The National Hospital for Rehabilitation in Washington, D.C., one of the best medical facilities in Washington, D.C., has one of the top treatment teams and levels of care in the United States. There are only 137 beds in the inpatient department here, and many beds have already been booked, but most of the people who can be treated here are dignitaries and dignitaries in Washington, D.C., and ordinary people who want to get a bed are probably either cured or dead.

On the third floor of the inpatient building, Ward 1301 is the special ward of the rehabilitation hospital, and ordinary people simply cannot live here. At this time, Fox Leon was sitting on the couch in this hospital room reading Mark Twain's "Running for Governor," where he had been sitting for an afternoon reading a book, while New York, hundreds of miles away, was going on a gripping draft convention.

He hadn't been out of the room except for a phone call to Danny Angie, as if none of those things had anything to do with him. When he was about to finish the book, there was a knock on the door, Leon put down the book and opened the door gently, a nurse was standing at the door with instruments and equipment, and asked, "Can I come in during the examination time after dinner?" ”

Leon nodded and let the nurse in, and the nurse walked into the room, walked to the bed, and slowly helped up the old man lying on the bed with Leon - it was Arnold Auerbach, who looked extremely weak at this time, his already pale face turned a miserable white, and the sparse and messy hair was curled on his head one by one, and the old age spots became more obvious.

The nurse took Auerbach's blood pressure, temperature, pulse, and basic vital signs, and after confirming that he was okay, she helped him back to bed with Leon. Auerbach was in a deep sleep, and yesterday, when Leon came to visit him at Auerbach's home in Washington, D.C., only to find that no one would open the door, no matter how much he knocked. Leon had called Auerbach before coming, and Auerbach said that he would wait for Leon at home, so it was impossible for him to go out.

Leon, who sensed that something was wrong, climbed over the wall in the backyard and smashed open the back door of Auerbach's house with a fist, only to find that Auerbach had collapsed in his office and that he had suffered a heart attack. Leon immediately called 911 and then administered compression CPR to Auerbach in his study and fed him medicine.

It was this CPR that bought Auerbach precious minutes, and after the ambulance arrived at Auerbach's home and took him to the hospital, the doctor told Leon that if he was a few minutes late, Auerbach would be paralyzed by insufficient blood supply to his brain.

Now, he just needs to get some rest and quit cigar smoking once and for all.

After the nurse had finished checking and packing her things, she said to Leon, "Everything is fine. I would like to ask you, Mr. Leon, is it really okay not to inform his family of Mr. Auerbach's condition? ”

Leon folded the quilt for Auerbach and replied, "I want to inform his daughter too, but when he wakes up he tells me not to tell anyone, including my daughter...... I don't know what he thinks, maybe he doesn't want his children to worry. ”

The nurse nodded, didn't ask any more questions, but took out a small sticky note from her pocket and handed it to Leon and said, "My son is a basketball fan, and although his favorite star is Kobe Bryant, he should be happy if an NBA coach can sign for him." ”

Leon smiled and signed his name on the notepad, although he is not a great coach, but now walking on the street in the United States, people can often recognize him.

As soon as the nurse left the ward, Auerbach's voice came from the bed, "I won't let you tell your daughter, it's all for you, you little." ”

Leon didn't look surprised as he looked surprised as he knew Auerbach was awake, but went back to the couch and picked up the book, ready to finish running for governor.

"Lift me up, stinky boy!" Auerbach lifted the covers and tried to get out of bed. Leon hurriedly stepped forward to help Auerbach, and said that the doctor warned him not to get out of bed casually, but to recuperate.

"I never listen to the doctors, and if listening to them will give me an extra year, then I don't need this year. The reason why I was pretending to be asleep just now was that I didn't want to listen to the nurse's ramblings, and told me a bunch of health care knowledge, and reminded me that I was not allowed to smoke! "Auerbach has always been stubborn, and he has always turned a deaf ear to the doctor's instructions.

