395. Sanders' helplessness
On December 15, the game between the Lakers and the Timberwolves kicked off at the target center. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 info
The game was dominated by the Lakers from the start, and the Lakers players worked very hard defensively, and they didn't want to make Kobe's milestone a milestone.
Bryant hit another shot, sending a deafening cheer from the away fans.
Although this is the home target center of the Timberwolves, the Lakers are more popular here than the Timberwolves!
After all, the Lakers have had an incredibly illustrious history here.
It was in this city, in this old arena in this arena, that the former Minneapolis Lakers won five championships in six years and established the first dynasty of the NBA.
If you want to say how deep the connection between this place and the Lakers is, you can know it from the name of the Lakers.
Minnesota is a well-known granary of the United States because it has the most lakes in the country and agriculture is quite developed.
There are more than 15,000 lakes throughout Minnesota, and Minneapolis, once home of the Timberwolves and Lakers, has more than 10,000 of them.
That's how the Lakers' team name comes from, from the people of the City of Ten Thousand Lakes.
Once the home of the Lakers, the Lakers won five championships in Minneapolis, leaving the city's mark on the Lakers.
There is still a statue of George McCann, the world's No. 1 basketball player at the time, standing in front of the Timberwolves arena.
The Lakers moved out of Minneapolis to Los Angeles, where there was no NBA team for three decades until 1989, when the Timberwolves joined the NBA, and the city had a new NBA team.
Originally, the Timberwolves built a new arena and planned to move the statue of George McCann, but local fans collectively objected, saying that if the Timberwolves did this, they would not build a team here.
Not only that, but Minneapolis also has a memorial museum of honor for the Lakers' years here, which shows how much local fans love the Lakers in every way.
In fact, for the Timberwolves, the Minneapolis were full of expectations from the beginning, just like the expectations for the Lakers back then, expecting this team to become a top team like the Lakers.
But the greater the expectations, the greater the disappointment, the Timberwolves are only Timberwolves after all, even if they get the triumvirate combination of Garnett, Sprewell and Kassel, they only played once in the Western Conference Finals, and the rest of the time it was the first round or the lottery. If it weren't for the glory Garnett brought to the city, the people here really didn't have a sense of belonging to the Timberwolves.
In the season after playing to the Western Conference finals, the Timberwolves' stinginess and short-sightedness let go of Cassel and did not renew the contract with Sprewell, and the Timberwolves' once-beautiful three-headed monster collapsed and directly became a lottery team, and has not entered the playoffs until now.
It is said that Sprewell is greedy for money, but for an 18+4+3 outside core not to give a 10 million contract, is it too picky? And the Timberwolves' wages are nowhere near the luxury tax.
The Timberwolves owner's strategy is to save money, save money, and save money.
So even after more than 40 years, the Lakers are their home team in the eyes of Minneapolis, and the Lakers can hear cheers here when the Timberwolves and Lakers play the Western Conference Finals in '04.
Kobe Bryant's popularity in the NBA over the past 18 years, coupled with the Lakers' and Minneapolis roots, made it as exciting for fans to see him set Jordan records as if they were watching their own players break them.
Every time Kobe Bryant made a shot, the fans cheered loudly.
Kobe and Jordan were only 12 points apart before this game, Jordan's career total was 22,292 points, and Kobe Bryant had reached 22,280.
With only a 12-point gap, Bryant only needed to shoot eight shots at most to complete the accolade.
However, Bryant didn't focus on scoring at first, but used his ability to attract defenders to create a lot of opportunities for his teammates.
As a result, Bryant only scored 6 points in the first quarter, which made fans expect him to complete this milestone quickly, cheering loudly every time he scored, expecting him to be more eager to score because of the cheers.
But Kobe Bryant didn't mean that, he was interested in the Timberwolves' new No. 1 pick, and teased Wiggins in various ways.
Wiggins has a lot of defensive talent, which he has shown since college, which is the most important reason why he was selected as the NBA No. 1 pick without any suspense.
But in front of Kobe, Wiggins was too tender, Kobe Bryant used feints to shoot countless times to play Wiggins, and then finally attracted other players to help defend and pass, playing Wiggins unwanted.
Regarding Kobe's old naughty mentality, Mr. Sanders, the head coach of the Timberwolves on the sidelines, really wanted to ask the referee directly if he could count Kobe Bryant scoring 40 points to let him go.
Sanders has a headache, he wants to develop young players, but most of the young players now are not able to withstand the blow, and he doesn't want his own top pick to lose confidence because of being teased by Kobe.
Sanders is depressed, why is it so difficult for him to develop another Garnett-level star for the Timberwolves?
The owner of the Timberwolves wants to win and make the playoffs, and this team is the only team that hasn't made the playoffs since '04. But the Timberwolves' lineup, although it can play, is not to the point where it can enter the playoffs in the West.
Sanders now has a difficult problem in front of him, facing most opponents in the West, the Timberwolves can't win even if they try their best.
After trying their best or losing, it is obvious that it will cause a great psychological burden on these young players who are full of momentum, which will make these rookie players feel frustrated and doubt themselves, and they still can't win the ball despite their best efforts, triggering a chain reaction, slacking off training, and the attitude of the game will slowly change, and finally talent can only be talent.
The Timberwolves have been like this for so many years, and the Timberwolves have only played Lefu alone since the lottery show started in 05.
And those rookies who were called once-in-a-decade geniuses before entering the Timberwolves ended up playing in the league for a few years before disappearing.
This is why when the Thunder cultivated Durant and Westbrook back then, they didn't care about the record at all, they lost how they wanted, and they lost in all kinds of fancy ways.
It's the same loss, and if the rookie knows that the team is there to develop himself and doesn't care about the record before losing, it's different. Instead of getting frustrated by a temporary loss, they keep honing their skills.
The 76ers did this more than ten years ago, the Cavaliers, Heat, Nuggets in 03, and the Thunder in 07 all did this, and in the end they all produced era-level stars.
The owner of the Timberwolves is desperate to win, and often holds intra-team meetings to emphasize winning, which will undoubtedly bring a huge psychological burden to young players.
Even the owners of the forest want to rely on those veterans to attack the playoffs and let the young players play on the bench.
Although there are superstars like Kobe who came out of the bench, Kobe's growth path is too different from ordinary people to be reproduced.
Sanders really wants to simply put it on the, and it is not suitable to assist Wiggins to replace all the players, and cultivate this talented champion with peace of mind.
But Sanders is working for others, and the boss's arrangement must be accepted, so he can only try to give Wiggins and Giang and Shabas more opportunities to perform.
As for Bennett, Sanders is busy cultivating Wiggins, as well as Shabas, Dieng and others, and this parallel champion can't take care of it.
It is actually difficult for Sanders to develop young players, and there are a lot of players on this team who have found ten or twenty minutes of playing time per game in the NBA, but they can't help the current Timberwolves win, but they must give them playing time.
Seeing that Wiggins had a feeling of collapse in the non-stop teasing of Kobe, Sanders hurriedly asked Wiggins to switch defenses and let Rubio defend Kobe.
Sanders is really afraid that Wiggins will be played bad by Kobe.
But......
He didn't remember......
If Wiggins doesn't guard against Kobe, he can only defend against Liu Ren......