Two days ago, the CBA officially announced the time and venue for the third phase of the 2021-22 regular season. From March 1 to 22, Shenyang will host 10 teams as one of the two divisions, and Liaoning will return to its home stadium for the first time in two years.
After the news was announced, the Liaoning fans who could finally see their own team at their doorstep rejoiced. But at the same time, the expectations of the fans are also a challenge for the Liaoning team to return to the home field, and the Liaoning basketball team is extremely eager to play a good performance in front of the fathers and elders in their hometown, and the pressure also comes. For the team's head coach Yang Ming, the pressure is not difficult to imagine. And the huge pressure has been with Yang Ming since he coached the Liaoning team.
In danger, he was ordered to take up the burden of the Liaoning basket
Unlike many head coaches, Yang Ming's pick-up of the coaching whip seems too sudden.
On the morning of June 28, 2020, Liaoning officials released a blockbuster news, which read, "Guo Shiqiang resigned Yang Ming as the head of the coaching team." In this way, Yang Ming, who was still serving as the deputy general manager of the club, rushed to the competition area after Liao Basket issued an appointment letter. Although I consulted some seniors and peers before leaving, these are obviously far from enough.
After taking office, the biggest challenge facing Yang Ming is to calm the emotions of the Liaoning basketball players and let the team run smoothly again. The reason is very simple, meritorious head coach Guo Shiqiang and this team have experienced more than a decade of ups and downs, and have also established a deep relationship. Even if Yang Ming has been playing in Liaoning basketball all his career and is a good big brother for many Liaoning basketball players, it is still not easy for players to quickly accept Guo Shiqiang's departure.
This point, from Yang Ming's emotional communication with Guo Allen in the division, and Zhao Jiwei's joke that "I still don't know about his coaching career, he was very good when he was the captain of the player, I don't know if he will be very devilish when he is the head coach", it is not difficult to explain the challenge after Yang Ming's role conversion.
In addition to the huge change in role, what also doubles Yang Ming's pressure is that he does not have any coaching experience. Even the role of assistant coach, he has not experienced full-time, only had a "player-coach" semi-assistant coaching experience at the end of his player career. As the representative of the CBA's young coach, the young and promising Du Feng has served as an assistant coach for Li Chunjiang and Yunas for many years before officially coaching the Guangdong team, but after taking office, he was still questioned or even attacked because of the unsatisfactory performance of the team, until the team won the championship. For Yang Ming, who took office directly at the age of 35, taking over a team with high attention and expectations such as Liaoning, the pressure can be imagined.
"More shocked", Yang Ming once described as suddenly taking over the handsome seal. As for coaching, Yang Ming said after taking office: "This task is very arduous, because the status of the Liaoning men's basketball team in the minds of the people of Liaoning is very high, and the expectations for everyone are relatively high, so the pressure is high, try to do it well!" Because of the pressure and the lack of adaptation when he first started, Yang Ming was still thin in the case of a normal diet of three meals a day.
In the 2020-21 season, which was last season, Yang Ming said in his first season of officially coaching Liaoning: "I had already made this psychological expectation before taking over, but it seemed to be several times greater than the pressure I expected. When the Liaoning team suffered a brief losing streak in the regular season this season, Yang Ming encountered a lot of doubts, at this time, the nitpicking fans seemed to forget that Yang Ming led the team to coach for the first season, and he himself was still accumulating. When the Liaoning team lost to the Guangdong team in the finals, it was even more demanding that Yang Ming be dismissed, and the only one who really coached the team to lead the team to the finals in the first season but was shouted down was estimated to be Yang Ming, which also reflected how much pressure Yang Ming encountered.
Nothing was too big to lead the team to rush to the championship again
This season, Yang Ming's pressure is still huge.
Near the beginning of the third stage of the regular season, Liaoning officials released such a video. The video content is about a small side of Yang Ming's daily training led by Liao Basket. In the video, Yang Ming is involved in the whole process from the overall training of the team to the personal training of the players, and when the players have problems in technical actions or offensive and defensive choices, Yang Ming will personally demonstrate to correct them. At the end of the training, Yang Ming also needs to summarize the training content of the whole team and remind the third stage that the whole team needs to pay attention to. From micro to macro, Yang Ming is no big or small.
For how much pressure Yang Ming has, the Liaoning men's basketball team officially described it this way: "Although Yang Director once joked that he, the manager of the Liaoning men's basketball team, is mainly responsible for the 'shuai', in fact, as the head coach of the much-anticipated Liaoning men's basketball team, the intensity of his work and the pressure he bears in all aspects are unimaginable to ordinary people." ”
Yang Ming's pressure is indeed unimaginable. There are many head coaches in the CBA who have severe insomnia due to stress, and even have to use some sleeping tablets to fall asleep, and many managers have gray hair because of the heavy workload, which is much older. Although Yang Ming did not talk about his difficulties to the outside world, it was not difficult to see his pressure because of the serious eye bags and the hairline that began to move up.
This is decided by coaching a giant team like Liaoning, and it is also determined by the situation faced by Liaoning. Last season, Yang Ming faced many difficulties after officially taking office, the biggest difficulty is to cultivate fresh blood and alleviate the pressure of old players. In the 2019-20 season, although the Liaoning team finally reached the finals unexpectedly, it mainly relied on old faces such as Guo Allen, Han Dejun, zhao Jiwei, and almost no young players could carry the pressure. Last season, Yang Ming increased the training of young players, gave Zhang Zhenlin and Wu Changze a lot of opportunities, and also gave Zhu Rongzhen, who was on loan, a lot of playing time, which also made the Liaoning team not always "eat the old money".
This season, Yang Ming has given Yu Zechen and Zhou Juncheng many opportunities to further increase the playing time of Fu Hao and Yan Zhiqi. In the case of fish and bear paws are difficult to combine, Liaoning sometimes needs to sacrifice some games to develop players. Whenever the Liaoning team loses, Yang Ming will encounter many pressures as before. In the game, Yang Ming's irrepressible roar is a direct embodiment of his coaching pressure.
But compared to the pressure faced in the regular season, the pressure on the Liaoning team in the playoffs is greater. Last season, many people thought that Liaoning should win the championship, not just compete for the championship, especially after the Guangdong team lost soldiers. This season, there are countless people who are optimistic about Liaoning winning the championship. This is the expectation for the Liaoning team, but it is also the pressure on the Liaoning team and Yang Ming in the second year of coaching.
epilogue
In the third phase of the regular season, which begins two weeks later, Liaoning will host the final 10 rounds at home. This is the first time that the Liaoning team has returned to the home team after the outbreak of the epidemic. From Yang Ming's mouth, "Time is very tight, everyone must have this awareness" Is not difficult to see the pressure on the Liaoning team itself.
But as Yang Ming said before, "Since you have reached this position and taken on this heavy responsibility, you must work this job", I believe that Yang Ming can still turn pressure into motivation. When expecting Liao Basket and Yang Ming, fans should also be rational about Yang Ming, after all, he is only a head coach who has been coaching for the second year.