noveldrama
Chapter 1008 1008 584 The Gap Between Coaches Really
Chapter 1008 1008 584 The Gap Between Coaches Really
?Chapter 1008: Chapter 584: The Gap Between Coaches, Really? Chapter 1008: Chapter 584: The Gap Between Coaches, Really? From a competitive standpoint, this was a playoff with little suspense.
Despite it being Adam Silver’s first playoffs as commissioner, the disparity in competition left the new president powerless.
Silver attempted to control the referees’ discretion to add suspense to the playoffs, but defending champions like the Miami Heat and the top-seeded Spurs in the Western Conference exhibited overwhelming strength.
It could be said that this was the power structure brought together under various chaotic currents after the lockout came to an end.
To break this situation, one could only wait for it to flow to its endpoint.
The Clippers encountered the Houston Rockets in the first round.
In the Rockets’ lineup, relying on Harden’s individual strength ensured the team’s baseline performance, but their ceiling was not high.
Across two home games for the Clippers, the Rockets failed to put any pressure on them.
Harden’s style of play was quite interesting; his rhythmic dribbling between the legs was one of the strongest Fei had seen among players.
With that wonderful sense of rhythm, Harden’s step-back jump shot was beginning to take shape.
However, his current step-back was not yet the Mahayana Realm’s double-step-back three-point jumper, but a more conventional mid-range step-back jump shot.
This move, many active players could perform, but to do it as skillfully as Harden required talent.
But Harden’s talent was not enough to defeat the Clippers.
They didn’t even have the chance to defend their honor in the first round series.
After the four games were played, the Clippers, like skilled janitors, swept the Rockets out of the series.
“Many people say we’re the weakest 60-win team in history, now I want to hear what they have to say.”
After sweeping the Rockets, Rivers took a deep breath.
He flaunted his confidence, hoping those in the media who doubted the Clippers would explain themselves.
This was the pre-game rhythm.
Some media believed that with the aging of the broad 96 golden generation and the loss of many talents in the middle generation, the League was in a stage of transition, seriously lacking overall competitiveness, which is why the GOAT could take last season’s 34-win Clippers to this season’s 62 wins.
Of course, this was a reflection of the GOAT’s influence, but it also benefited from the overall environment being less competitive.
The Clippers were the 60-win team most likely to flip in the playoffs because their “strength” was insufficient and, with a coaching team that had a history of issues, even with GOAT at the helm, the risks were still significant.
These comments seemed to belittle the gold content of Fei’s leadership, but were actually hinting at issues with the Clippers’ coaching staff.
Rivers, as a highly praised head coach, was greatly angered by this, but he had to put up with it and wait until after the first round of games to settle the score with them.
Fei “understood” these things.
Moreover, he basically agreed with the current lack of competitiveness in the League.
You see, the fact that the main timeline’s Spurs and the Warriors, who would score 73 wins a few years later, could exhibit that kind of dominance during the regular season was no coincidence.
A record-breaking environment always requires an overall environment with weak competitiveness, as was the case with the 96 Bulls and the 16 Warriors.
However, in this life, because of Fei’s arrival, the timeline was disrupted, and within a decade several dominant super teams emerged, thereby records were broken time and again.
In most of those record-breaking years, the competitiveness was at an average level.
But starting from this year and over the next few years, the overall competitiveness of the League was indeed at a historic low.
Fei certainly knew that the Clippers reaching 62 wins had to do with the big picture, and he understood whether the media’s concerns about Rivers were valid.
So, he never gave Rivers the chance to slip up.
In leading games, he relentlessly pressed the opponents, and in games where the suspense lasted till the end, he reminded the pig-headed coach of what to pay attention to during timeouts.
As a result, the Rockets did not trigger Rivers’s “comeback king BUFF.”
As soon as the first round was over, another major talking point came to an end.
Regarding the ownership of the various awards for the regular season.
Fei was selected to the All-NBA First Team for the eleventh consecutive season.
Moreover, he was the clear first-place winner in the MVP voting.
Although he suffered from the significant “voter fatigue” DEBUFF, the media had a tough time; not giving GOAT the MVP would bring massive pressure, and there wasn’t any other candidate that could compete with GOAT.
Wade had received it last year, but this year the Heat only achieved 65 wins in the regular season, not as good as last year, which is a definite negative for repeat MVP contention.
Though the Spurs got the best record in the League with 66 wins, the team’s statistics were too evenly distributed, with no player standing out significantly.
If the MVP didn’t come from these two championship-favorite teams, it would be necessary to look for candidates among the teams in the next tier.
The Brooklyn Nets self-destructed this season, with constant internal strife from the beginning and barely making the playoffs with 50 wins, so no core player was in the running for MVP.
The Bucks, which had risen again in previous years, encountered an injury wave and were eliminated in the first round, leaving no chance for MVP competition.
Looking at it this way, GOAT’s main competition was left to the Eastern Conference’s second-seeded Cavaliers’ star player—the one who declared he would “never leave Cleveland again”—LeBron James.
James indeed had the qualifications to compete for MVP.
This year the Cavaliers garnered a record of 56 wins to 28 losses, with James contributing an average of 28 points, 9 rebounds, and 8 assists per game. It could be said that this was the season he came closest to MVP since joining the League.
If Fei’s Clippers had only achieved 50 wins instead of 62, the media might have given the vote to James.
Unfortunately for him, the Clippers won 62 games.