▎ Li Chunjiang is famous for his short temper
Author | Mahan
There are several exciting plots in this world, one of which is: the end of the madman. At 10 o'clock on April 17, Li Chunjiang, the head coach of the Shanghai men's basketball team, was leading the team to train in anxiety, and finally waited for the verdict to be announced: he was disqualified from the registration of coaches within 5 years.
The footage of Shanghai's "Five Star Sports" clearly and accurately recorded his expression at that time: he stretched his neck forward and asked the staff, "5 years?" ”。 It's more like talking to yourself, because no one can appreciate the true weight of "5 years" better than himself. Li Chunjiang, who was talking to himself, fell into thought, the corners of his mouth closed hard, and his eyes were blank.
People who saw this scene through the lens all felt embarrassed. The reason why this feeling is strong is because the outside world has never seen Li Chunjiang's weak side.
Li Chunjiang was suddenly old, hasty and lonely at this time - originally, few people realized that he was 60 years old standing on the sidelines, and he did not look like it. Li Chunjiang was a ruthless, madman, domineering man, and the personal image he built during the Hongyuan dynasty in Guangdong is still strong today, even if he later led Zhejiang and Shanghai to never win the championship.
Now we can seriously talk about Li Chunjiang's past.
▎ Li Chunjiang's reaction after learning the punishment decision from his mobile phone
1. Two unexpected and sudden dismissals
Li Chunjiang led the team to establish the dynasty twice in the CBA Guangdong Hongyuan, one with three consecutive championships and one with four consecutive championships. But talking about him might as well start with his two trips from class.
In the competitive sports industry, the vast majority of head coaches leave class halfway or at the end of the season, mostly due to poor results. Li Chunjiang is different from them, he left class twice when he was coaching Guangdong Hongyuan, but because his grades were too good.
Li Chunjiang's first stint at Guangdong came shortly after the 2005-06 season, when he led the team to its first triple-in-a-row title. His second dismissal was in early January 2013, when Li Chunjiang's Guangdong team had just won a winning streak, and the night before class, they had just won over Xinjiang, which Guangdong fans regarded as their number one rival.
If the score is determined, Li Chunjiang's two dismissals should have happened earlier. In the 2005 Jiangsu 12th Games, Guangdong lost to Bayi team in the final, failing to achieve the breakthrough of zero gold medals in the men's basketball team of the National Games. In the 2011-12 season, Guangdong lost to Beijing Shougang led by Marbury in the finals, and the fourth consecutive championship came to an abrupt end.
▎ Li Chunjiang and Li Qun (No. 11)
These two losses, Guangdong Hongyuan had enough reasons to fire Li Chunjiang (especially this time to Beijing Shougang), but it did not. Why did Li Chunjiang win Xinjiang the first day and be fired the next day? There are still traces to follow.
Looking back at the first class, Li Chunjiang was also retained by Guangdong Hongyuan as the "head coach", and part of the cost of his subsequent further study in the United States was also paid by Guangdong Hongyuan. At that time, both labor and management still had the idea of leaving each other behind, which also left room for him to take charge of Hongyuan again.
Li Chunjiang's official statement after the Guangdong team twice was that he was going to study abroad, and the other was that he took the initiative to resign for physical reasons.
It is true that he went abroad for further study, but the goal has little to do with the Guangdong team. People around Li Chunjiang have revealed that he really wants to learn and prepare for the job of coach of the Chinese men's national basketball team in the future, which is his highest pursuit. It's a pity that his national coaching resume only stays in the national youth team and has never had the opportunity to coach the national team.
After Li Chunjiang returned to Guangdong Hongyuan in 2008 and led the team to regain the CBA championship, he led the national youth team to the Asian Youth Championship during the break of the season, and the memory of that coaching was very bad, but also "Li Chunjiang".
At the Asian Youth Championships in Iran in September of that year, Li Chunjiang complained to the technical desk for three minutes in a timeout and called all the players back to the bench because he was dissatisfied with the referee's decision. Three minutes later, the referee directly penalized the Chinese team for the strike, and lost 0-20.
In the end, the national youth team did not qualify for the Asian final four, lost the qualification for the 2009 World Youth Championship, and the Chinese Basketball Association was punished. Although the basketball association did not punish Li Chunjiang, Li Chunjiang has since been insulated from the national brand.
