Load Management Is All Part of the Championship Blueprint for Kawhi, Clippers None 1019 words in total New words of this article(26 words): --------------------------------------------- lexicon n．词典 trig 潇洒的 deride vt.嘲弄,嘲笑 contender 斗争者,竞争者 wring v.绞,扭,榨取,强求,折磨,扭绞n.绞,挤,榨,扭动 overarch vt.在...上做拱形vi.成拱形 align vi.排列vt.使结盟,使成一行 monologue n.独白,独脚戏 toughness n.韧性,坚韧,刚性,健壮性 inscrutable adj．高深莫测的，神秘的 purposely adv.故意地 snuff n.灯花,烛花,鼻吸气息,气息v.用鼻子使劲地吸,扑灭 defuse vt.去掉...的雷管 preservation n.保存 traceable 可追踪的,起源于 superstar n.超级明星 aversion n.厌恶,讨厌的事和人 meaningless adj.无意义的 dismissal n.免职,解雇,不予考虑 upshot 结果 alignment n.队列,结盟 blueprint n.蓝图,设计图,计划vt.制成蓝图,计划 anticipation n.预期,预料 scary adj.引起惊慌的 tentacle n.(动物)触须、触角,(植物)腺毛 bide v. 等待, 停留; 居住; 等待; 面临, 禁得起 --------------------------------------------- Adam Pantozzi/Getty Images The Los Angeles Clippers are unknowable, and they seem to like it that way. Kawhi Leonard sat out L.A.'s 129-124 loss to the Milwaukee Bucks on Wednesday night, missing the front end of a back-to-back set as part of a load management plan. That phrase, "load management," which only entered the NBA lexicon词典 in the past year or two, might as well come with a trigger潇洒的 warning. Some derided嘲弄,嘲笑 the Clippers' decision to sit Leonard against Giannis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks. The pull quote of the day came from ESPN's Doris Burke, who said on ESPN Radio: "Kawhi not playing, to me, is ridiculous." Burke was more nuanced than the aggregators would have you believe, and she wasn't alone. But the thrust was that Leonard should want to play against the reigning MVP and a potential title contender斗争者,竞争者 in front of a national audience. The implication being: If he's a competitor, he has to be out there. The response from the NBA, which has authority to fine teams for scratching healthy players (just ask Gregg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs), green-lit the Clippers' decision, per Adrian Wojnarowski of ESPN. L.A.'s operation within the strict interpretation of the rule didn't satisfy the complainers or the back-in-my-day-ers. Those inclined to wring绞,扭,榨取,强求,折磨,扭绞绞,挤,榨,扭动 hands or shout on TV freaked out a little anyway. Meanwhile, the Clips and Leonard were unperturbed. This isn't a problem with a clear fix. The overarching在 上做拱形 成拱形 issue is the relative unimportance of the regular season. It doesn't matter enough in general, and it definitely doesn't matter equally to all 30 teams. In fact, a good way to figure out which organizations are most serious about competing for a championship is to see how confident they are in treating the regular season as a half-speed dress rehearsal. Granted, the priorities of the teams lucky enough to approach the season that way don't align排列使结盟,使成一行 with those of ticket-buying fans and eyeball-seeking television networks. That's a problem. But move past all of the competing monologues独白,独脚戏 on load management, toughness韧性 坚韧 刚性 健壮性 and what the players owe fans, and you'll see something interesting: a mostly inscrutable高深莫测的，神秘的 team telling us something about itself. Leonard sitting a game almost everyone outside his organization wanted him to play showed that the Clippers are all business. The Clips aren't being withholding. It isn't like they're teasing the league or its fans. Instead, they've taken on an almost Spurs-ish embrace of a competitive advantage. Why reveal to anyone exactly how great they are? Why tip their hand now? This is about the long game, and nothing else matters. Wednesday's loss demonstrated the obvious, that the Clippers need Leonard. Coming into the game, they owned a plus-18.2 net rating with Leonard on the floor. Without him, they were at minus-9.3. Given that level of indispensability, how do we fault them for making the smart, cautious play? L.A. could have rested Leonard against the Portland Trail Blazers on Thursday instead. But the decision to give him a night off against the Bucks feels significant. It seems as though the Clips, in an almost Popovichian way, purposely故意地 snuffed灯花,烛花,鼻吸气息,气息用鼻子使劲地吸,扑灭 out whatever drama might have been attached to a matchup of this magnitude. They defused去掉的雷管 the narrative and nixed the potential rivalry. Never mind that this preservation保存 of mystery could actually be more exciting for fans who will have to wait for a Leonard-Antetokounmpo showdown. Focus instead on how it shows that the Clippers are taking on the identity of their best player. Isn't every element of Wednesday's decision traceable可追踪的,起源于 back to Leonard, a superstar超级明星 defined by his aversion厌恶,讨厌的事和人 to nonsense? Validated by last year's liberal approach to regular-season rest, Leonard seems like the last guy who would ever care about an early November game. He has tested this big-picture plan before, and it worked like a charm. And because it worked so well last season, culminating in a championship, Leonard is under no pressure to prove himself. Nathaniel S. Butler/Getty Images He's past the point where November has anything to do with his legacy. If you were hoping something as petty as pride would force him to compromise his plans just so he could face Antetokounmpo and the Bucks in a relatively meaningless无意义的 game, well...try again. Leonard and the Clippers are aligned排列使结盟,使成一行 in their quiet dismissal免职,解雇,不予考虑 of the trivial. The upshot结果 of that alignment队列,结盟 is that we might not get to see the Clippers' full strength until they have to summon all of it in the playoffs. Load management will surely be a season-long norm for Leonard, but it'll also be part of the story for Paul George, who is set to return soon from a pair of shoulder surgeries. With those two sitting semi-regularly, it may take months until we know what the Clippers look like with two superstars超级明星 and a trimmer rotation. We had no idea last year's Toronto Raptors were a legitimate championship-caliber team until they showed us in May and June. And though Leonard had spent plenty of time on the list of the league's best players, we didn't know he belonged right at the top until he led that Raptors team to a ring with one of the greatest individual postseasons in NBA history. There's a blueprint蓝图,设计图,计划制成蓝图,计划 for what we're seeing, and Leonard lived it last year. Depending on your perspective, the sense of anticipation预期,预料 that the Clippers and Leonard are cultivating is either thrilling or terrifying. On one hand, we suspect the Clippers have a top gear no one can match—except we won't know for sure until they have to shift into it several months from now. That's exciting! On the other, there's an element of fear involved. In any good horror movie, the monster is always scarier引起惊慌的 when you can't get a good look at it. Your imagination has to fill in the gaps, and imaginations can spin out of control sometimes. Does the creature have standard-issue tentacles, or are they poisonous? What kind of teeth are we talking? Serrated? Can it smell fear? Does it spit acid? Nobody knows, and nobody gets to know until the monster reveals itself. By then, it's usually too late for anyone unlucky enough to be within tentacle(动物)触须、触角,(植物)腺毛 range. The Clippers are that monster, obscured by design, biding 等待, 停留; 居住; 等待; 面临, 禁得起 their time, actively preserving a sense of dread. Waiting.