"Fawkes, give me a cigar." Auerbach hadn't touched a cigar for more than 24 hours since he had a heart attack, which made him even more uncomfortable than having a heart attack.

"No, you can't smoke anymore, and I don't have a cigar with me." Leon shook his head and refused, he rarely refused Auerbach, but this time he knew that he couldn't let the old man go on any longer.

Auerbach was about to get angry, but Leon said, "I want you to watch the Celtics win their 17th championship." Auerbach stopped talking, and sat back on the bed in a huff, and asked for a piece of chewing gum from Leon to chew in his mouth to curb his craving.

"The draft should be halfway through, right?" Auerbach looked at the clock in the room and asked, it was already past eight o'clock, and according to the course of the convention, the first round of the draft had reached the middle and late stages.

"If all goes well, the deal should have been done, we'll pick Milicic and then he'll be sent to the Timberwolves and we'll get Kevin Garnett." Leon understated that a big deal that shocked the league seemed like a trivial matter to Leon.

Auerbach didn't know how many tumultuous operations he had experienced in his life, and he didn't make a fuss about Leon's description, he lay back on his bed and said, "You've been working on this for more than a year, haven't you?" Casting a long line to catch a big fish, a good job, but this time I'm afraid I'm going to leave Danny out, and he's afraid he's going to be upset. ”

"Danny is the general manager, he has so many things to weigh, and Boston is a place of intertwined roots. Unlike me, I'm just a coach, I just want the players I want most. Leon also understands Danny Angie, and this trade for Leon is mainly used in his New York network, and Angie can't help much.

"I heard that Garnett's salary has reached 28 million, which is more than half of the salary cap, how on earth should this work, give me a lesson to this old man?" Auerbach has always been unimpressed by the rules set by Stern, and now the various provisions of the CBA are becoming more and more complicated, and the old man has been with basketball all his life, but in the end he is confused by these terms and no longer wants to involve specific trade matters.

Leon closed the book, stood up and walked over to a small whiteboard in the room, where the doctor's orders and medication schedules were posted, and Leon used it as a blackboard to teach Auerbach a lesson in CBA trading rules.

"Let's first look at the Celtics' salary situation, last season we had a total of 15 players on the team, the total salary was $50.83 million, last year's salary cap was $40.27 million, the luxury tax line was 51 million, and we are glad that we don't have to pay the luxury tax. At the start of this season, the salary cap will rise to around 43 million, but no matter what, our salary is more than the salary cap. So if we want to make a trade, we can't get more than 125% of the player's total salary + $1 million. ”

Leon talks about the NBA's most basic trade balance rules, and Auerbach is also bored and uses this as a pastime, and he does want to understand what the NBA's current trade rules are.

"So, Kevin Garnett's salary next season is $28 million, and the total salary we pay to the players is at least $21.6 million. New players and draft picks don't count toward the salary balance, so we need to pay Antoine Walker — $13.5 million next season, Eric Williams — $5.54 million, Abdullah Varik — $6,187,500, which adds up to a total of more than $25 million, and there's no problem with salary matching. "Leon had a salary scale in his head, and he could casually quote everyone's salary.

Not at all surprised that Auerbach had seen Leon's mathematical skills in Marshfield, he asked, "Then we must have been paid much more than the standard again, and how many people are left on the team now?" ”

"Swap 3 to get 1, lose 2, Steve has also decided to retire this year, Blount, Alexander, and Bellman are all expiring contracts and will not renew their contracts, so we now have a total of 9 players with a total salary of $55 million, which is already over this year's luxury tax line."

"Are you going to play with nine people?" Auerbach asked.

"We still have a veteran base salary and a rookie contract to work with, and of course, that's something Danny needs to think about, and it has nothing to do with me." Leon completed the big deal he had always dreamed of, and as for the rest of the aftermath, he didn't want to worry about it anymore. Everything is left to the general manager. (To be continued.) )