Chapter 40: Disturbance
Swish! Swish! Swish!
"Well done, Yang, this is how you shoot. Bend your knees, make two inward 90-degree angles with your right arm, jump up, and flick the ball out smoothly. Great!"
Rick clapped his hands and praised Yang Mo non-stop. Training Yang Mo was a very fulfilling thing for him. Because as long as he gave a little guidance, Yang Mo would immediately make outstanding progress. He loved this feeling of seeing immediate results, which would show that he was very capable.
He is indeed very skilled, but more importantly, Yang Mo has practiced day after day and year after year for more than ten years. This long-term and orderly training has made his ball skills perfect. However, because he was in a wrong training method before, Rick corrected him, which was equivalent to opening up Yang Mo's Ren and Du meridians at once, so he seemed to be making rapid progress.
Rick was very satisfied with Yang Mo. Dribbling coach Bender was also very satisfied. Yang Mo was very good at dribbling, and his long arms were very suitable for dribbling, but... he rarely dribbled across half court in previous games, so when faced with pressure, he always seemed a little helpless.
Under Bend's training, Yang Mo's ball-guarding skills improved. Yang Mo could quickly learn the movements Bend taught him, and quickly mastered them. This kind of student is undoubtedly the favorite for the teacher.
Rebounding coach Blake likes Yang Mo more. In his opinion, Yang Mo is a natural rebounding machine. Although he is too short for inside players, his skills, positioning, awareness and keen judgment of rebounds are the best among the players he has ever coached. After teaching him some skills, there is really nothing more to teach. He feels that Yang Mo's understanding of rebounding is better than his own.
So, after teaching for three days, he took the initiative to resign to Mr. Pat Riley. After listening to his report and learning about Yang Mo's amazing rebounding talent, Pat Riley was very happy and agreed to his request to go on vacation to the Hawaiian beach with a wave of his hand.
Compared with other coaches, the defensive coach seemed a little unhappy. It was not because Yang Mo had no talent in defense, but precisely because Yang Mo was too talented in defense. It was just that there was a natural difference in their defensive philosophies.
Dudley's defensive philosophy is passive defense. For example, when defending the opponent's post-up singles, his philosophy is not to lose position and not let the opponent score easily. Yang Mo's defensive philosophy is active defense, always trying to steal the opponent's ball or disrupt the offense in various ways.
Dudley insisted that his defensive philosophy was correct, so he found several inside players who were on trial and asked Yang Mo to defend them. Unfortunately, none of these players could survive Yang Mo's test. Six out of ten times, their offense was disrupted, and the remaining four times had a low success rate, at most scoring one or two goals.
In the end, all these frustrated tryout players left Miami. They hated the feeling of being taught a lesson, especially by a short guy.
After the tryout players left in frustration, Dudley still insisted that his defensive philosophy was correct, and kept saying to Yang Mo: "Yang, you can defend successfully now because these guys can't even play in the NBA. When you meet those NBA stars, you will definitely not be able to defend. Listen to me, follow their steps well, and use your strength to push them away from the basket."
"Okay, okay."
Yang Mo always agreed to this, but when it came to defensive training, she couldn't help but use aggressive defense, and her success rate was quite high.
Finally, Dudley broke down. He walked into Pat Riley's office with a painful look on his face: "Sir, I really can't teach him anymore. He is too paranoid. He always wants to steal the ball from the opponent in every defense."
"Isn't this good? At least it shows that he is full of fighting spirit." Pat Riley said with a raised eyebrow.
"But... it won't work in the NBA."
"It's a good thing for young people to be a little aggressive. Let him continue like this." Pat Riley said indulgently.
"Okay then." Dudley shook his head helplessly.
After Dudley left reluctantly, Pat Riley suddenly became interested and quickly asked his secretary to call Yang Mo in. After Yang Mo came in, he took the initiative to ask: "Yang, Dudley said that your defense is too aggressive. Why don't you try to learn from him?"
"The coach's approach doesn't apply to me. Compared to inside players, I'm too short, but this is precisely my defensive advantage. I'm more flexible than many inside players, and my wingspan is longer, plus I'm not at a disadvantage in strength, so in a one-on-one defense, offensive defense is the most suitable for me." Yang Mo did not hide it and said very directly: "If I defend as the coach said, the opponent doesn't need to squeeze into the inside, they just need to turn around and shoot. I hate it when others shoot easily over my head."
After hearing this, Pat Riley nodded and agreed with it, saying, "Why don't you tell this to the coach?"
"His coaching philosophy is very stubborn. I can't convince him at all, so I can only give him a perfunctory response." Yang Mo shrugged and said with a smile.
"Okay, starting tomorrow, you don't need to practice defense. Just focus on your physical fitness, shooting, and dribbling."
"Okay." Yang Mo nodded happily.
Yang Mo was training hard in the training hall in Miami. I don't know if it's because the media is too bored during the off-season, so they would ridicule Yang Mo every now and then, saying that he would be the worst lottery pick in NBA history, and some even discussed whether Yang Mo could get a chance to play in the NBA.
These discussions became even more intense when Pat Riley announced that Yang Mo would not participate in the summer league. Everyone was discussing the reason why Yang Mo would not participate. The vast majority of them believed that Pat Riley regretted it and did not want Yang Mo to embarrass himself by going to the summer league and making a fool of himself.
Yang Mo didn't take the outside discussions seriously at all. She just trained non-stop every day, and then went home to have barbecues and drinks with Girls' Generation. She lived a very leisurely life.
Pat Riley was even happier. To him, Yang Mo had become a secret weapon. He could get good news from several coaches every day. Invisibly, in his mind, Yang Mo's status had surpassed that of the No. 2 pick, Michael Beasley.
In a call with star player Dwyane Wade, Pat Riley even patted his chest and said to Wade who was somewhat skeptical: "Dwyane, those reports outside are too bad, don't believe them. If you have seen Yang's training, you will definitely think that he will be your best partner since you started playing. Every aspect of him fits perfectly with you, and you will definitely be able to play amazing chemistry. Believe me, I have never lied to you, right?"
After getting Pat Riley's assurance, the Heat's star player Dwyane Wade finally felt relieved. He believed in Pat Riley, so when he was interviewed, he said: "Although I don't know why Yang didn't appear in the summer league, I absolutely believe that he is a talented guy. Pat Riley never does business at a loss."
Yang Mo didn't care about these. He bought a villa the day after arriving in Miami, as if he was going to settle down here. On the third day, the girls of Girls' Generation contacted him, so he warmly invited them to come over and play. Later, he simply let them live in the house. There were so many houses anyway, so they could just live there. Their agent had some objections at first, fearing that something unexpected would happen, but after playing with Yang Mo a few times, he agreed, and she even came to live here often.
