Chapter 5 Preseason

The house in Minnesota was found by Duffy through a team of agents, the owner was a Chinese couple, and when they learned that the renter was Li Shihao, who the Timberwolves had high hopes for, the homeowners Fang Yan and his wife were even more overjoyed.

For the Fang Yan family living in the northern part of the United States, there is nothing more joyful than meeting promising juniors in a foreign country!

After vacating the three-bedroom living room, Fang Yan and his wife helped Li Shihao move his luggage to the house.

Fang Yan and his wife are very welcome to Li Shihao's move-in, in their words, their son is far away in New York to study in college, and the house has been empty for a long time, how good it is to rent it to young descendants from the motherland!

Fang Yan and his wife live in downtown Minnesota, and after helping Li Shihao clean up the house, they told a message.

There is also a girl who rents the house and is an international student at the University of Minnesota.

When Fang Yan and his wife said this, they couldn't hide the meaning in their eyes, to the effect that the girl was very beautiful, you young man hurry up and seize the opportunity!

Li Shihao could only smile awkwardly and not think about it. Continue to concentrate on your skills, and as an athlete, it's important to keep yourself in shape at all times!

As the preseason day approached, Li Shihao also became a lot busier, and as the team's flights flew to various places to participate in the competition, he was in the limelight at this year's draft and was regarded by many media as one of the big news that could be mined.

Summer league is mostly for rookies to practice and get familiar with the pace of the NBA game. The team doesn't have any hard requirements for Li Shihao's performance, just tell him to play at his usual level.

Averaged 17 per game. 3 points 7. 6 assists 3. With 1 steal, Minnesota's local media still restrained their thoughts and quietly waited for the preseason to begin.

The local Minnesota media has expressed great skepticism about the Timberwolves' gambling draft this summer, and they don't think Lee Se-ho can play as a core of the team, especially in the West, which is full of powerhouses.

You know, there is only one Yao Ming!

While the outside world is full of doubts about the Timberwolves this summer, Lee Se-ho is quietly preparing for his preseason debut.

He understands that he will use his on-court performance to tell those who look down on him that they are wrong! ”

On October 6, 2009, the Timberwolves faced the Milwaukee Bucks in their first game of the preseason of the season.

As a rookie selected by the Timberwolves with the sixth pick this year, Li Shihao followed head coach McHale to participate in the pre-game press conference.

"I'm a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, and as a rookie who was drafted by the Timberwolves this summer, are you confident that you can play at your level?"

"As a player, it's my job to play every game well and play my best!"

"What do you think of Stephen Curry, the rookie who was drafted with you this year? He's very similar to you, do you think you'll be better than him in a season? ”

"Stephen is a very good player, I played against him in college, we don't win or lose, we are both in the west this year, I will have a lot of chances against him, wait and see!"

The reporters attending today's press conference were all carefully selected media by the Timberwolves, and the questions given were relatively mild, and they did not embarrass Li Shihao too much.

McHale said in an interview: "Our summer league this year is mainly about training and scouting young players, and both rookies and new signings have the opportunity to show what they can do. If you have a good performance, the team will change your short-term contract to a one-year guaranteed contract. ”

Although the Timberwolves' starting lineup this year is a little unusable, there are a lot of potential stocks on the bench.

In the second half of last season, the team's pillar Al Jefferson was injured and missed all the games in the second half of the season.

Kevin Love on the team's bench, as an interior player in the 08 draft, has begun to emerge after a year of playing in the West, with good offensive skills and solid rebounding skills, and is already a rising star at the No. 4 position.

Coupled with the Daco Mirisic traded in this year's draft, the Timberwolves' interior potential is still quite good!

After some consideration, McHale decided to give Lee Shihao a lot of playing time to decide the starting lineup for the new season based on his performance in the preseason.

In the old coach's heart, this group of players in the team is really nothing worth paying attention to except Li Shihao, Kevin Love and Dacomi Milicic have already experienced the NBA game, as long as they are given appropriate playing time to cultivate their game experience.

And Li Shihao, as the No. 6 pick selected by them this summer, is expected by them to have high hopes.

Originally, the team planned to sign Rubio from the Spanish league, but the latter's contract issues have been entangled with the parent team, and the Timberwolves eventually gave up on this plan.

Considering the sluggish local ball market in Minnesota, the team chose Li Shihao as the core, hoping that he can play in style and make the ball market boom again with the vast Chinese market behind him.

Their opponent today is the Milwaukee Bucks, who drafted Brandon Jennings this summer.

This season, the Bucks are hoping to lead the team back to the playoffs through Jennings to form a connection with Australian center Bogut.

There are a lot of Chinese in the stadium today, and they should have made a special trip to support Li Shihao. Although there are relatively few Chinese in Minnesota, the support of Chinese overseas compatriots has never been bad.

In this game, Li Shihao served as the team's starting point guard, and he chose the No. 11 jersey, which has always been his lucky number since he was a child!

Bucks' starting lineup: point guard Blanton Jennings, shooting guard Michael Reed, small forward Bamot, power forward Varik, center Bogut

Judging from the lineups of both sides, the Timberwolves have a better chance of winning, after all, they are teams in the West, and they still have a lot of chances to win compared to the weak East.

The game will start soon, and the players of both teams will return to their own half of the court and prepare to jump the ball.

Al Jefferson's 2.08m height as a center forward is already stretched, and a serious anterior cruciate ligament rupture injury to his knee last season has greatly reduced his ability to bounce, and the opening jump ball is not expected to be Bogut's opponent.

Beep――

A whistle!?

The referee throws the basketball into the sky and the game begins.

Elskinson and Bogut both bounced off at the same time, and Bogut easily dialed the ball to his own half with a one-handed advantage, and the Bucks started the offense.

Lee did not play against Jennings in the college league, who went straight to Europe to play in the professional league after graduating from high school.

But before the game, Li Shihao carefully studied Jennings's technical characteristics, he is a fast pick-and-roll point guard, inconsistent shooting is his main shortcoming, his scoring means mainly rely on breakthroughs, and this person is still a left-hander, used to attacking with his left hand.

So Li Shihao firmly restrained Jennings at the beginning and didn't give him a chance to break through easily.

Defending against the shoot is the best defensive strategy against Jennings.

Jennis is a person with extremely strong self-esteem, he is full of confidence in everything he does, and after being treated like this by Li Shihao, his head immediately became hot, and he opened his hand to throw, and flew into the air with a flying fire three-pointer.

However, the result was not satisfactory, with an extremely loud iron, the basketball popped out of the frame, and Jefferson easily picked up the rebound.

The basketball immediately passed to Li Shihao, and the Timberwolves immediately attacked the opponent's position at a lightning speed.

After a shake, Lee Se-ho deceived Jennings, who was chasing him, and made an easy mid-range shot, hitting a jumper to score two points for his team.