Don't congratulate me until I win

"During the playoffs, I always ran into people I knew and the first time we met, they said congratulations to me, and I really didn't want them to say that to me before the series was over. I don't think we've achieved much until we win four games. ”

This is Caruso's post-match interview after G2 of the Grand Finals. Caruso, who had just scored 20 points to set a new career high in the Finals, didn't have a look of excitement on his face, because he knew better than anyone that it would take four wins to win a championship.

If G1's Caruso defense is suffocating, then G2's Caruso once again refreshed some fans' perception of him with a three-point shot. Caruso scored 20 points on 6-of-11 shooting and 4-of-8 three-pointers, taking his playoff three-point shooting percentage to 41.6 percent.

In the playoffs of the 19-20 season, Caruso only had a 28% three-point shooting rate, and won the opportunity to be on the court at the same time as James by relying on desperate defense and counterattacks, becoming a wonder soldier in the Finals and a catalyst for the Lakers' defense, and he averaged 1.1 steals per game in that playoffs.

Caruso has played less time in the playoffs this year than he has in '20, but Caruso is averaging a horrific 1.7 steals per game, not to mention his improvement in three-point shooting. Caruso is now almost the ceiling of a 3D player, and he does much more than a 3D player on the field.

He is a leader on and off the court, he is not the kind of veteran who shows his status by yelling, his actions are more important than everything, and he has subtly become the opinion leader of the Thunder. Your age won't be your capital, but your championship experience, everything you've put in on the court, your defensive skills, will earn you the team you deserve.

The average age of the Thunder's players is just 24.2 years old, so Caruso, 31, is the oldest on the team. During the finals, Brother Demon had an interesting interview, he asked the people of the Thunder what they were doing when the Thunder played the finals for the first time in 2012.

While most of the interviews were with people who were playing AAU games and were in their early 10s, Caruso said, "In 2012, it was supposed to be the summer of my freshman year at Texas A&M University, and I was finishing my summer program and training at the same time. After the interview, Brother Moxian said in surprise: "He went to college in 2012!" ”

That's right, when his current teammates were kids in 2012, Caruso was already a college student. His father worked as an administrator for Texas A&M University's athletic department for three decades, but Caruso had long proven that he couldn't get here because of connections.

He always tried his best every night, defending the opponent's strongest players, falling to the ground to fight for the floor ball, and spewing trash talk with opponents full of fighting spirit. In his first year of college, he broke the Southeast Conference freshman steal record.

In the NCAA tournament in their final year of college, Texas A&M completed a miraculous comeback worthy of a "Maddie moment", with the university trailing by 12 points in the final 44 seconds of regulation time. Then they tied that huge gap for the rest of the game, sending the game into extra time.

They made four turnovers in the process, with Caruso constantly directing his team-mates' movements while marking on the defensive end. In the last dozen seconds, Caruso also scored a crucial 2+1.

The first overtime was Caruso's final 5.9-second layup to send the game into the second overtime. In the second overtime, the Agricultural and Industrial University finally completed the overtaking promotion.

James, who likes to eat melons during the Crazy Three, said after the game, "If I were at the University of Northern Iowa, I would never play again." At that time, he could not have imagined that the player who led the team to a comeback would become his right-hand man in winning the championship four years later.

Caruso graduated from University in 2016 and ran for election and then lost, which is normal. He was 22 years old and was averaging less than 10 points per game. He was offered a training camp spot by the Thunder, but was cut in the final moments of the lineup, and when he signed with the Thunder Development League team, the gears of fate began to turn.

The head coach of that development league team is named Mark Daigneault. So when the Thunder traded for Caruso last summer, the following picture of 16 years began to circulate, when Dagnor was deliberately angry, and Caruso still had hair on his head at that time.

This was not the first time Dagneault and Caruso had met, and he was impressed with Caruso when he was still working as Donovan's assistant coach at the University of Florida. It was a big win over Texas A&M University at the University of Florida, and Caruso did his best in garbage time, leaving Dagneault to wonder if Caruso knew the difference.

Caruso signed his first contract with the Thunder with an annual salary of $13,000 plus signing bonuses, and eight years later, Caruso signed a second contract with the Thunder for four years and $81 million.

In his first season in the Development League, Caruso continued to impact the team with his trademark defense, but his scoring performance was not impressive. When his teammates were drafted by the NBA again and again, Caruso didn't get even one chance to go to the NBA. Years later, Presti confessed his mistake to Caruso, and that was when he was blind.

In 2017, Caruso was spotted by the Lakers and received a two-way NBA contract that allowed him to play sporadically. In 2018, Caruso renewed his two-way contract with the Lakers and became teammates with James at the same time, and Caruso came into the eyes of fans.

In 2019, Caruso finally got a guaranteed contract, although it was only 2 years and 5.5 million, but for Caruso he was looking forward to this contract for three years. In '19-21, this contract also became one of the best value contracts in the NBA.

In the 21st offseason, the Lakers chose Tucker and let Caruso go in the face of a two-choice situation, which is why Caruso and the Thunder are now renewing their leads. Every time Caruso makes a highlight, the stupidity of Lakers management in '21 is taken out and whipped.

In this year's playoffs, the 31-year-old Caruso wrapped up Jokic in the tiebreaker for the best defensive performance of the season, and Jokic only took nine shots and had five turnovers in that game. In the first life-and-death moment of the Thunder's season, Dagneault took out Caruso's hole card.

Caruso is a player who has come out of nothing in the true sense of the word, coming from a humble background and not being able to stand out in the development league. The only thing he could control at that time was to be the hardest working guy on the team.

Not everything will succeed, but no effort will be wasted. The meaning of hard work is that when you look back on it in the future, you will calmly face that you have done your best at that time.