▎In 2006, Li Chunjiang led the Chinese team to win the Asian Youth Championship.
When Li Chunjiang left class for the second time in Guangdong in 2013, his physical reasons were obviously too "official", and he returned to work in Guangsha, Zhejiang Province three months later, which is equivalent to the official statement failing to justify itself. After class, the atmosphere of the team became more delicate. Early that morning, Zhu Fangyu tweeted the news on social media: "Pinch your fingers, something big happened today." The picture accompanying the tweet appeared the former Chinese men's basketball head coach Younas, and netizens speculated: Maybe the Guangdong team will ask Younasi to be an adviser, and once Li Chunjiang is in a situation, Lao You will be on top. This is not without precedent.
In 2009, Guangdong won the gold medal of the men's basketball team at the National Games for the first time in Shandong, and former NBA Spurs coach Bob Hill worked as a consultant with the team for most of the year from the beginning of preparation, serving as an assistant to Li Chunjiang. But this time, most people did not expect that as soon as Yunus came, Li Chunjiang would be directly taken out of his job.
Li Chunjiang left class twice, and the main team members participated to a certain extent, such as voting in the form of public opinion. Of course, it is also because of the vote that Lao Li can come back for the second time. In 2007, Li Qun led the team to lose the championship, and in the public opinion voting session of the season summary meeting, it was Yi Jianlian who took the lead in suggesting: If you can't recall Lao Li again, let's come back...
2. Temper is still easy to offend
Of course, even if Guangdong Hongyuan big-name players gather, it is not enough that players can easily win the head coach, and everyone can probably guess the boss's thoughts before issuing an initiative or voting.
▎ Li Chunjiang is often stunned
Among the various rumors that Li Chunjiang completely lost his job, the most "gossip" and the most magical thing heard by the reporters with the team was this: One day, Li Chunjiang's wife had morning tea with friends at the Hongyuan Hotel and said that "Hongyuan's team can not bring anyone except our family Lao Li", and the topic extended from this is probably some complaints - complaining about the club's unfairness to Lao Li and the like.
These big words and complaints happened to be heard by the dine-in manager who arranged to pass the dishes, and soon Hongyuan's boss, Chen Haitao, knew. Boss Chen immediately smiled and said: Okay, then find someone to try to see if you can lead the team.
Obviously, when the second class ended, Guangdong Hongyuan contacted Yunus in advance, and when Lao Li swelled to the ceiling, Lao You summoned him immediately.
There are many indications that Li Chunjiang was indeed very floating and swollen at that time, and this swelling mood of the master of merit will inevitably spread and exaggerate in his own home without concealment, until it is intentionally or unintentionally released into the public place.
Although Li Chunjiang is not like other peers who leave class due to poor grades, in the field of competitive sports, every head coach who leaves class will inevitably have a bad relationship with the club's senior management and the star players in the team, and how can the hot-tempered Li Chunjiang have less of this party.
Zhu Fangyu was able to break the news in advance on social media that Hongyuan changed coaches in a tone that eating melons is not afraid of big things, and it is not difficult to see that his relationship with Li Chunjiang at that time was a bit delicate. In addition, in the year before Li Chunjiang left class, Wang Shipeng and Liu Xiaoyu were both banned due to the breakdown of their relationship with them, and the damage to the Guangdong team's back line was obvious.
In addition to the general relationship with some players, the more fatal may be the loss of management support.
▎ Years later, Li Chunjiang and Zhu Fangyu talked and laughed
It is impossible not to mention Liu Hongjiang, who had already gone to China when he jumped from TV station to Guangdong Hongyuan in 2006. The two began to partner in 2007, when Li Chunjiang returned to work, and spent at least 2 years of honeymoon period, these 2 years, outsiders call them both, one is the champion coach, the other is the champion boss, it is really the golden years of the limelight.
In the summer of 2009, the men's basketball Asian Championship was held in Tianjin, the Chinese men's basketball team lost the championship to Iran on its doorstep, head coach Guo Shiqiang was sadly dismissed, and the Chinese Basketball Association immediately began to choose a coach.
In the process of selecting the coach, Li Chunjiang naturally thought about it, and it happened that the basketball association also encouraged clubs to actively recommend their own coaches as options, including foreign coaches and foreign coaches; Guangdong Hongyuan inquired, the basketball association seemed to be more inclined to change the foreign coach (later indeed chose Deng Huade), and simply did not sign up for Li Chunjiang.
