The 2021-22 CBA Finals has ended 10 days ago, but the moment of winning the cup still makes Li Xiaoxu of the Liaoning men's basketball team deeply reminisce. In particular, the re-appearance of the last moment of the game with the elder brother not only evoked Li Xiaoxu's memories of four years ago, but also made him think of a thousand thoughts.
"It's a time when the five of us are back on the pitch and the feeling of winning the title in 2018 is back. I felt quite mixed at the time, which included the time when everyone had played together in the past few years, trained together and competed together, and probably came to my mind. After winning the championship again, Li Xiaoxu, who returned to Shenyang, said so.
It was not at all strange that Li Xiaoxu had such a feeling. Over the years, he and Liaoning basketball have stood on the peak, but also experienced many ups and downs, the team from the head coach to the main lineup has undergone many changes, the past some of the good teachers and friends who fought side by side are no longer in Liaoning basketball. For himself, the suffering and bitterness of these years are only something that he can understand.
These sufferings and bitterness mainly came from two serious injuries. One came in a physical test before the start of the 2016-17 season, when Li Xiaoxu accidentally suffered a serious injury to a broken right Achilles tendon during the turn-back test, and this injury without warning also hit Li Xiaoxu hard. "In 2016, just when I was looking forward to winning the championship this season, I suffered the first serious injury of my career, and I was recuperating for a whole year, which was the darkest period of my life, and I thought about giving up or even retiring." Li Xiaoxu once described the time after the first serious injury.
After recovering from hardships, Li Xiaoxu after his comeback was heartbroken because of the ups and downs of performance and the huge gap, he said: "Blind optimism has blinded me and proved that I can beat injuries as quickly as possible." When various problems arise, it is difficult for me to accept. How can you fall down if you don't accept your reality and think you're an iron man? A strong sense of gap spreads from the heart, and negative emotions devour their inner desires and goals. Let yourself no longer be passionate and passionate, and extremely disappointed in yourself. ”
Struggling to regain his former form, Li Xiaoxu suffered a second serious injury from a severe injury to the anterior cruciate ligament of his right knee in the 2019-20 rematch. Seeing that Xiao Xu was seriously injured again, Zhao Jiwei, who was also seriously injured twice in the same bedroom, was very upset: "I don't believe that there will be a second person who will choose to fight at this stage of his age, but he did." I really have grievances for you, I am not willing! ”
But even if Li Xiaoxu's nickname is "Iron Man", even if he had already joked before he was injured, "If I really broke, I wouldn't have to play, the first major injury and the second biggest injury in the sports world are all there!" But being injured again still made him suffer internally, "Being injured like this one after another really hit me harder." In addition to the physical pain, psychologically and consciously almost destroyed me. After winning the championship, Li Xiaoxu said when complaining about the blows of successive injuries to him. At this time, Li Xiaoxu once again had the idea of retiring.
At the difficult moment, his wife comforted him: "If your retirement brings more regrets and more reluctance, you should still follow your heart!" At the same time, Li Xiaoxu, who is too obsessed with basketball, still does not want to give up his favorite career. In this way, Li Xiaoxu chose to stick to it, and also successfully returned this season, and once again reached the top of the championship with the team.
He said he was lucky, "Sometimes I feel like a withered leaf, already falling and floating to the ground, and with the wind of luck I am floating up again!" So I always feel that God still cares for me! But in fact, his two serious injury comebacks have given Too much encouragement to Liaoning. Moreover, without the "cornerstone" and "root" of Li Xiaoxu, the Liaoning men's basketball team cannot have the current inheritance and leafy branches, not to mention, "falling red is not a merciless thing, turning into spring mud is more protective of flowers."
Li Xiaoxu is definitely the "cornerstone" of the Liaoning basket. Since entering the Liaoning Basketball Team at the age of 15 to the present, Li Xiaoxu is not the absolute core of the team's tactical system, and the technical characteristics that are not known for scoring determine that his role is more in the auxiliary, but he is indeed the irreplaceable spiritual leader of the Liaoning Basket. Li Xiaoxu, who easily does not truce and fights to the end on the field, has become a "domestic magic beast" who is not bent and constantly bent. Even if two serious injuries lead to two seasons of reimbursement, Li Xiaoxu's total number of appearances is still the first in the history of the Liaoning basketball team and the "appearance king" of the Liaoning basketball team, and his total number of appearances among the CBA active players is second only to the veteran Zhou Peng of the Guangdong men's basketball team. Moreover, Li Xiaoxu is the first evergreen tree in the CBA, and he has played for 17 seasons without anyone else.
Over the years, Li Xiaoxu, who has outstanding performance and insists on hard training, all-out efforts and low-key work, has become an indispensable role in Liaoning basketball with his character, and has also infected a batch of Liaoning basketball players. His nickname changed from the "little two" of the year to the "second brother" after that, until the current "second big brother", and his never give up has always won the respect of his opponents and teammates.
Standing on the top again, Li Xiaoxu was as calm as when he won the CBA championship for the first time four years ago and tore off the label of "uncrowned king" with the team, and he was finally able to recover his tired body, "In this physically and mentally exhausted season, may this championship be a good medicine for himself!" After the finals, Li Xiaoxu said.
At the same time, as he lamented after winning the championship this time, "we old players will definitely have less and less time to play together," and his career will indeed be less and less.
Last summer, Li Xiaoxu posted a photo of the team's dinner on social media, and the group photo was full of old faces who had fought side by side with Li Xiaoxu for many years. In addition to Han Dejun, Guo Allen, Zhao Jiwei, Liu Zhixuan and Cong Mingchen, there are Yang Ming, who has been transferred to the head coach of Liaoning Basketball, Chai Changyi, who is the assistant coach of Liaoning Basketball, and He Tianju, who left the team last summer. In the next season, Li Xiaoxu will also put knives and guns into the warehouse and put horses in Nanshan, but before that, he will always be an indispensable part of the Liaoning basket, and he will always be like he said, "Always young, always full of tears!" ”