原文出处： http://www.nba.com/pistons/news/langlois_blog_071203.html -- The Pistons are 11-5 through 16 games despite injury, illness and an unfriendly schedule. Encouraging signs are pretty much everywhere Flip Saunders looks. And there’s still room for growth. Rip Hamilton, by his own admission, hasn’t found his groove yet. Rodney Stuckey has yet to play a minute. Amir Johnson is still playing catch-up for all the time missed in training camp. 尽管饱受伤病问题及不利的赛程困扰，活塞在开季前16场比赛还是拿下了11胜5败的战 绩。不管老桑从哪个观点来看这都是个令人振奋的徵象，而且仍有不小的进步空间。RIP承 认自己还没找回最佳状态，Rodney Stuckey还没上过场，而因为左脚扭伤几乎整个热身赛 都没上场的Amir Johnson还在努力赶上大家的进度。 But more than Rasheed Wallace’s focused intensity, more than Chauncey Billups’continued All-Star play, more than Antonio McDyess’ seamless transition to the starting lineup, Saunders is impressed by something else. Something bigger than the sum of all those parts. 不过相较於溪蛙对比赛的专注程度，枪蜥持续全明星级的演出，以及袋鼠由替补转先 发的完美表现，其实还有让老桑更为印象深刻的事，而且在乎程度比起前述一切总合还要 多。 “If you would ask me as a coach what I’m most happy with, it’s our energy level,” he said after a weekend when the Pistons clobbered Milwaukee and New Jersey, two aspiring playoff contenders, by a combined 49 points in 24 tidy hours despite weather complications that meant most of them didn’t get to bed until close to 5 o’clock Sunday morning. "如果你问我身为一个教练最满意的是什麽，那就是我们精力充沛的表现，"他在活塞 於周末连续两天的比赛中击败密尔瓦基和纽泽西这两支力争上游准备争取季後赛资格的球 队後说。在短短不到24小时的时间内，活塞克服了让他们在星期日早上将近五点才得以躺 上床的严峻天候状况，连打两场比赛，并且合计赢了多达49分。 “In 16 games, we haven’t laid an egg – knock on wood – from an energy standpoint.” "撑过了这16场比赛，就体能看来，我们还没气力放尽，感谢上帝。" And here’s where it gets better for what it says about where the Pistons are as an organization – which is the same page: “And part of that comes from the bench play. Our bench pushes guys. Our main guys know if they’re not playing, I’m not afraid to put those other guys in and (the starters) will play 27 or 28 minutes. That’s a big positive for this team right now.” 而这就是以一支球队来说，活塞有所进步的地方 - 也可以这麽说："而其中一部分是 来自於板凳的表现。我们板凳激励了其他人。我们主力球员知道如果他们拿不出好表现， 我不排除让其他人上场并把先发球员的上场时间降为27、28分钟左右。那对这支球队来说 是相当正面的一件事情。 It’s also the embodiment of the vision Joe Dumars enunciated for the Pistons last June, when he’d collected his thoughts in the aftermath of the Cleveland “meltdown” – Rasheed Wallace’s word – in the Eastern Conference finals. Joe D said at the time that he would not bow to public and media pressure to tear the Pistons down and rebuild them, but he would spend the summer providing his coaches a deeper and more formidable bench. 这也是六月时老乔描述活塞未来愿景的具体表现，在活塞於东区冠军赛遭到克里夫兰" 溶解" - 溪蛙式说法 - 後不久他整理了他的一些想法。那时候老乔说他不会屈服於民众和 媒体的舆论压力而把活塞的核心阵容打散开始进行重建，但他会把暑假的时间用来打造一 个更有深度更有实力的板凳阵容供教练运用。 And he made it clear that it wasn’t just to ease the burden on the Pistons’ familiar core, but to push and challenge and make them earn playing time for the first time, really, since the 2004 championship season. Dumars saw what the Pistons had become – in a word, his word, “complacent” – and he didn’t like it. 而且他说得很清楚，这麽做不只是为了让活塞已经熟悉彼此的核心阵容减轻压力，而 是自从'04年的冠军球季之後第一次，真的要让球员们感受到竞争，让他们争取自己应得的 上场时间。老乔看到活塞已经变得 - 总而言之，就他的说法是"志得意满" - 而他不喜欢 这样。 