But in Li Chunjiang's view, the club's doing this is clearly to cut off its own future. In the office of the Hongyuan Club, in front of a room full of colleagues, Li Chunjiang and Liu Hongjiang quarreled over this matter, and the relationship between the two began to crack.
At that time, for commercial operation considerations, Guangdong Hongyuan would put part of its home stadium in Zhongshan. In the past, every time they played at home in Zhongshan, the organizers were warmly welcomed, and Li and Liu would also change glasses and drink at various reception dinners. But just after there was a rift in the relationship between the two, Guangdong Hongyuan went to Zhongshan to play at home, and Liu Hongjiang chose "eating at the table where I sit at the child's table". Some careful media people found that after that, whether they were fighting in the Dongguan base camp or away from home, when they appeared in public, the two really never sat at the same table again...
▎ Liu Hongjiang is also a violent temper
3. No matter how crazy he is, he will also praise his peers in private
Li Chunjiang led Guangdong Hongyuan to seven championships in eight years, and his strong position in the club is unquestionable. During this period, all the media across the country who came to Guangdong Hongyuan to cover the interview, although while lamenting that Li Chunjiang was "not good", they were all impressed by his superb coaching level.
When he completed his third consecutive championship in 2006, at the same time, there were Ah Dijiang and Li Qiuping, who had won the championship, his master Jiang Xingquan, and Daniel Zhang Jun and Wang Fei, who had been his predecessors. At that time, it was probably a little difficult for these people to convince them to recognize Li Chunjiang from the business level; But in the face of another four-in-a-row championship after the return, not only these peers, I am afraid that every basketball industry practitioner has to give a thumbs up to Lao Li.
Li Chunjiang drilled deep into the business, and there is no doubt about this. In 2006-07, Li Chunjiang bought a second-hand car for most of the year of further study in the United States, and the driving data reached 60,000 kilometers in half a year.
For most of the year, he has been running back and forth between the east coast and west coast of the United States, and outsiders will mostly see him at the game scene of NBA teams such as the Spurs, Kings, and Supersonics, but more often his figure appears in the locker room and tactical room of these teams, and the tactical intentions of NBA head coaches, Li Chunjiang can not only listen to them on the spot, but even he can copy the tactical models in people's laptops for his own use.
In the process of leading the team to win four consecutive championships, discerning people all really felt the obvious improvement in Li Chunjiang's business level, such as his use of Wang Shipeng, which was based on the tactical arrangement of Supersonic for Ray Allen at that time, including the supersonic run-and-bomb method, Li Chunjiang also combined with the actual situation of Guangdong Hongyuan to perfectly tell the CBA: This is called living learning and use.
In 2010, Zhu Fangyu opened a music bar in Dongguan, where Li Chunjiang also comes from time to time. In the CBA semifinals that year, Guangdong Hongyuan met the rapidly rising Shanghai team, 5 games of 3-win series, Li Chunjiang got the match point smoothly, and then Lao Li floated, and after the game, he brought a group of friends to Zhu's bar to celebrate the victory in advance.
▎ Li Chunjiang and Deng Dehua, then the coach of the Shanghai team
Unexpectedly, in the next back-to-back matches, Guangdong team actually lost to Shanghai team in their home stadium, and had to go to Shanghai to play at least one more round.
The day after losing the three-way battle, I heard that the opponent's head coach Deng Wade had been cutting videos all night to study countermeasures, and then thinking that he had drunk all night, annoyance suddenly surged in his heart. When he blamed himself incomparably, Li Chunjiang immediately set a flag: from now on, quit smoking and alcohol!
At the time, almost everyone thought it was a joke, including Li Chunjiang's family, and they thought it might just be talk. No one expected that Li Chunjiang actually did it.
In the era when the Guangdong team won four consecutive championships, there was a popular saying in the industry: there were only two (types) of teams in the CBA: Guangdong team and non-Guangdong team. Former Australian national team managers, including Gore, also acknowledge the fact that as long as Li Chunjiang pays enough attention, any opponent may not have a chance.
If Li Chunjiang left any bugs in terms of record during his coaching of Guangdong Hongyuan, it was that he often lost to weak teams, and Henan, Yunnan, Qingdao and other teams were promoted to the CBA in the first season, all of which had a "bao performance" of defeating Guangdong Hongyuan.
