Chapter 391 389. The Last Yugoslavia

Liu Mang returned to Atlanta, and all the domestic media went to Indianapolis to cover the World Championships. When Liu Mang came back, he first went to the arena for a walk, but none of the domestic reporters nearby saw it. It must have been one or two waits. Yue couldn't take it anymore, and the World Championships were about to start in half a month, so all the attention was attracted there.

After returning to the apartment for one night, I really can’t take it easy. There are too many skills I want to practice, such as three-pointers, layups, mid-range shots, change of direction breakthroughs, pull-up layups...

The main reason is that now that the strength has become stronger, although the layup ability has increased to 85, it is estimated that the dunk ability has become stronger, because Liu Mang feels that he is not used to it when he lays up. A little, but it's hard to say in case of confrontation.

So Liu Mang didn't even have the idea of ​​resting, and started training alone again... It seemed that he couldn't be lonely either.

"Dinah, my training is very boring, what are you doing here!" Liu Mang was about to go out, when he saw the little girl in sportswear following behind her buttocks, Liu Mang was so speechless, it's not that he didn't want to see the little girl Luo Li, it's just that the training is too boring, he is afraid that Dinah will go home after a while, and his training will have to be interrupted.

"It's okay, Dinah helps uncle pick up the ball! Watch the uncle train! I haven't seen him for a long time, Dinah misses him so much!" Little Lolita's big eyes seemed to be filled with stars.

Liu Mang rolled his eyes: "Stop! Tell me, what's the purpose!"

Being seen through, being cute doesn't work? Then act like a baby! Dinah went to Liu Mang's side and grabbed Liu Mang's hand and said, "Uncle...can I buy ice cream for Dinah..."

Depend on! This trick again!

Liu Mang felt that this little loli seemed to have caught his own weakness!

Liu Mang resisted the urge to agree: "No, Levia said that you are changing your teeth, and you will develop tooth decay!"

"Dinah rinsed her mouth after eating ice cream, uncle..." Dinah continued to act coquettishly.

"Okay, okay, but you can't go home after going to the training hall, you have to wait for me to finish training!" Liu Mang said helplessly.

"Uncle is the best!" Dinah jumped up, and Liu Mang quickly hugged Dinah.

"Let's go!" Dana slumped in Liu Mang's arms and waved her small fists...

...

...

Sometimes the little loli is very helpless and desperate, and sometimes she is very obedient and cute.

Arriving at the training hall of Phillips Arena, Dinah bought a bunch of snacks at the only convenience store in the arena that is open all year round, and then she really obediently watched Liu Mang's training on the sidelines of the training ground. Will help Liu Mang pick up the ball.

Dinah followed Liu Mang to the training hall, not just to eat every day, sometimes she would bring some books to read, and sometimes she would bring a drawing board, and draw whatever was interesting, most of the time it was Liu Mang shooting a basketball posture, sometimes holding a book similar to the "phonetic symbols" for learning English in China to practice Chinese by myself, and occasionally Alexia will come along, and the two of them will talk in poor Chinese on the side, sometimes read from the book...

Seeing Liu Mang repeating the same movements and training every day, Dinah was sometimes puzzled...sometimes she practiced according to Liu Mang's movements...

It’s not that Liu Mang practiced to death and didn’t know how to rest. Occasionally after training in the morning, he would take Dinah and the occasional Levia or Alexia out for a stroll in the afternoon, to relax and think about the lack of training. A balance between work and rest is also very important.

As time passed, the World Championships started on August 30.

There was a big upset in the group stage.

The competition system of this World Championship is very characteristic. In addition to the 12 countries that originally qualified for the competition according to the allocation of places on each continent, four participating countries, Canada, Venezuela, Lebanon, and Algeria, were added to the qualifying round. Divided into two rounds.

At the beginning, it was divided into four groups A. Each team played three games first, and then grouped again after the game. After the grouping, it was not possible to repeat the existing match of the first grouping, and then played three more games.

Ever since, after the US team won the first five games in a row, they met Argentina in the sixth game...