Saunders absorbed it all from a distance. He knew as the coach it would be incumbent upon him to carry out management’s dictum. But he also knew that playing time must be earned, and that to grant minutes arbitrarily to undeserving bench players would not sit well with starters. Coaches also know they’re ultimately judged on wins and losses and, when forced to choose, almost always opt for the security blanket of a veteran’s known over a kid’s uncertainty. 老桑间接打听到并把它牢牢记在心里。他知道身为教练他有义务彻底实行管理阶层的 交办事项。但他也知道上场时间必须是由自己去争取的，而任意地将宝贵的上场时间分配 给那些根本就还没做好准备的板凳球员更是难以让先发球员们心服。教练也都知道他们最 终还是逃不过以胜败场数为依据的审判，所以被迫做出选择时，绝大部分还是宁愿指派已 经身经百战的老将上场，也不敢孤注一掷让娃娃兵团上场赌一把。 So to make it work, the Pistons needed the rookies – Arron Afflalo and Rodney Stuckey – to be ready to contribute. They needed Dumars to find another piece in free agency – Jarvis Hayes. They needed the returning old pros, Flip Murray and Nazr Mohammed, to come back determined to prove they were better than what they showed a year ago. And they needed their own young vets, Maxiell and Johnson, to take the forward leaps everyone believed they would someday take sooner rather than later. 所以为了让计画见效，活塞需要菜鸟 - Arron Afflalo和Stuckey - 做好上场贡献所 长的准备。他们需要老乔去自由球员市场寻找另一块拼图 - Jarvis Hayes。他们需要好不 容易回到固定轮替名单的老面孔，魔锐和回教人，可以下定决心去证明他们比一年前表现 得更好。而且他们还需要年轻好手，J-Max和Johnson，快速成长，尽早接下大家都相信他 们迟早能够补上的前锋位置。 In all my years covering sports of all kinds at all levels, the coach who understood the psyche of the professional athlete better than anyone was Chuck Daly. Think about the roster of cutthroats – and I use that word admiringly – Daly had at his disposal. 在我采访各层级各类型的运动比赛的这些年来，最了解职业球员精神的莫过於Chuck Daly。想到他球员名单上面那些杀手级人物 - 我用这个字是尊崇的意味 - Daly就是有办 法把他们整得服服贴贴。 Before this season is over, you’ll see a subjective list of the 50 greatest Pistons to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the franchise’s relocation to Detroit. It could be fairly argued that Daly had a full 20 percent of the 50 greatest Detroit Pistons on his roster at one time: Adrian Dantley/Mark Aguirre (traded for each other at mid-season), Bill Laimbeer, James Edwards, Rick Mahorn, Dennis Rodman, John Salley, Isiah Thomas, Joe Dumars, Vinnie Johnson and John Long. 在这球季结束前，你们将会看到一份个人主观意识浓厚，我为了纪念活塞搬迁至底特 律届满50年而特地选出的活塞50大球星名单。大家可以注意到的是，在同一个时间内， Daly拥有50位活塞最伟大球星中的20%在队上：Adrian Dantley/Mark Aguirre(球季中他们 被互换，活塞←→小牛)、大象蓝比尔、James Edwards、Rick Mahorn、小虫Rodman、John Salley、笑笑汤、老乔、微波炉Vinnie Johnson和John Long。 And here’s what Daly always said, evenly and convincingly, when the subject of player disgruntlement over minutes would arise: “I don’t decide minutes, players decide minutes.” 而这是当球员们对於上场时间有异议时，Daly最常挂在嘴边，既公平而且又能令人信 服的一段话："不是我在决定上场时间，是球员们的表现在决定。" That’s what Saunders is essentially saying now. He yanked Hamilton from the lineup in Milwaukee the other night and they had a brief, testy exchange on the matter – and that was it. Hamilton understands. If he plays the way he’s capable, it won’t be an issue. But if he’s turning the ball over and forcing shots and dragging the offense down with him, Murray and Afflalo – and Hayes and, soon, Stuckey, for that matter – all covet the opportunity to replace him . 那是老桑现在必须要说的。前几晚在密尔瓦基的比赛中他把RIP换下场时发生了短暂而 激烈的"意见交流" - 那就是了。RIP了解了。如果他拿出他应有的表现，那根本不会是个 问题。但如果他持续失误、勉强出手并且因为个人而拖垮全队的进攻，那麽魔锐和Afflalo - 还有Hayes，很快地还有Stuckey - 全都向往这个取代他的大好机会。 