Completed in June 1992 and renovated this summer, the American Airlines Center, also known as the Skywalk, is home to the NBA Suns, the NBA Phoenix Mercury and the AFL Arizona Sidewinders. At 10 a.m., the Suns will be open here for interviews and photo shoots.

Guo Xu and coach Mike D'Antoni, the team's first assistant coach Larry Drew, and manager Brian Colangelo arrived at the stadium at 8 o'clock to drink coffee and chat in the manager's office to discuss the new season.

Guo Xu must make some suggestions, otherwise they will have to drink in the playoffs this season, and it is Guo Xu's job to lead the team on the court, but how to arrange the playing time of the players, D'Antoni has the final say.

D'Antoni currently has two Achilles' heels, and in his previous life he didn't get better until he went to coach the Rockets.

First, he is very rigid in rotation and employment. Whether it's the Suns, Knicks, or Lakers, Defat often stubbornly rotates seven or eight people. When the players get tired to a certain point, they start to suffer from the main injury, and then the role players shine, and this routine is repeated several times in Defat.

The second is that he didn't arrange to practice defense at all last season, and finding an assistant coach who emphasizes defense may be able to solve this problem.

The Suns' signing of defense-focused assistant coach Larry Drew this summer was a surprise. The coaching staff's apologetic Guo Xu did not raise an opinion, Brian knew that the team needed to strengthen the defense, and there happened to be a ready-made free man, who was blinded by him.

Drew was a point guard as a player, averaging 20.1 points, 8.1 assists and 1.7 steals per game for the Kings in the '82-83 season. After retiring as a player, Drew began his career as an assistant coach, starting with the 1992-93 season, he successively served as an assistant coach for the Lakers, Pistons, Wizards and other teams, and just left the Wizards this summer after three seasons.

Due to the Wizards' great failure in the past three years, messing up Jordan's comeback performance, Drew is not a sought-after assistant coach, and Brian signed him largely because of the cheapness.

He takes defense very seriously and likes to tell his players that they would rather let the opponent go to the free throw line than give up the defensive position and give the opponent an easy chance to score. In Guo Xu's previous life, Drew was the coach of the Hawks, making two first-round trips and one second-round round.

And Drew's most famous deeds are in 2018 as the head coach of the Cavaliers for a period of time in place of Tyrone Lue, who was recovering from injury, and achieved an excellent record of 8 wins and 1 loss.

In Tyrone Lue's absence, the Cavaliers' rotation and technical and tactical level have increased a lot, which has been recognized by the majority of Knight fans, and some fans even said on the forum: "Larry Deru's level should have replaced Tyrone Lue a long time ago!" ”

When it comes to coaching qualifications, Drew has been in the NBA coaching position for 18 years at the time, and compared to Tyrone Lue's stubborn use of the "Suicide Five", Drew's rotation adjustment of the team's lineup is obviously more reasonable and convincing.

It's a pity that the "tactical genius" Tyrone Lue didn't make it to the playoffs, and the Cavaliers immediately switched back to the "give the ball to James" tactic......

D'Antoni's idea is to stick to playing small, let Diop and the two veterans be fringe men, and the youngsters who can run play more. He doesn't look down on a blue-collar guy like Diop who can't shoot at all, but he is interested in James Jones, a low-pick rookie who can shoot three-pointers and has the size to make a cameo at the No. 4 spot.

Drew suggested that the team should ensure at least 10 rotations, except for Guo Xu, the rest of the players should play less than 30 minutes, so that role players can not only ensure offensive and defensive efficiency, but also ensure physical strength, reduce the possibility of injury. In addition, doing so allows young players to get more training during the regular season and make the playoffs.

Drew is a coach who likes to rotate, in the previous life when the Hawks were coached by Mike Woodson, the starters played a long time, Joe Johnson averaged more than 40 minutes per game for many seasons, and Drew took over the coaching whip and rotated 12 people per game, and the core Joe Johnson and Josh Smith only played about 35 minutes.

His shortcomings are that his offensive tactics are too bad, mainly based on basic blocking and singles, not to mention leading the team to score more than 100, and he didn't even score 90 points per game in the three playoffs, and won by defense.

The two coaches got together and complemented each other in terms of style.

Guo Xu didn't listen to it at first, and only after the two coaches discussed how to allocate the playing time of the inside players and asked him what he thought, he expressed his opinion.

"Don't blame me, Mike, I'm going to side with Larry this time, even though he's a newcomer." Guo Xu smiled.

When Drew signed, he was a little worried that Guo Xu liked to attack too much and neglected defense, but now that his idea is supported, he is very happy. He doesn't like players who go to extremes, and he feels like that kind of person can't succeed.

D'Antoni had to give Guo Xu face and sighed: "Do you also think you should increase the playing time of role players?" ”

"yes, otherwise it's hard for newcomers to play in the playoffs, and they will be nervous if they lack game experience. I think Diop has to play for 10 minutes or so a game and let him go up and top it up for a while when he comes across an opponent who is attacking the box. It's going to boost his confidence and he's got great physically. Guo Xu explained.

Brian answered: "We replaced him to defend O'Neal and Duncan, it doesn't matter if the offense is almost, let's try the effect in the regular season, and you let him sit on the bench when the opponent's interior offense is poor." ”

3 to 1, D'Antoni has to listen even if he doesn't like it.

Everyone sat together and chatted about Guo Xu's proposal, what he wanted was such an occasion to "stand in line", and it would not hurt the harmony if there were differences in private discussions.

Guo Xu also gave D'Antoni enough face, in terms of offensive tactics, he fully supported D'Antoni's decision, and the veterans can rest. The veterans' task is to teach the newcomers their game experience in training, and to be the captain in the dressing room to maintain good relations with everyone, and they are not as good as the young supermen in terms of quality.

Raja Bell, a 27-year-old player who is definitely going to be reused, has a lot of game experience, although he is not in the NBA most of the time.

In addition, the key to De's running is the point guard, teammates can be rotated, Guo Xu must play more, of course he has no opinion, if you play less, you won't be able to get beautiful data.

Manager Brian also supports rotation, so that the stats of role players will be more even, and if the starters are all beautiful, it will be difficult for management to renew their contracts in the future.

Talking about the core makeup photos, Guo Xu suggested five people this year.

"Isn't it too much?" D'Antoni thinks three of them will do.

"Not much, now the strong teams in the West have shouted four stars, five stars, we don't need to lag behind in this regard, when I was interviewed, I was going to say that the Suns are also the Big Five." Guo Xu said with a smile.

Brian clapped his hands and smiled lewdly: "High, really high!" ”

The three of them couldn't help but shrink their necks, the expression of this thing really didn't look like a good person.

Brian excitedly explained: "If we don't do this, the new season may not be as interesting as those teams, it's different, they are famous players, we are young players, and the fans will definitely support us more if we play well." ”

Guo Xu admired Brian's analytical skills, in fact, he didn't think about it so much, but he just believed that the talented young teammates would definitely improve this season, and they should be praised in advance if they took pictures together.

A few simple shots can boost the confidence of young players, so why not?