Chapter 114: The Godfather of Ping Pong

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A total of 16 teams participated in the World Championships. Among the teams that Leon least wants to visit their training, if Angola ranks first, then Canada ranks second. It's not because the Canadian team is too weak, but because there is no player in the Canadian team that Leon wants to investigate. After all, the two countries are too close. All Canadian basketball geniuses are playing in the United States, and there are rookies with the United States. We have the same growth experience.
For these Canadian players, Leon knows them exactly the same level as the American team, because they are almost all NBA marginal players, basically in the development league, and this Canadian national team can really play in the NBA. Only Magloire from the Hornets, Marco Roche, who was just traded to the 76ers, and Steve Nash from the Mavericks.
"What to do? Change to another place?" Morey asked Leon. Their original plan was to look at the players of European teams, especially some Eastern European teams, for the Celtics who had no draft results this season. Said that if you can gain something in the European player market, it will be very good.
"No, since it's here, just stay here, we have time." After Leon saw Nash, he suddenly decided not to leave.
Nash, the player Leon, has an impression. Starting in the Suns, he was picked up by the Mavericks and began to glow. His physical fitness feels average, but he is very the court. When he was a scout, Leon gave Nash a scout report, believing that Nash has outstanding offensive talent, but at the same time it has great limitations. As for the defensive end, just like the evaluation given to him by a scout during the draft, he is basically not up to the NBA average.
This has also led to Leon's interest in Nash is not very large, in the position of point guard, if it is impossible to introduce a well-experienced point guard with offense and defense. Then the Celtics will choose to train Arenas. This is the consensus reached between Leon and Angie. Angie originally planned to try to contact the Timberwolves point guard Billups, but the offer given by the Celtics is obviously unable to directly sign the Celtics who used to play for the Celtics. If you sign first and then change. The Celtics have no bargaining chips, and emotionally Billups is reluctant to return to Boston, a place that broke his heart.
but. Before the start of the World Championships Leon had received news that Nash would not participate in this game because he played too the court and Nash had multiple injuries. The Mavericks owner Cuban does not want the player who has just been promoted to the All-Star in the 01-02 season to be consumed too much in the national team game, which will affect his performance in the NBA next season.
But Nash still appeared in the World Championships, and before all his teammates arrived at the training hall, he was the first to come to the gate of the venue. He wears headphones. It seemed that he was jogging all the way, he recognized Leon at a glance. Although the two did not have much friendship, Leon has been an assistant coach with the Celtics for a season, but any NBA player with normal brains can at least Recognize the assistant coach of a team.
"Good morning, Celtic assistant, Fox... Fox... what's the matter?" Nash took off his headphones and walked to Leon to say hello, but he couldn't remember Leon's name.
"Leon, Fox-Leon, now the head coach of the Celtics. Nice to meet you, Steve...Steve...what is it?" Leon pretended not to know Nash. , Reached out and shook hands with Nash.
"Nash! Steve Nash. You don't even know the name of the All-Star player." Nash said with a smile. Nash in the 01-02 season finally ushered in the explosion of his career and was successfully selected as an All-Star, which also made Nash finally Stepped into the ranks of stars.
"Don't you know the name of the All-Star assistant coach?" Leon was addicted to the All-Star assistant coach in the 2002 All-Star Game, but he was a coach in the East and had no chance to sit with Nash. On the bench.
The two joked like this and entered the training hall together. Obviously Leon did not intend to leave, but wanted to visit Nash's training. This is also an opportunity to understand the opponent, as an assistant coach who used to be in charge of player training. Leon will not give up any opportunity to learn.
But when Nash changed his clothes and came to the court, he didn't have a basketball in his hand. He didn’t know where he took out a pair of table tennis bats with a small table tennis ball in his hand, and said to Leon, Morey and Cormil,
How about playing table tennis? It’s too early for the team to train. Now, I also need to warm up a little bit and have fun." He threw a racket into Leon's hand.
Morey, who had always been in low spirits before, suddenly came to his mind, approached Leon, and said with beaming eyes: "Let me try, let me try! I'm a ping pong lover!"
It turned out that although Morey worked in basketball and was very tall, he was a complete rookie on the basketball court and had never been selected to any basketball team. However, he has a unique talent for table tennis. Although it is an unpopular sport in the United States, besides basketball, Morey’s favorite is table tennis. In high school and college, his level of table tennis is all played. Invincible throughout the school-although there are not many who can play table tennis in the entire school.
Unexpectedly, Nash liked to play table tennis. This made Morey’s hand itchy. He almost grabbed the racket from Leon’s hand, and then ran to the second floor stand with Nash, playing table tennis. The contest began on the table. Only Leon and Cormier looked at each other.
