basketball behind the spotlight

Chapter 208 Reinforcement
In a blink of an eye, the draft will be coming soon.

Lu Ziqiu gathered the members of the coaching staff together, shared with everyone the video footage of the players brought back by the scouts, and then discussed the links that the team needs to strengthen. Almost everyone agreed on this point:

The team's current two weakest positions are power forward and point guard. The two backup power forwards have obvious weaknesses. Barea has no independent scoring ability and no defense; Gundam can shoot mid-range shots, but his defense is similar to Barea's.

The two backup point guards also have obvious weaknesses. Hayes has a confrontation and has a good spot-up three-point shooting rate, but he is short and slow;

Hyde is fast and has good ball-handling skills, but he is not tall enough and has poor confrontation, and he does not have a stable mid-range and long-range shooting ability on the offensive end, and he is not as good as Hayes on the defensive end.

The top priority is to strengthen these two positions as soon as possible.

So in the draft, they used their picks to select power forward Augustin and point guard Xia Yuan.

Augustin, height 208, wingspan 225, offensively has a stable mid-range shot and solid basic skills under the blue, good ability to help defend and block shots, but unfortunately the confrontation is a bit poor, individual defense is not good, and the defense is not smart enough, easy to be fooled .

Xia Yuan, with a height of 193 and an armband of 210, has a strong body, is good at defense, and has a good mid-range and long-range shooting ability, but his vision is biased and his ability to organize offense is weak.

However, these two have good talents and can be trained to become high-quality role players, much better than the original two-position substitute players.

In this way, the team's roster has a total of [-] people, and the two extra can only pass the summer league inspection. After the inspection, it is decided who will be placed in the reserve team first to go to the second-tier league for training.

After finishing the draft, Xia Hongfei went to look for Lu Ziqiu when he returned to Yancheng, and asked him, "The free market is about to start. Is there any player in the market that you fancy?"

Lu Ziqiu smiled, "Of course, but it's difficult."

"What's going on?" Xia Hongfei immediately became interested, "Is it a star player or a role player?" If it's a star player, you have to work hard, but if it's a role player, it doesn't matter if you can get it or not.

After all, the role players in the team are hard-working enough. The few playoff games against Huaxia allowed him to see their energy and hope. What's more, the two players selected this time are pretty good. It must be much stronger.

Lu Ziqiu told him the player he liked, "His name is Wei Meng, and he is a good player in the 4th and 5th positions."

Wei Meng, Xia Hongfei doesn't have much impression of this player. He is obviously just an average player, so he doesn't pay much attention. "Isn't our center position not bad?"

"Wei Meng can shoot three-pointers, and his shooting percentage is not low, and his defensive ability is not bad. If we can sign him, our tactics can be richer, but there will be many teams in the league with a player like him. scramble, so I'm not sure I can take him down."

Speaking of this, Xia Hongfei finally got an impression. After all, there are too few centers in the league who can shoot three-pointers. "You mean the Thunder center?"

Thunder is not a playoff team, and in the west, there are not many opportunities to play against each other, so he usually doesn't pay much attention.

"That's right, his contract is about to expire, but he thinks of a team that can compete for the championship, so he will definitely not renew his contract with the Thunder after the contract expires. In contact, I don’t have any confidence in competing with their two teams, so I can only try.”

Xia Hongfei couldn't help laughing bitterly, "Forget it, we have nothing to argue with them."

Lu Ziqiu didn't say anything, but he decided to try to get in touch with them then.

The two were silent for a while, then Xia Hongfei handed him an invitation card.

Lu Ziqiu took it in astonishment: "What is this from?"

"Lu Wei and Ke Xin's engagement ceremony is on the 20th of next month. You must come back to attend."

"Really?" Lu Ziqiu was pleasantly surprised, "I will definitely come back, don't worry."

Xia Hongfei was in a good mood, and he dragged him to talk for a long time before leaving.

Lu Ziqiu opened the invitation, looked at it, and handed it to Diana. Diana pouted and said, "The two of them are quite tight-lipped, and they didn't tell us about the engagement ceremony."

"Ke Xin is already engaged, how about you?"

"We are just an ordinary family, how can there be any engagement ceremony?"

But Lu Ziqiu heard the smell, "Did you also decide to get married?"

Diana blushed and nodded, "The end of this year."

"Good thing, then I'm going to start saving money to help you organize your wedding."

"What nonsense are you talking about?" Diana ran away shyly, not daring to bring up this topic with him again.

Lu Ziqiu laughed heartily, and it took a while before he stopped laughing, "By the way, there is nothing to do during this time. Lin Qian and I are going back to Los Angeles. Do you want to go back together?"

Diana finally looked up at him, "When will you go back?"

"The day after tomorrow, let's arrange work today and tomorrow."

Diana suddenly beamed, "Okay, I haven't been home for a long time."

"Okay then, you book a ticket right away."

"Ah."

After confirming the time to go back, Lu Ziqiu began to arrange the work of various departments.

After returning, he called Lu Wei and the coaching staff, handed over the command of the summer league to Lu Wei, and told him to pay more attention to the situation of the two rookies.

"Okay." Lu Wei didn't hesitate.

Lu Ziqiu patted him on the shoulder, and asked Ye Si and Shen Dongfei to transfer some players from the second team to form a team to participate in the summer league.

The two have no doubts.

Now the entire coaching staff team is his people, as long as he speaks, the work will definitely be implemented as soon as possible, unlike Thompson and Harris who were so narrow-minded in the past.

After everything was explained, the biggest problem before him was the team doctor, but he didn't have any contacts in this area, so he left George alone and told him his thoughts.

He didn't think about it at first, he just wanted to discuss it with him. Unexpectedly, George really knew people in this area.

"I have a friend for many years. He is a very good rehabilitator and physical therapist. He is best at acupuncture. If he can come, it will definitely be of great help to our team."

"That's really great, coach, please contact him as soon as possible, even if the salary is a little higher, it's okay." George is definitely not a person who talks about it. If he can say that, then it must be very good.

George smiled and said, "I'm actually thinking of taking Han Bin to look for him in two days. Since you mentioned it, I'll fight for it by the way."

"Okay, thank you for your hard work." The problem of player injuries is the most troublesome thing. If it can be solved, he will be more confident next season.

(End of this chapter)