After that, there was the amazing performance of Yaodao. Argentina ended the dream team's 58-game winning streak and defeated the US team 87-80.

Popovich, who has the right to sign Ginobili, was ecstatic, and immediately gave Ginobili a two-year contract of 4 million yuan.

The performance of the Chinese team was not bad. Although they were overthrown by Pierce when they were leading by 12 points in the group match against the US team, they lost 19 points in the end, but they won the group match against Algeria and ranked in the world after the group match. twelfth place.

And some American fans believe that if Liu Mang participated in this World Championships, there will be no embarrassing situation where the Chinese defender cannot complete the dribble from the second quarter.

In the first quarter, when the U.S. team didn’t implement a full-court press, because Yao Ming crushed the dominance of the U.S. center in the interior, a group of pitchers from the outside of the Chinese team stunned the U.S. team. When the time came, Yao Ming had no choice but to turn back and run.

However, Yao Ming has six group games and two qualifying games, a total of eight games. He can get whatever he wants against almost any opponent. He averaged 21 points, 9 rebounds and 2.2 blocks per game. The national team won the honor of the best center lineup of the World Championships for the first time in his career. .

This allowed Yao Ming, who did not participate in the summer league, to reassure Houston fans. Playing Ben Wallace is the same as playing for fun, provided that the ball can be delivered to Yao Ming.

Kobe, who was watching the U.S. team game at home, cursed the idiots of the U.S. team, touched Vanessa's stomach, and exclaimed: That damn rookie... No, it's a bastard in the second grade, not bragging! This big guy is really powerful!

...

to the knockout stage.

Originally, even if the U.S. team lost a game in the group stage, U.S. fans were still not worried about their performance. They were the Dream Five team led by two top stars, Ben Wallace and Pierce.

As a result, they met Yugoslavia in the first round of the knockout round...

I was abused again, this time with no temper. The US team fell behind from the beginning to the end of the game, and was killed without the ability to struggle.

After that, Yugoslavia crushed all the opponents all the way. In the end, Yugoslavia strongly defended its glory. Before it completely disintegrated, it won the last world championship.

Peja Stojakovic also won his first World Series Player of the Year award, but also the last.

The golden generation of Argentina can start to step into the top, and won the second place in the World Championships, and the German team with Nowitzki won the third place.

New Zealand set the best record in Australia's history and got the fourth place. However, New Zealand's national team has no NBA players. The best player is Kirk Penny, the head star of the Barcelona team in La Liga. It is Paul Gaso. Er's former teammate.

The U.S. team suffered repeated defeats at home. They were eliminated in the first round of the knockout round, and then they won the first round of the 5th to 8th qualifying round and advanced to the 5th to 6th qualifying round. Arrived in Spain...

Seeing that Gasol is even better than Yao Ming, playing Antonio Davis and Ben Wallace, the American fans are going crazy. When did there be so many big bosses? Why are all the opponents so powerful? How come international centers can beat our country's top defensive centers so badly?

When the US team lineup was released, although fans complained that there was not a single NBA first team, and there was no All-Star starter, they still felt that this lineup was enough.

Now I find out... What a fart! All opponents are Gundams!

In the end, the U.S. team only finished sixth. Except in 1998, no NBA players participated in the World Championships due to the lockout. This year’s World Championships is the first time that the Dream Team has not won the championship since the establishment of the Dream Team. It is even the worst record in the history of the U.S. team. He was eliminated in the knockout round for the first time.

...

...

After the World Championships, it was already mid-September.

Most of the Hawks players have returned to Atlanta one after another, and some players have already started to come back for training. There is only one exception. Glenn Robinson has not come to Atlanta to report. The rate has increased greatly. It is said that they are singing and singing every night in Las Vegas.

On September 17th, Liu Mang went to the movies with Dinah, Alexia, and Levia in the morning. Liu Mang rarely watched American movies in his previous life, except for Marvel and DC. Those superhero movies, or some comedies, I have seen very few others.