Nash is 6-foot-3, and Morey is about 6-foot-4. The two are almost the same. Both are long arms and legs. It's just that Nash is thin, and Morey is already slapped with a big belly. But the advantage of table tennis is that fat people can also be invincible. Morey is worthy of being an invincible American table tennis player in school. After a few rounds, he used smash scores in a row. Fatty was so disappointed that he even took the All-Stars. The players were playing all over the floor looking for the ball.
However, Nash quickly became familiar with Morey's routine. He thought about it carefully and decided to play the ball mainly towards Morey's backhand. Now Morey lost his prestige, his backhand would only push and not smash, Nash hit the ball faster and faster, Morey made several mistakes. The two sides quickly tied.
Leon and Cormier also stood by and watched the battle. Cormier was watching the excitement, but Leon could see. After Nash changed his strategy, his shot was extremely accurate. Saying a backhand is a backhand, no matter what kind of ball Morey hits. His strength and direction are very good, but his batting technique is very mediocre, basically at the level of the second grade of Chinese elementary school, and Morey is basically at the fourth grade level except for smashes.
For a while, the two of them were killed in the dark, Morey quickly panted, and Nash was still not warm. He has become more and more familiar with Morey's three-axes and broke Morey's three-axes. As long as there is no mistake, then wait for Morey to make a mistake.
"I think I need a little rest, or you should come and play for a while, Fox. Come to Fox, do you know how to play table tennis? Remember this is a racket for hitting that small ball, not for hitting people "Morey threw the racket back to Leon and said jokingly.
Morey knew that Leon used to practice boxing. Fighting is a good hand, but boxing and table tennis are a huge difference in sports. Morey also wondered if Leon could survive a few rounds in front of Nash.
Leon picked up the racket. He tried a straight grip first, but changed to a horizontal grip after thinking about it, then picked up the ball from the table and prepared to serve, but after thinking about it, he threw the ball to Nash and let Nash serve first.
Nash shook his head, thinking Leon would not be able to serve. After receiving the ball, he bounced decently on the table and then delivered a light high ball. As if afraid that Leon would not be able to reach it.
Then Nash saw a white object bounce back to his desktop and flew away with a "pop". He didn't even have time to react.
Leon scored his first point with a strong smash.
"1:0!" Leon stretched out a finger and said to Nash. Then he pointed behind him and motioned him to pick up the ball.
"!" Nash cursed. He knew that he had encountered a tiger pretending to be a pig and eating tigers. It seemed that his football skills would not be worse than Morey. After retrieving the ball, Nash thought for a while and decided to repeat the old trick and hit Leon's backhand. Maybe he, like Morey, is a backhand guy who can't do it.
So Nash sent a slash towards Leon's backhand, then adjusted his feet and waited for Leon's return. I saw Leon stride in the direction of the backhand, and then used a backhand to sharpen the flying ping pong ball. The ball flew slowly over the net. Nash was ready. I saw the flying ball. The ball's landing point, adjust the time difference, swing the ball back to Leon's backhand direction.
As a result, Nash hit nothing! The racket did not touch the ball at all!
"2:0! It seems that it is right to let you serve, at least you can touch the ball." Leon stretched out and said to Nash. At this time, Morey on the side was going crazy. He didn't expect Leon to be a master of table tennis, he could only make an incredible expression.
Nash was obviously dissatisfied, he threw the ball back to Leon and let Leon serve. Leon didn't make much preparation after receiving the ball, just a simple low-level serve, the ball was fast, spin was also very strong, and flew straight to Nash after passing the net. Nash caught sight of the flying ball and swung it to hit it. As a result, the ball flew into the sky with a "boom". It was already three seconds later when he fell.
Leon shook his head and put the racket back on the table. Not only did he sigh in his heart that the American people's level of table tennis is really worrying about him. He just added a bit of rotation to the ball, which made Nash unable to resist.
Nash and Morey of course don’t know ~EbookFREE.me~ Although Leon’s body is an American, his soul comes from the ping-pong kingdom China. In the memories Leon remembers, he loved to play ping-pong as a child. I remember that from elementary school to high school, table tennis, a sport that does not require high physical fitness, is Leon's favorite sport. After years of playing table tennis, although it is still a scum in the eyes of slightly more professional people, it is enough to walk sideways in front of more scumbag Americans.
"I'm the godfather of table tennis in Boston. If you want to learn table tennis, welcome to Boston." Leon said nonsense to Nash seriously. But it seems that Nash did not just take this sentence as a joke, but nodded and said that he would learn ping-pong skills from Leon.
"My warm-up is over. If you are interested, you can watch my basketball training. I promise it won't be as ugly as table tennis." After Nash warmed up with table tennis, he finally started his training.
I have to admit that a person's achievements are directly proportional to his efforts. As the best player on the Canadian team, everyone else is still sleeping in the hotel, but Nash first came to the training hall to start training. Leon knows that this is a very hardworking person, and maybe his future achievements will be higher, even if he is 28 years old this year.
"Will it be higher?" Leon couldn't help frowning. (To be continued.)