The Golden Age of Basketball.

Chapter 37 Guidance
The 31st was a weekend, and Berman gave the players a day off, with no training.

Gan Guoyang invited his three closest teammates, Gan Guohui, Chen Xing, and Xu Xun, to Oakland to watch the Warriors' home opening game.

To his surprise, he had assumed the three would go happily, but each of them had a reason not to go.

Gan Guohui said he had a date, Chen Xing had to go to a math tutoring class, and Xu Xun had to stay at the store to help out.

Even when Gan Guoyang said the tickets were free and someone would treat them, they didn't agree, clearly showing they weren't interested in the Warriors' opening game.

It's easy to imagine how little influence the NBA had at the time; the season opener was not televised, there was no large-scale advertising, and everything was quiet.

If Thurmond hadn't called Gan Guoyang, Gan Guoyang wouldn't have known that the new NBA season had already started two days ago.

In the afternoon, Thurmond personally drove Gan Guoyang to Oakland. Upon learning that none of his friends could come, Thurmond shook his head: "The current state of the NBA is even worse than in the 70s. Young people aren't interested in professional basketball; locals prefer college and high school games. Gan, you deserve a lot of credit, well done. The news about you and the Waterbell team in October completely overshadowed the Warriors; nobody's very interested in the Warriors anymore. Actually, the Warriors performed quite well last season."

The popularity of the Waterbell team in San Francisco led to a further decline in fan attention towards the Warriors. Gan Guoyang never expected the NBA to have degenerated to this extent in the early 80s.

In terms of roster, the Warriors are actually very competitive. Last season, they traded for Bernard King and Ward B. Flynn, drafted rebounding monster Larry Smith, and in a trade with the Celtics, sent Parish and the third overall pick to get the first overall pick, acquiring the 7-foot center Joe Barry Carroll.

Although this trade was later considered to have contributed to the Celtics' resurgence—Auerbach used the third overall pick to select Kevin McHale, forming a frontcourt trio with Bird and Parish, and they won the championship in 1981.

From the Warriors' perspective, however, having Carroll wasn't all that bad. Several young players had performed exceptionally well in the 80-81 season, and they were just one game away from the playoffs. (If the Warriors had kept their third overall pick and Parish, and managed to acquire McHale, history would have been very different, but Auerbach clearly wouldn't have let that happen.)
The Warriors have maintained their full roster from last season for the new season. Only one player on the team is over 30 years old, and the core players are all young players around 25 years old. Such a roster full of potential should be very attractive to city fans.

However, on the way, Thurmond told Gan Guoyang that today's home opening game, the second game of the new season, only had more than 7000 spectators in attendance, less than 40% of the capacity.

"So that's why you invited me and my friends to watch the game, right? There were just too many empty seats, so you brought some young people to make up the numbers," Gan Guoyang joked.

"I'm not the sleazy brat you're making me out to be. You're getting more and more sarcastic. I promised you I'd take you to a game so you could experience the NBA atmosphere firsthand. That would give you a concrete goal in mind, and you want to play in the NBA someday, don't you?"

“I know, thank you Nate, I was just kidding. Actually, I have a lot of questions I'd like to ask you, about some details of offensive techniques.”

Gan Guoyang trained very hard in the Water Bell team, and Berman's guidance was also very detailed, but there was a problem: he couldn't find anyone in the Water Bell team who could match up against him.

This resulted in Gan Guoyang not getting effective training in certain offensive skills. Although Bellman had a wealth of knowledge, he was not originally an inside player.

The training level of high school students can no longer meet Gan Guoyang's growing needs for ball skills, and he is eager for more advanced guidance.

"It's good that you're eager to learn, and I'm surprised by how fast you've improved. To be honest, I can't mentor you; offense isn't my strong suit."

"But you can average 20 points per game."

“There’s a difference between 20 points per game and 20 points per game. Some people’s 20 points per game are given to them by the team, while some people’s 20 points per game are given to the team by themselves. I’m obviously the former. I’ve never liked offense since high school. I prefer defense. But I can find someone to give you some pointers, for free.”

Thurmond drove across the Bay Bridge to the Oakland-Alameda County Sports Centre, a complex of sports buildings built in Oakland in the 60s.

The core venue was a large multi-purpose stadium and a basketball arena, which later became known to many as the Oracle Arena.

Thurmond parked his car. It was a little past two in the afternoon, a few hours before the match started.

He led Gan Guoyang through the staff entrance into the stadium, and they passed through without any obstacles; Thurmond's face served as their pass.

Gan Guoyang was led on a tour of the players' locker room, the media center, and finally to the sidelines of the court. The circular dome design inside the Oakland Arena looked simple yet magnificent. In addition to being the home arena of the Warriors, it has also hosted numerous concerts and music events. Frank Sinclair, Elvis Presley, Marvin Gay, and Queen have all left their musical mark here.

This was Gan Guoyang's first time visiting an NBA home arena. It looked much older than the ones he had seen on TV, as it was designed and built in the 60s and had not yet undergone modernization.

The floor was dull and lifeless, and there were no large LCD screens installed on the ceiling. The first row of seats on the sidelines consisted of metal folding chairs, which looked rather casual.

Sermond led Gan Guoyang to two specially made large folding chairs and told him to wait patiently for a while, as the person who could answer his questions would be coming soon.

At 3:30, the Golden State Warriors players arrived at the home arena for warm-up exercises to get used to the venue. Thurmond got up and greeted Warriors head coach Al Arters.

Attles was one of the earliest Black coaches in the league, second only to Russell. He was Thurmond's teammate on the Warriors and also his coach.

He became a player-coach in the 1970-1971 season and has been a coach ever since after retiring, leading the team to the championship in 1975.

Thurmond introduced Gan Guoyang to Artest, who feigned surprise and said, "Woh, you're that Gan! You stole all the Warriors' popularity this summer! Shouldn't you compensate our team? Why don't you just come play for the Warriors next year? I'll ask the owner to give you a big contract."

"Don't joke around, Al. If you can get the boss to offer you a big contract, why not give me one? I think I can still play."

The two old friends joked with each other, and Thurmond explained his purpose, saying that the young man was very eager to learn and he wanted to ask him for some advice on some techniques.

"Excuse me? Why don't you teach him the techniques for a center?"

"You know my offense is like a pile of shit."

"So you knew it yourself. I thought you never knew."

Artes blew his whistle, drawing the Warriors players together. They looked Gan Guoyang up and down, curious about the tall, Chinese-American boy.

With so many professional players in front of him, Gan Guoyang became reserved. He nudged Thurmond and asked, "Nate, I just wanted to ask you a simple question. Is this really necessary?"

Thurmond said, "It's nothing. It's just professional players mentoring younger students. We're all players, just exchanging ideas and skills."

In the United States, it is a long-standing tradition for professional players to compete and exchange skills with amateur street players and college players.

Many professional teams train at local university stadiums, where they can play against NCAA players and share their experience.

Seniors often mentor newcomers, and some of these newcomers may become colleagues or rivals in the professional arena in the future.

"Kid, what do you want to know? The Golden State Warriors coaching staff is here to help. Your performance in Fremont has been getting rave reviews, and we'd like to see it for ourselves, Forrest."

So this is the Forrest Gump. Some Warriors players got excited and looked eager to try, while others were indifferent and disdainful, indicating that they had no interest.

Gan Guoyang said, "I want to understand the technique of the turnaround jump shot, because I feel that my movements are not very smooth."

Atters pointed to two people, "Larry, Bernard, you two, give him some pointers. The rest of you, warm up, or you can watch if you're interested."

(End of this chapter)