Of course, no matter how arrogant Li Chunjiang is, he is not completely unseen.
In the 2007-08 season, Zhejiang Guangsha reached the playoffs for the first time, and the two teams met in the 1/4 final, and the two teams did not have to play in terms of hard power, and the final big score was also Guangdong Hongyuan 3-0 sweep opponent. But the actual game is not as suspenseless as the big score presents.
Zhejiang Guangsha dragged the game into extra time in the third game, and only lost by four points in the final minute due to a low-level error in a key frontcourt ball. After the game, during a late night snack with friends, Li Chunjiang, who has always been proud of the crowd and no one is convinced, gave a capital "service" to Zhejiang team coach Wang Fei. He admitted that Wang Fei's 1-3-1 joint defense tactics "completely calculated me." ”
People familiar with Li Chunjiang may seem to have given him a heartfelt appreciation for his peers, which happened after he returned from his study in the United States. In the eyes of those who recognize Li Chunjiang's business ability, Li Chunjiang's changes at that time are not only reflected in the level of coaching, he sometimes shows a humble side, and his changes are diverse, for example, when talking to others, from time to time he will carry a few English words in the thick Northeast dialect...
4. "Resolutely defeat Li Chunjiang and complete the old Jiang and Xinjiang"
Li Chunjiang has always felt strong, domineering, and difficult to approach. For so many years, the reporters on the team were deeply touched by this. Li Chunjiang only deals with media people he trusts, and the number of people is so small that he can count them with a slap.
▎ The fans at the scene put up slogans to ridicule Li Chunjiang
Looking at the entire CBA, Guangdong Hongyuan's locker room is very open, and reporters with familiar faces are allowed to enter to observe. The club's senior management regarded it as a kind of temperament and confidence, but Li Chunjiang did not approve of this, and he even advised the boss: "Can you kick these reporters out of the dressing room!" ”
Li Chunjiang's failure to cooperate with the interview led to the reporter having nothing to write about, and it was inevitable that there would be fabricated reports, which annoyed Lao Li, and the relationship with the media escalated, eventually forming a vicious circle.
The Hongyuan Dynasty in Guangdong happened to be the most prosperous era for domestic urban newspaper media, so there are quite a few stories about Li Chunjiang. One of the most exaggerated rumors is that "in the early years, he also knelt down in front of Brother Hai to fan himself", in order to show another side of Li Chunjiang's unknown side, but people who know him will respond to this rumor: "Some people say that Andy Lau went to the northeast to perform and was slapped by Zhao Benshan." ”
During the Zhejiang team period, coinciding with the average performance of the team and the decline of traditional media, Li Chunjiang's stories during this period were fewer. During the Shanghai team, it coincided with the epidemic lockdown and isolation, and there were almost no stories. So the outside world's impression of him has not been updated - mainly from his violent temper in public, which is still the same as it was then.
Li Chunjiang not only scolded reporters at the press conference, but also intimidated the referee and opponent during the game, he was the one who ate the most T among local coaches, and the phrase "upper leg" triggered a grudge between him and Marbury. He scolded the fans away from home in Nanjing, and the frightened fans then hung up banners: "Resolutely defeat Li Chunjiang, complete the old Jiang and Xinjiang." "A vivid scene that depicts the enemy of the enemy is a friend...
Why Guangdong Hongyuan initially did not support Li Chunjiang's candidacy for the national team coach, one of them said: with the posture of old Li treating people and things, at the level of the national team, it is not clear how he "died" in the end.
▎ Li Chunjiang and Marbury have been holding grudges for a long time
CBA's wine culture is a major feature, a head coach goes to the road, in addition to wanting to win the game, he can't easily admit it at the wine table where the other party is hosting.
Yang Xuezeng, a head coach with good popularity and friends all over the world, will be invited to any away game in the whole league, this point Li Chunjiang must be out of reach, he offended too many people, basically when he went to Jilin, Shandong, Shanxi, Hangzhou a limited number of away games, there will be Sun Jun, Gong Xiaobin, Wu Qinglong, Li Xiaoyong, these friends who are mainly northeast villagers to set up a wine shop; If you go to an away game like Beijing, Xinjiang, and Ningbo, it is impossible to expect Min Lulei, Jiang Xingquan, and A Tijiang to invite Lao Li to dinner - of course, they come to Dongguan to play away, and Lao Li does not need to be invited.