It was the first Bourne movie starring Matt Damon. Liu Mang watched it very enthusiastically. He thought it was fine if Dinah watched it enthusiastically. Unexpectedly, the two women also watched it very enthusiastically.

In the afternoon, Liu Mang brought Dinah to the Phillips Arena.

Unlike Dinah, who is young and has excellent language talent, the two adult women are much slower in learning languages, and their Chinese is far behind Dinah. Dinah can express simple ideas in crappy Chinese, but the two women are stunned. Unconvinced, Alexia took advantage of the long vacation as a teacher to learn Chinese with Levia every day.

When she arrived at the arena, Dinah saw a team staff greet them warmly.

Dinah "disdains" playing with the school children, but she is very enthusiastic about the adults. After staying in the arena for almost a month, almost everyone knows Liu Mang, a beautiful "daughter".

Seeing Dinah "bluffing and cheating" everywhere as her daughter, cheating snacks everywhere, Liu Mang expressed despair and helplessness, but there was nothing he could do.

However, after taking Dinah into the arena, Liu Mang found that there seemed to be more people than before.

Although some teammates have returned to Atlanta in the past, they did not come to the arena to train during training. Only occasionally some people came, and most of them practiced at home. Jason Terry, Raheem, Muhammad, and Ratliff all It has its own single-family house, even if it is not a villa, it also has its own yard and an open-air court.

Liu Mang led Dinah, who had cheated another ice cream and a bunch of snacks, into the training ground, and saw Coach Kruger, whom he hadn't seen for a long time, leading three rookies to give orders.

"Coach, are you back?" Liu Mang asked in surprise.

Doesn't the training camp start on October 1st?

"Ace, you're here. We started the training camp two weeks earlier today. Because you've been training, we didn't notify you." Coach Kruger looked at Liu Mang's growing body and smiled with satisfaction.

At the end of June, Liu Mang told coach Kruger that he was going to start strength training. Coach Kruger thought that this student was really great. Those who work hard will always be liked by others, such as Vujacic, the Zen master He has stated more than once that Vujacic is his favorite Lakers player, and even Vujacic couldn't find a job in the NBA later, and Zen Master brought Vujacic back after he became president in New York.

Even if you can't play, it's good to set an example for your teammates in training, isn't it?

"Coach, Dinah's here too!" Dinah saw a few new adults who could "trap" and tried to show her sense of existence.

"Dinah?" Coach Kruger saw Dinah for the first time. He had heard of it, but he had never seen it. Coach Kruger asked, "Ace, this is yours..."

"Dinah is the uncle's daughter!" Dinah started bluffing again.

Although Coach Kruger knew that Liu Mang could not have a daughter, Liu Mang was recruited into the jacket team by Coach Kruger less than two months after he came to the United States to study, but Dinah is too cute, Kruger The coach followed Dana's words and said hello: "So it's Ace's daughter, hello, Dana, my name is Ron Kruger, pretty little lady, can you tell me your name?"

"Uh..." Liu Mang looked at the childlike Coach Kruger, damn, this little loli is a scourge! Swindle everywhere!

"Dinah's name is Dinah-s... Dinah-Liu! Mr. Kruger, it's the first time we meet, here's the red envelope!" Dinah stretched out her devil's little paw after speaking.

"Red envelope?" Coach Kruger asked suspiciously when he heard this new word.

Liu Mang was in so much pain, if he had known that he would not have told domestic stories to this little lolita, Liu Mang could only start science popularization again: "This is a custom in China when we meet an elder. When we meet an elder for the first time, the elder They will wrap their hearts in red paper and give them to the younger generation, and now they usually put money in it, and let the children choose what to buy."

Why again? Because the little loli has cheated a lot of red envelopes recently, ranging from 1 dollar to 100 dollars, Dinah doesn't care how much money she has, she just wants to have fun.

"Haha, okay, I see, Dinah, when you come back tomorrow, I will prepare a big red envelope for you." Coach Kruger is very happy today!

"The coach can't tell lies! Otherwise, the nose will get longer!" Dana said excitedly.

