Bishop of the Devil

In his debut, Gobert only scored 6 points and 5 rebounds. Compared with Oden, it was completely unsightly.

However, this is quite normal in Richard's opinion. It is too difficult for a new inside man to perform well against the league's top center.

"Cheer up, kid." Richard patted Gobert's arm and comforted him with a smile.

"You are facing the recognized No. 1 center in the league, so being suppressed is not a big deal."

"Work hard and practice strength with Big Ben. Since you have chosen the path of a blue-collar center, you can't do it without strength."

Daben nodded and said, "That's right, kid, your current strength is still too weak."

"Although it is unlikely that you will have Oden's strength, as long as there is not such a big gap between your strength and his, and with your height and wingspan advantages, it won't be so miserable."

Gobert nodded solemnly.

Gobert had a miserable game, and the other two rookies weren't much better.

After McCollum came on as a substitute, he immediately made a mistake. It may be because of this reason that he made all three subsequent shots.

As a result, McCollum went 0-for-4 in the game and left the game with zero points...

Antetokounmpo was arranged by Richard to replace Rondo on the bench, but the result was not particularly good.

After coming on the court, he hit the basket and caused a kill. However, he made one mistake in controlling the ball and was intercepted by his opponent once. It still seemed a bit too rough.

This is quite normal. For someone as tall as Giannis Antetokounmpo to play the No. 1 position, there will definitely be some discomfort.

At the moment, Antetokounmpo can only slowly learn experience from the game. Maybe with a few more games, he can truly adapt to this backcourt style.

The rookies did not perform well, and Richard was not in a hurry.

After all, he knew all about these newcomers and knew their potential, so he was not in a hurry at all.

It can be typed out sooner or later, so there is no need to rush.

In the next month and a half, Richard also gradually increased the playing time of some newcomers, following Popovich's approach last season.

Give the newcomers more playing time, let them adapt to the rhythm of the game as early as possible, and prepare for the playoffs early.

And the performance of the new people is becoming more and more mature.

Gobert on the inside has gradually found the feel of the game, and knows how to use his height and wingspan advantage to create damage. His current average data has increased to about 9 points and 7 rebounds per game.

McCollum has also found his accuracy on the court. Although there is still a gap between his current offensive efficiency and that of older players, it is still acceptable.

The biggest improvement comes from Brother Mother.

Antetokounmpo's learning ability has reached a point where even Richard is stunned.

In the past nearly two decades, Richard has coached countless players, many of whom are historical stars.

But even so, Richard has never seen anyone with a learning ability as terrifying as Antetokounmpo.

Except for the fact that the basket is still weak, in other aspects everything has improved in this short period of time.

Under Rondo's guidance, Antetokounmpo has really made rapid progress.

Rondo and Giannis Antetokounmpo are both representatives of players with big hands in the history of the league. Big hands mean stable holding of the ball and stable grabbing of the board. Giannis Antetokounmpo has completely absorbed Rondo's specialties, and he is a bit like a backcourt center on the court.

In mid-November, when the Clippers played against the Wizards, Rondo was rested and Antetokounmpo got the opportunity to start. In this game, he played standard Rondo-style data.

7 points, 12 rebounds and 13 assists shocked everyone.

Everything is so perfect, except on the offensive end, the basket is really unreliable.

Richard remembered that someone said that big hands have an impact on shooting, so Rondo and Antetokounmpo are not good at baskets. However, Richard thought about it carefully. It seems that this statement has no scientific basis. Leonard is also a player with big hands. Representative, even proportionally speaking, his hands are more exaggerated, but his basket is still very stable...

Thinking of this, Richard suddenly became happy. It seemed that the three most famous players in the entire NBA history were all on his own team.

…

Richard's current request for Antetokounmpo is to shoot on the court and reduce the number of times he hits the basket as much as possible.

It's not that Richard doesn't want Antetokounmpo to hit the basket, he is now forcing Antetokounmpo to develop his shooting ability early.

Projection ability is really important to Antetokounmpo.

The best example is Sun Yue...

Is Sun Yue really strong? No, although he was trained well in Richard's hands, his real strength is still not very good.

But why can he perform so well on the offensive end? It's because of his height that he has a basket when playing the one position. He can ignore the defense of the smaller point guard and shoot easily.

And Antetokounmpo is taller than Sun Yue, and his various athletic abilities are much better than Sun Yue. If he can develop a basket, who in this league will be Antetokounmpo's opponent? !

This will be a super killer weapon that is completely unsolvable.

…

This season, Xiao Hua did not continue to arrange an easy starting schedule for the Clippers. In addition, Richard was training new players, so the Clippers' opening record was not particularly good.

The Clippers are currently ranked fourth in the Western Conference, with the top three being the Trail Blazers, Nuggets and Spurs.

Such a record is acceptable to Richard. In fact, as long as he can enter the playoffs, Richard can accept it.

His goal is only to win the championship. Whether he enters the playoffs in eighth place or first in the playoffs, there is not much difference in Richard's opinion.

If he is truly capable, he can win no matter what home or away game he plays.

And if the strength is not good, then even if it has the best record in the league, it will be useless to enter the playoffs. In the end, it will only be able to watch others win the cup.

…

The annual All-Star Game is about to begin again.

After getting the super giant suit, Richard was actually looking forward to the All-Stars. He wanted to see if the players he coached won MVPs in the next All-Stars and whether he could get parts for other suits.

If based on the current record, although the Clippers are fourth in the Western Conference, he still has a chance to coach the All-Stars.

It is not difficult for the Blazers' McMillan to give up the coaching opportunity to Richard.

What left Richard speechless was that at a critical moment, the Blazers' core Oden was injured, causing their record to decline. As a result, one week before the start of the All-Star Game, the Nuggets rushed to the number one spot in the Western Conference.

Nuggets head coach George Karl didn't have a close relationship with Richard. Richard simply didn't open his mouth to avoid looking bad after being rejected.

There's no rush on this matter, let's focus on winning this year's championship first.