"According to sources close to the Kings' management, the Kings management will fire the team's head coach because of head coach Keith Smart's poor coaching record and poor relationship with the players, and a new coach is still undecided."

Adrian Wojnarowski, known as the NBA's most well-informed Yahoo reporter and known as "Woshen", was the first to break the accurate news on his Twitter, and the breaking of this news also means that Smart's departure from the Kings is almost a foregone conclusion.

When Li Tian got the news, he was staying with Pete Smith, and at this time, Pete Smith was happily saying to Li Tian: "Li, this is very good news, you will have more opportunities." ”

Hearing Pete Smith's words, Li Tian's brows furrowed slightly, and he asked with some puzzlement: "Pete, will you be too optimistic, in the past games, Keith seems to have some trust in me, and I can also get some playing time, if I change coaches, it may not be bad." ”

"Nope! No! Nothing like this will happen. Pete Smith smiled and shook his head, "Lee, the Ma'auff brothers are close to reaching a deal with a consortium in Seattle or Sacramento, no matter who the team sells to, they can't hire another head coach after Keith Smart is gone, and neither consortium wants the current management to do that." ”

"When the team completes the acquisition, the new owner will definitely want the team to run the team according to his wishes, so there will be changes to the team's management, coaching staff and even the roster, so the new coach will be decided by the new owner, and now the team has not completed the acquisition, so the biggest possibility is that it will be temporarily replaced by a current assistant coach of the Kings, and the biggest candidate is Jim Ain."

"Jim Ain?" Li Tian's eyes lit up when he heard this, the coach of the Kings Summer League has a good impression of him, and after he was banned some time ago, in the game against the Thunder, it was also after Smart was expelled that Jim Ain replaced himself on the court, and then he gradually entered the rotation lineup.

If Jim Ain takes over as the team's head coach until the end of the game, Li Tian feels that this is indeed very good news, and his playing time under Jim Ain should only increase rather than decrease compared to that under Smart.

Of course, the premise is that you maintain a certain level of competition.

"Yes, Lee, if my inference is correct, it will be in your favor. Clearly, Tyrek doesn't work well with Isiah Thomas and Marcus Thorton, and he's hungry for more possession, and you who don't need a lot of possession would be the preferred partner for Tyrek. ”

'With almost 30 games remaining, if you can play more games, it will be a huge help to your contract and the status of the team next season. Pete Smith continued.

Li Tian nodded and said, "I hope so!" ”

Half a day later, the Kings management officially released the news, announcing the dismissal of head coach Keith Smart, thanking the other party for helping the team for more than a year, and wishing the other party good luck.

As for the new head coach, Kings management said that the team does not have a suitable replacement for the time being, and assistant coach Jim Ain will take the position of head coach for the time being.

“YES！” After hearing the news, Li Tian swung his fist vigorously. He feels good about assistant coach Jim Ain, and from his daily training, he can feel that Aine is also good to himself, which gives him plenty of reason to believe that there are more opportunities to come.

Keith Smart has been very conservative in the use of newcomers this season, even if Li Tian has had a decent performance in the past month or so, but there are also several cases where he has not been able to play, and the playing time is not stable. If Smart is in charge until the end of the season, Li Tian's greatest wish is to maintain his recent performances.

But if Jim Ain gives him more opportunities to play, Li Tian believes he can perform better and better.

Li Tian is eager to have a better performance, on the one hand, naturally because of what Pete Smith said, to improve his status in the team and the value of his contract, and on the other hand, Li Tian needs to have a better performance to unseal the iron book.

In the past thirteen games, Li Tian will look at the iron book at the end of each game, but since the last game against the Thunder got the second page of the 15 broken down sealed iron book, the iron book has not changed in the rest of the time, Li Tian of course also knows that a good performance can unseal the iron book, but due to the playing time, his performance is not much better.

Compared with the improvement of the contract or even the status of the team, Li Tian is more eager for the improvement of the ability brought by the unsealing of the iron book, because he knows that once the latter is realized, the first two aspects will come naturally.

The day after Keith Smart's fire, the day before the Kings were due to face another opponent, the Portland Trail Blazers, the team's interim head coach Jim Ain called the team together for intra-team practice.

“…… Hopefully we can have a good cooperation and win more competitions. Alright, lads, now let's start the group fight. ”

Jim Ain, who was the team's head coach for the first time, began to arrange the team's training after some kind words, and as usual, Ain put five starters Cousins, Thompson, Thornton, Evans, and Thomas in white jerseys, and Hayes, Robinson, Salmons, Garcia, and Fredette in black jerseys.

Li Tian was a little surprised that he was not arranged to be in the group confrontation, although he had some doubts in his heart, but this situation had happened before, often after playing for a period of time, he would be arranged to replace Garcia on the court, so he didn't think much about it, and stayed on the sidelines with the rest of Middleton and others, practicing dribbling while watching the game on the court.

It stands to reason that the Kings' starting lineup is much stronger than the bench, but they didn't show any stronger strength when they started on the court.

On the white team's side, Cousins is in average form today, although his height has an advantage over Hayes, but Hayes has a lot of experience in defending and has been very successful in defending Cousins several times.

As for the outside, Thorton's shooting touch today was okay, and Evans didn't try too much to attack on the outside, but he broke through to the inside several times and was destroyed by the black team's help defense, and at this time, the white team was gradually turning into Thomas and Thorton's ball-handling singles in the court.

On the black team's side, Robinson's impact on the inside line today is very good, facing Thompson's defense and repeatedly attacking successfully, and on the outside, the veteran Garcia's shooting feel is also very good, Fredette and Robinson blocked and dismantled, either pass the ball to Robinson to impact the basket, or pass to Garcia to shoot outside, and the assist is soft.

"Tick!"

When the score came to 20:28 and the white team was eight points behind, Jim Ain blew the whistle and signaled for the players on both sides to stop the game for a while.

"Lee, play!"

After hearing Jim Ain's voice, Li Tianmai entered the stadium and prepared to replace what he thought was John Salmons, because Garcia was clearly in good offensive form today, and Li Tian believed that Jim Ain would keep him on the court.

"Put on the white jersey and replace Isiah."

At this moment, Jim Ain's voice came again, making Li Tian slightly stunned and then the corners of his mouth immediately raised, replacing himself into the white team, and replacing Isiah Thomas, thinking that Jim Aine already has a certain understanding of Evans and Thomas's poor coexistence on the court, so he wants to try more of his partner with Evans.

Pete Smith's analysis now seems to have some truth, and he will usher in more opportunities, well, or rather, his own spring is coming?