Li Chunjiang himself did not feel that there was anything wrong with this, but ended up at ease.
In terms of diet, Lao Li has two preferences: seafood and raw tomatoes. Every time he arrived at the away market, he would instruct his men to go to the vegetable market to buy tomatoes, and if he went to a coastal city where no one was treated, he would also make a seafood menu, buy it back and hand it over to the hotel for processing, and then send it to the room, and the seafood would be drunk and watched on TV.
5. How to go next for Li Chunjiang
The ban of the Chinese Basketball Association on Li Chunjiang is only that he cannot register as a coach for 5 years, as long as the Shanghai team does not voluntarily give him up, he can still hide behind the scenes, stealthily coach, and become a "sports director".
Even if Shanghai abandons him, if other clubs are willing to take over, Li Chunjiang can still switch the door to work behind the scenes.
If Li Chunjiang is allowed to choose independently, Guangdong, which currently has 3 CBA teams, will definitely be his preferred choice, after all, Guangdong is also his second hometown. If you choose one of the three, the Shenzhen team may be the next stop that Li Chunjiang wants to go to.
▎ Li Chunjiang instructed his son Li Jinglong
Back in mid-April 2013, Li Chunjiang, who resigned due to illness in Hongyuan, Guangdong, recovered his health in less than 100 days and returned to work in Guangsha, Zhejiang. At that time, Li Chunjiang was signed by Ye Xiangyu, the general manager of Guangsha, known as the Iron Lady in Jianghu, who offered Li Chunjiang a guaranteed annual salary of 4 million, plus a set of riverview mansions under Guangsha Real Estate as an apartment. But these two benefits alone are not enough to completely impress Li Chunjiang, and what really tempts Li Chunjiang is that he can bring his son Li Jinglong to Guangsha together.
At this time, Li Jinglong, who was training in the United States, had returned to China for two years, and he was only attached to the Hongyuan youth team, and if Li Chunjiang was no longer a member of Hongyuan, his son-in-law would naturally have to follow. Zhejiang Guangsha is willing to collect his son under the account for himself, and Lao Li is naturally happy to enjoy it.
But when Li Chunjiang left Guangsha for Shanghai in May 2021, there was no room for Li Gongzi in the Shanghai team's big contract. How to let his son continue to stay in the CBA has become a heart disease for fathers.
This heart disease was finally eliminated two months ago. Taking advantage of the break to return to Dongguan for vacation, Li Chunjiang visited Boss Liang of the Shenzhen team, and finally persuaded Boss Liang to accept Li Jinglong after begging his grandfather to tell his grandmother.
In the 10 years since Li Chunjiang left Guangdong, the Shenzhen team has gone through the iteration of the head coach almost every two years: Li Qun, Wang Jianjun, Wu Qinglong, Qiu Biao, Zheng Yonggang. Now with the arrival of Li Gongzi, people immediately had a conjecture: Could it be that Lao Li was paving the way for himself in the name of his son?
▎ Li Chunjiang may retire to the background
Li Chunjiang's worst outcome may be that he will not be able to work for the next five years or more. He was 65 years old when he could come back, and of course, the professional coach is not too old.
Maybe don't worry too much about Li Chunjiang. In several districts and cities in Guangdong's Pearl River Delta, Li Chunjiang invested in multiple properties more than a decade ago, and his villa in Dongguan is adjacent to the shore of a forest-fringed reservoir. In the past 10 years, Li Chunjiang and his family have moved east, but this villa is not vacant, and some night runners have found that the old Li family's villa is lit up every night.
Everyone who is familiar with Li Chunjiang knows that even if he only works as a charter official, his family is enough to live a high-quality life without worries about food and clothing. Even if Li Chunjiang, who has already achieved financial freedom, has left the basketball circle because of this heavy penalty, he no longer has to worry about the rest of his life.
Li Chunjiang founded the Hongyuan Dynasty, and then brought Zhejiang Guangsha to the finals in record history, and there seems to be no need to prove anything to the world. It's just that he himself is still a person with desire and ambition after all, otherwise he would not be able to play a full 3 games with Jiangsu Kendia.