On the evening of October 12, at the Arco Arena in Sacramento, Fox Leon finally showed up leading his Phoenix Suns. Pen × fun × Pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 info Fox Leon is back in the NBA arena he knows after a year's hiatus. Although it was only pre-season, all the preparations for the game were carried out in an orderly manner on the field. The cleaners, the cheerleaders, the reporters, the security guards, the volunteers, the performers, and the crowd in the stadium were all so familiar and a little unfamiliar.

In his year at Davidson College, Leon experienced the madness of American college basketball to the point that he still wonders if he should stay in college for another two years, after all, compared to the NBA, that's the real basketball paradise.

But the moment he walked into Arco Arena from the players' tunnel, Leon knew he was still back in the NBA, as the crowd booed him. That's right, Kings fans don't like Fox Leon, and if you want to say where Leon is the least popular in the whole league, it must undoubtedly be in California, led by the Lakers, plus offensive teams like the Kings and Warriors, will not like Puerto Ricans from Massachusetts.

Back in the time of Chris Webb's Kings, every time the Celtics came to Sacramento, it would be a deathmatch, and then the Kings declined, and the Celtics returned to the top, although there was no big grudge between the two sides, after all, they couldn't meet in the playoffs, but that didn't prevent Sacramento fans from hating this guy.

Leon listened to the boos and inverts of the audience, and there was a little girl on the sidelines with purple oil paint painted on her face, giving Leon a thumbs up, Leon knew that it was right to go back to the NBA. He's not a masochist, but he enjoys the feeling of being booed and then leading the team to give them a kick, especially on the road, when the opposition fans are dumbfounded and the whole stadium is quiet, he wants to light a cigar right away.

In college, he hadn't lit a cigar for a long time, after all, it was still different on campus.

Of course, the boos of the fans did not affect Leon's mood, on the contrary, it is an honor for a player or coach to be booed by the fans away from home, and Leon never regards glory as a burden. Although it was only a preseason, he was dressed very formally today, with a jet-black suit and a beige polka dot tie, which was not at all like the style of the first coach when he was a coach, with a wide open neckline and unkempt hair.

He was standing on the sidelines and talking to D'Antoni, not discussing the game, but planning the whole preseason. For the first time, D'Antoni understood that there was so much work to be done in pre-season. In the past, when he was the head coach, he was reluctant to take care of the preseason games, and handed them over to the assistant coach, although the games were played, he just wanted the players not to get hurt. Leon, on the other hand, made detailed arrangements for the deployment of the lineup for the next game, the playing time and tactical requirements of the players, and he communicated these with D'Antoni and listened to D'Antoni's opinions.

"It's hard to have a big breakthrough with Sean's offense with the ball, he has a big personality, you know this guy never manages money, he spends as much as he wants. It's like his technique, although the shooting is ugly, it just works, and it won't change again. Leon was talking to D'Antoni about Marion, and D'Antoni commented.

For what role Marion plays on the offensive end, Leon and D'Antoni have done a lot of discussions in the past few days, and D'Antoni has provided Leon with a lot of information related to Marion, which is an important reason why Leon personally came to ask D'Antoni to stay, and he can help Leon understand the team faster. And Leon has some new ideas and views on the use of Marion.

In '06, Sean Marion shone because of Stoudamire's injury, and as a power forward, he was able to do everything in fast breaks, rebounds, blocks, and steals, and together with Dio, he propped up the Suns' interior line. As a result, Stoudamire returned in 07, Marion and Dio seemed to be less able to play all of a sudden, especially in the playoffs, Marion's defects in holding the ball on the offensive end were magnified, and he could not provide enough support to Nash at critical moments. Unable to have three strong points with the ball like the Spurs, they lost in the end.

Before the start of the season, Kerr already had the idea of trading Marion, but Leon believed that Marion was not put in the right position and had to change his role in the team and play his role more.

D'Antoni is aware of Marion's flaw, but the Suns' system feels like it's too big to change. Leon certainly doesn't think so, and the first game of the preseason is a testing ground for the Suns to make changes.

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The game officially started at 7 p.m., and until the starters of both sides stood up, the audience at the Arco Arena was sparsely populated, after all, it was just an ordinary preseason game, and the Sacramento Kings were no longer the offensively flashy Princeton Army of the early 21st century, Webb was in the Pistons, Divac retired, Christie retired, leaving only Mike Bibby and Brad Miller, and Ron Artest, who was traded from the Pacers.

Before the game, Artest also greeted Leon, and the two shook hands and embraced. Back then in the Pacers, Leon beat the Pacers bad boy with three punches and two kicks, but he didn't expect to subdue the Pacers. Not only did he respect Leon in the following games, but Artest, who has always been short-tempered, obviously restrained a lot, and in the Auburn Hills clash with the Pistons in 05, Artest controlled his temper and did not beat the fans.

As a result, the Pacers eliminated the Detroit Pistons in the semifinals of the playoffs that year, avenging the revenge, of course, it is a pity that the Pacers with a strong lineup were swept by the Celtics in the Eastern Conference Finals, and the defending champion in 05 was incredible.

With the Celtics' green shadow never visible, and Jermaine O'Neal starting to suffer injuries, the Pacers began to break up and rebuild in the '06 season, with Jackson going to the Warriors and Ron Artest coming to the Kings. Obviously, Artest's style of play and temperament are really a bit out of place with the Kings, he doesn't have flashy offense, and his style of play adheres to the toughness of the Chicago faction, which makes him feel nondescript in the King's jersey.

But when the game started, Artest was in very good form tonight, with three points at the top of the arc, three points in the bottom corner, and Marion in the low post, and he scored consecutive points on the offensive end. On the Suns' side, Leon's assignment obviously made the players a little constrained when playing, and the Suns played very poorly in the training areas that were not the same as the games on weekdays.

Especially Steve Nash, Leon asked him to score 30 points in a single game, which is not difficult for him, but it is really difficult for him to give up the habit of organizing the first offense and second game. And Stoudeyer blocked and dismantled with Nash many times after the opening, but all of them were outside cut and caught jumpers after the pick-and-roll, although he hit two shots, but he always felt weird not to rush in and dunk.

So throughout the first half, the Suns played awkwardly, the offense couldn't be let go, the defense was still the same, everyone was doing a different job than in the past, playing a different style, it was really hard to get used to. D'Antoni couldn't help but be a little anxious as he watched the team's performance, but seeing that Leon was still sitting firmly on the Diaoyutai, he couldn't say anything.

At the end of the first quarter, the Kings still led the Suns by three points at 20:18, and the Suns' 18-point score was really not like the Suns who played the whirlwind in past few seasons. León called a short timeout, but instead of asking his players to change their style of play, he made a substitution, bringing on Jasco Vysius for Ragabel and Turiaf for Dio.

Then in the second quarter, this lineup played for three minutes, and the effect was surprisingly good. After Jasco Visius came on the court, he was particularly good at playing positional offense, and he did a very good job of transferring the ball several times, which suddenly drove the Suns' running. This created two one-on-one opportunities for Stoudamire, with Stoudamayre scoring a strong break and a mid-range shot.

And the meaning of Turiaf's existence is to go up to Nash's block, because he doesn't seek to block and dismantle or cut outside, so his blocker is particularly porcelain. Nash didn't care about that much, and since Leon let himself score, he scored with all his might, and he hit both of them with two cold arrows from outside the three-point line.

The Suns overtook the score all of a sudden, and people suddenly vaguely saw a different Suns team. At this time, Leon said to D'Antoni: "Mike, we used to say that good chemistry can make 1+1 greater than 2, but have you ever thought that 1-1 can also be greater than 2?" ”