Little AI once almost had no ball to play with, and the famous Arizona coach urgently offered an olive branch

Little AI once almost had no ball to play with. The famous Arizona coach urgently offered an olive branch. Beijing time on December 12th. Andre Iguodala is currently the best outsider in the league...

Springfield is the capital of the state of Illinois in the United States. Former President Abraham Ken once lived here. In 1908, due to a racial riot, an organization called the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (English abbreviation: NAACP) was created here, which has now evolved into a national organization promoting black civil rights. But even today it is still a small town, thinking about the world with its own small-town thinking.

"Everyone shares almost everything with each other's work," Iguodala said. "Everyone is afraid to go out. They feel that life there is very comfortable. No one likes to experience new things or do something different. There are many excellent players who came out from here, and many people before me had the ability to enter the NBA (Weibo) He became a professional basketball player, and one of them was Jeff Walker. He had great basketball talent, and he should have entered the NBA, but he didn't. The inherent mentality of this small town restrained many outstanding athletes. After I went to college, I wanted to stay as far away as possible, so in the end I was not trapped here."

Ms. Linda Shanklin, Iguodala's mother, had always encouraged her two sons to leave Springfield in the future. But Iguodala actually knows better. It is Illinois that he specifically wants to leave. But after seeing Iguodala's performance, many professional sports experts agreed that he will become a track and field star. But his close friends, including his high school basketball teammate McBride, didn't think so. At this time, Iguodala's head coach in AAU, Larry Butler, ordered his assistant to recruit him. After that, Iguodala was also invited to participate in the Jordan-sponsored Basketball Classic, which also greatly pleased Butler. Butler also lobbied prominent analyst Clark Frank to give Iguodala a higher pick. However, when I entered college, although I was not admitted to the top basketball schools, I finally received invitations from several universities.

The team that Iguodala wanted to go to from the beginning was the University of Arkansas Razorbacks, but unfortunately, after the team's head coach suddenly resigned, the number of players recruited by the team became smaller. However, there is always a road ahead. One of Iguodala's friends had participated in the National McDonald's Game and met the head coach of Arizona State University, Rut Olson. This gave Iguodala a chance to play in college. In the end, he was admitted to the University of Arizona.

"When he was cut by the University of Arkansas due to layoffs, he got on the phone with us and asked if we were interested in him," Olson said. "I said, 'Yes, we are interested in him. But we have admitted you once and we don't want to admit you a second time. We are interested in you, and now you just need to come here and be with us."'