Here’s what Hamilton said about it the next night after the New Jersey dismantling: “Even though guys are playing different-type minutes than they’d usually be playing, it gives other guys an opportunity to catch a rhythm and we’re going to need everybody to get where we want to go.” 这是隔晚在大破纽泽西篮网後RIP说的话："尽管每个人过去习惯的上场时间都不一样 多，这做法给了其他人机会可以熟悉场上的节奏，而我们需要每个人的努力才能抵达我们 希望的目的地。 When the Pistons were enduring the travails of the season’s first month – the two-game absence of Hamilton as he attended to the birth of his son, injuries that cost Rasheed Wallace and Chauncey Billups two games apiece and Antonio McDyess three, Stuckey’s broken hand – it thrust many of those players Dumars assured of opportunities into the lineup. 当活塞忍受本季第一个月的痛苦时 - RIP因为参与他第一个儿子的生产而缺席两场比 赛伤势让溪蛙和枪蜥各错过两场比赛，袋鼠则是三场，而左手骨折的Stuckey甚至还没上过 场 - 这使得许多老乔保证能有机会挤进上场名单的球员多了很多上场机会。 It wasn’t always pretty, but the payoff is starting to show. Maxiell is becoming an instant game-changing force in the way Rodman was to the Bad Boys. Murray and Hayes are always one possession away from punching up the offense for a torrid stretch. Afflalo and Lindsey Hunter’s gritty defense change a game’s texture in the other direction. 那过程并不好受，但成果现在开始展现出来了。J-Max变成了类似Rodman当初在坏小孩 阵中所扮演的角色 - 一上场就能立刻发挥作用，让比赛情势逆转。魔锐和Hayes总是利用 一次进攻就能让球队脱离得分乾旱期。Afflalo和猎人出色的防守功夫则可以把进攻大战变 成防守焦土战。 And not only have they all gained a significant measure of Saunders’ trust, so have they won over the starters in ways you never really felt some who’ve filled their roles in past years did. That works both ways. Role players know when they’re not fully trusted and it affects the play of all but the most mentally tough among them. The guys Saunders is throwing off his bench these days all seem to have confidence in themselves partly because they sense their coaches and their teammates believe in them. 而不只是他们全都搏得了老桑相当程度的信任，所以他们获得不输先发球员的上场机 会，这是从他们过去几年扮演的角色你根本无从想像的一件事。那对双方面都是件好事。 绿叶球员知道当他们不被完全信任时，那对各方面都会造成影响，而影响最深的莫过於心 理层面。这些日子以来被老桑丢上场的板凳球员们似乎都更有自信了，因为他们感觉教练 和队友们都信任他们。 Saunders: “We went on that West Coast trip and we played our bench a lot. We lost a couple of games, but we’re starting to see the benefit of playing those guys then and giving them experience and now they’re coming in and giving us a big lift. 老桑说："我们西行之旅给了板凳球员许多上场机会。虽然输了几场比赛，但我们开始 看到让那些球员上场吸取经验的好处了，他们现在反过来给了我们极大的帮助。" “It’s a combination of not just the main guys but other guys getting a comfort level of knowing where they’re going to get shots, knowing if they do have a mismatch, they are going to get the ball. Everybody pretty much trusts each other. We’ve gotten to that point where we’ve shown more trust, both offensive and defensively. For as long as I’ve been here, I don’t know if we’ve functioned this well on a consistent basis as we have the last week.” "这是完美的结合，不只是主力球员，就连其他球员也能轻易地了解到他们该在哪里出 手，知道如果他们因为对手错位防守而有较好的出手机会，他们将会接到传球。每个人都 很信任对方。攻守两端，我们都能展现更多的互信。从我到活塞执教至今，我都不知道球 队能不能在像上个礼拜那样稳固而一致的基础上运转良好。" Sometimes crossing a landmark threshold is like crossing the international dateline. Bells don’t sound and lights don’t flash. Sometimes you don’t realize you’ve crossed it until it’s in your rear-view mirror. But the Pistons appear to have crossed this one. And there’s still room for growth. 有时候横越一个里程碑，一个门槛，就像是横越国际换日线一样。铃声不会响，灯光 也不会亮。有时候一直到你看了後照镜之前，你根本不知道自己已经跨过去了。但活塞似 乎已经跨越了这个界限，而且还有继续进步的空间。 --

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