, the difference is big. ”

Leon was silent for about five seconds, then turned back to Vogel and affirmed, "It's about 0.06 seconds more, which should be a little bit." ”

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The morning physical test was soon over, everyone took a break at noon, had lunch, and in the afternoon, the main event began, and the real training was about to begin.

The most important thing for newcomers in the training camp is not to improve their skills through training, but to show their strength through training.

At this time, Leon felt that the reason why everyone was so loose during the physical test in the morning was not because everyone didn't pay attention to it, but because the physical test was not worth mentioning for the newcomers and the team.

This is what Leon heard from Jim O'Brien, who said that a lot of rookies who are in the top three on the physical test table can't even play in the NBA in the end, because they are not selected at all, and even if they are tryouts, no team wants them in the end.

Hearing this, Leon has a deeper understanding of the brutality of NBA competition.

The afternoon training was hosted by Tim Glover, a famous NBA trainer, and senior trainers from each team were invited to assist in the training.

Rather than measuring the physical abilities of the players in the morning, the afternoon will be a real assessment of their basketball fundamentals, with more than 70 rookies grouped according to their position on the court: point guard, point guard, small forward, big forward and center.

The first four groups were tested in four halves for mid-distance, three-point, running, lateral movement, low-post defense, basket offense, and back-to-back offense, and each group had its own focus according to the player's position.

The training of the center group was postponed, and the big men were temporarily arranged to sit on the sidelines to watch the play, which is also the practice of rookie training camp, and those coveted inside big guys are always saved for the end for people to watch.

Portsbilla, Jerome Moiso and Samaki, who are the Celtic focus on the most, are all in the center group, so the coaching staff found it a bit unmotivating.

"Wesland, show me the body data." There really wasn't much to do, and Pitino decided to take a look at the freshly released body test data.

"Sigma Karton, it took three seconds to run three-quarters of the field, that's fast. But why didn't this guy go to the Olympics and play basketball, I guess no team would pick him, what a waste. Pitino sighed as he looked at the body measurement data.

As O'Brien said, many of the top three rookies in the physical test table can't even play in the NBA in the end.

At this moment, Vogel, who was sitting on the side, leaned his head over, glanced at the physical meter, and soon found the name he was looking for under the Sigma Karton.

"Speedy Claxton, three-quarter sprint...... 3.06 sec......"