"OK, the nose gets longer when you lie!"

After getting a satisfactory answer, Dinah ran to the fan area beside the training field and found a place to sit and eat snacks without Liu Mang's instructions.

If you want to talk about why Coach Kruger is so happy today, isn't it because the three selected rookies performed well in the summer league!

After the summer league ended, the Eagles signed contracts with all three rookies, and then advanced part of their salaries, allowing the players to go home for two months of summer vacation, and now they are reporting to the team.

"Come on, Ace, meet your new teammates. I don't know if you forgot about them. This is Carlos, Matt, and Tyshawn. This is Liu Mang. You should all know him." Coach Kruger told Liu Mang introduced three new teammates. Of the four new teammates who joined this season, three of them have already arrived.

Barnes, Prince, and Boozer were very excited when they saw Liu Mang. Three months ago, with Liu Mang's finger, the three of them were definitely selected by the Eagles.

What does this represent?

The team has the right to speak!

However, only three months have passed! Liu Mang, who used to be thin, now looks about the same as Barnes, the strongest of the three. Boozer and Prince are both 21 years old at the same age, while Barnes is 22 years old. On the street, the physical development is obviously more mature, and it is closer to the standard size of the position played in the NBA.

And when Liu Mang first met three months ago, he was still a thin guard. Although he is not a muscular guard now, he is obviously much thicker! It's just that the naked eye can tell that there have been obvious changes.

Whether it's out of gratitude, out of fear of "power", or out of respect for Liu Mang's hard training, all three of them respect Liu Mang very much.

Relatively speaking, although Boozer looks like a bandit, he raised his head bald after the summer league and his hair loss became more serious. He looks more like a bandit, but he is a shy person, and Prince doesn't talk much.

Sure enough, Barnes, who was still physically and mentally consistent, took the initiative and was the first to say hello: "Hi Ace, I'm Matt, and I will take care of my buddies in the future."

Followed by Boozer and Prince both said hello.

"Hi, Ace." Prince still said little.

"Hello, Ace, your daughter is so beautiful. I also have a beautiful daughter who is a little younger than your daughter." Boozer scratched his head as he spoke, very restrained.

Liu Mang has an overwhelming achievement!

I also have the treatment of a "senior", and I am no longer a rookie!

However, the three people gave Liu Mang a completely different impression.

Barnes is really enthusiastic, and he deserves to be a man who dares to bring his teammates home.

It's not that Boozer is unwilling to talk, but he's not familiar with him yet, so he's a little shy, which doesn't match his appearance.

Prince, who looks like a stranger, is cold and indifferent, like a new... cool guy Newbell?

After saying hello, coach Kruger gave Liu Mang the new season's player handbook, and then took the three rookies to do a physical examination.

Liu Mang flipped through the player handbook, mainly to see the new team lineup.

There are a lot of teammates whose names are gone.

Names like Jacqui Vaughn, Alan Henderson, Kukoc, Strickland, and Reggie Lester, who was signed after Hannah Mettola was reimbursed for the season, and also played part-time jobs Dick Simpkins, the veteran player, seems to have retired without much attention.

Looking at the new lineup, Liu Mang felt a little sentimental.

But also looking forward to the new season!

The Eagles lineup is pretty explosive right now!

Back line: Liu Mang, Dean Grove, Jason Terry, Emmanuel and Glenn Robinson.

Up front: Raheem, Prince, Barnes, Muhammad, Newbell, Boozer.

There are Ratliff, Mettola, and Leon Smith at the center position.

Strong soldiers and strong horses require talent and talent, and strength and strength!

Liu Mang went to the locker room to change into a training uniform and came out. He saw his teammates coming one after another on the report day of the team's early training camp. Many of them had already returned to Atlanta. Raheem and Jason Terry hadn't I came to see Liu Mang's training.

Finally seeing his familiar teammates, Liu Mang really feels that a new season is coming this time!

But...Liu Mang caught the little loli who was asking for red envelopes everywhere, it was too embarrassing!