A quick start to the 6-week course!

"Sorry Curry, Chauncey is the number one point guard in history"! As Yang Hansen exploded with 14 points in a single quarter in the preseason, coach Chauncey Billups' favorability in the hearts of fans suddenly increased. He was even teased and booked the status of "Best Coach" or even "Historical Controller".

As everyone knows, Billups only crammed in 6 weeks of coaching courses and then took up the job in a hurry! How did he transform into a coach? What help did he do to Yang Hansen?

Back in 2020, the NBA was suspended due to the epidemic. Tyronn Lue, then a Clippers assistant coach, brought a group of assistant coach friends and lived in Billups' home. The purpose was to help Billups master the necessary coaching skills in the short term by supplementing knowledge.

After Billups retired, he sought to enter NBA team management, but he found that the work behind the scenes was trivial and complicated. He preferred to stay on the front line, so he transformed into an ESPN commentator and also served as the commentator for the Clippers. Rivers, then the head coach of the Clippers, allowed Billups to sit in on the Clippers' training sessions and coaching meetings. After going back and forth, Billups became interested in coaching and felt that it was much more interesting than talking on paper in the commentary box!

Billups and Clippers assistant coach Tyronn Lue are close friends. The two met in the AAU tournament when they were 16 years old and became rivals. After entering the NCAA, Billups' University of Colorado and Tyronn Lue's University of Nebraska were in the same Big 12 league, and they were in direct conflict. Later, Billups even made Tyronn Lue the godfather of his eldest daughter.

Therefore, as mentioned above, Tyronn Lue used the downtime to take the initiative to help Billups gain knowledge. This group of coaches retreated to Billups' home for six weeks, studying video for four to five hours a day, discussing game strategies and training methods, and practicing formations on the backyard court.

In October 2020, Tyronn Lue was promoted to the head coach of the Clippers, and then he invited Billups to become the chief assistant coach. In view of the weak point guard position of the Clippers at that time, Billups's main task in his rookie season was to cultivate the organizational skills of forward Paul George. By helping him analyze video, he learned to read the defense to drive his teammates. After a period of training, George bluntly said that the court in his eyes began to look different. The data doesn't lie. In the 20-21 season, George averaged 5.2 assists per game. In the previous ten years of his career, his highest assists were only 4.1.

In the summer of 2021, Billups, who had only been an assistant coach for one season, was poached by the Trail Blazers and signed a five-year contract. The main task was to improve the Trail Blazers' bottom-ranked defense. But in the next two years, the backcourt double McCollum and Lillard left the team one after another, and the team was torn down and rebuilt. Billups began to focus on cultivating newcomers such as Shedden Sharp and Kamara. For example, he would directly deprive Sharp of his starting qualification due to his defensive problems. Kamara was also selected for the All-Defensive Second Team. In the 24-25 season, the Trail Blazers' overall defensive efficiency once ranked among the top five in the league, and their transition defensive efficiency ranked third in the league.

Now, as the best defensive player in the CBA, Yang Hansen's defense and rebounding have become obvious disadvantages in the NBA competition. But Billups still gave him a lot of patience, thinking that he can still learn in this aspect, but his talents such as golf intelligence, passing, and touch cannot be taught. Billups not only interrupted training many times during the training camp to explain tactics in detail to Yang Hansen, who had a speech impediment, but also gave him one-on-one advice after class.

In his first preseason game, Yang Hansen played for 21 minutes, and Billups would continue to use the gaps to provide guidance on the sidelines. When Hansen Yang left the field with his sixth foul, Billups patted him to express his comfort. After the first game, Billups even used his poor performance as a rookie as an example to support Hexion's need to adapt. Thanks to the coach's patience and trust, Hexion's second battle to clear his name came. After the game, Billups beamed, like a proud old father.

As for historical status, Chinese fans naturally understand the world~