The Golden Age of Basketball

After Sabonis came to this house in the west district, he was a little excited when he thought that Gan Guoyang had lived here for three years.

This detached house reminded Sabonis of Kaunas, his hometown in Lithuania when he was a child, where people also lived in such detached houses, but it was much more beautiful and spacious than their house.

When he came to the United States this time, Sabonis was alone. Although the Soviet Basketball Association agreed to release him with the efforts and persistence of many parties, it was impossible to take special care of Sabonis. After all, he was going to play in a "hostile country".

For Gan Guoyang, Sabonis is very grateful. He has put in a lot of effort for his trip to the United States, and he is also deeply impressed by Gan Guoyang's skills.

After the three-on-three confrontation with Gan Guoyang in Seoul, Sabonis told himself in his heart that he would go to the United States to play with him no matter what. In the past, in Sabonis’ eyes, Gan Guoyang was a player with extraordinary personal ability. 113 points in Europe is staggering.

But after playing a game with Gan Guoyang, Sabonis realized that Gan Guoyang not only has strong personal ability, but also a perfect team player. Every little skill of his has been polished to near perfection. From the outside, it is completely imperceptible.

You have to really stand on the court, become teammates with Gan Guoyang, or become an opponent to understand, and Sabonis does not want to easily become an enemy of Gan Guoyang.

Thinking of starting a new life here independently, Sabonis was worried, but also full of expectations.

After arranging his luggage, Sabonis looked at each room, then opened the courtyard door, and saw the basketball hoop standing in the backyard.

When Sabonis saw the basketball hoop, he remembered that the staff of the team had told him that it was built by Gan Guoyang himself when he lived here before. At that time, he injured his back because of repairing the gutter. , and missed the preseason as a result.

Thinking of this, Sabonis went back to the room, took out his basketball from the luggage bag, and then came to this slightly crude basketball court to start his first training after coming to the United States.

Sabonis was alone on the court, but imagined the scene of cooperating with Gan Guoyang on the court. It seems that for him, it may be difficult to sleep tonight.

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The next day, Gan Guoyang, accompanied by the Feng brothers, made a big detour to his original residence in the West District early in the morning, and went to train with Sabonis.

Gan Guoyang always got up very early, and when he ran there, it was only 05:30. Gan Guoyang knocked on the door, but he felt strange, after all, this was his former home.

Unexpectedly, as soon as he knocked on the door, the door opened quickly. Sabonis was already standing in front of the door fully equipped, and it seemed that he should have gotten up early.

"Wow, it's so early, I thought you didn't wake up, did you sleep well at night?" Gan Guoyang was also surprised that Sabonis could wake up so early.

"It's really early, but I didn't sleep much at night. I kept thinking about the next day's training. I was thinking that you would come around five o'clock, so I prepared early."

"How do you know I'll come after five o'clock?"

"When I came to the Trail Blazers to try out, the man named Drexler told me that he said that you are very, very early every day, and others also said that you don't sleep at night, you just sleep during the game. Because When you are playing, you can knock out your opponent's when you fall asleep."

"Haha, maybe, there is a Chinese kung fu called 'Sleeping Arhat Boxing', and that's what I learned."

Gan Guoyang didn't think about it carefully. Stephen Chow's "Su Qier" hadn't been released yet, but even if it was released, Sabonis couldn't figure out what the "sleep-arhat-boxing" meant. He didn't watch Hong Kong movies.

Anyway, the two of them chatted long and short sentences while running to the University of Portland. Sabonis's English is not very good. Chatting with Gan Guoyang can improve his English.

When the two arrived at the University of Portland's gymnasium, the arena was still empty, and they were the first to arrive.

"If you want to quickly integrate into the team and adapt to the NBA, I advise you to have the same training time as me every day, come at the earliest and leave at the latest." Gan Guoyang said to Sabonis in the locker room.

Sabonis nodded after hearing this. He thought the same way, and he had to rely on hard training to integrate into the team.

"Also, Karp is a very good trainer. He will give you a training plan that suits you. Listen to him. Coach Adelman...I think he will like you."

One of the issues that Sabonis was very worried about before coming to the Trail Blazers was the coach, because he heard that Adelman was a stubborn and conservative old man who didn't like innovation and change.

Now that the Blazers' lineup is quite stable, whether Sabonis, as an airborne soldier, can get more playing opportunities and important team roles, undoubtedly needs to say hello.

However, Gan Guoyang has great confidence in Sabonis' status in the Trail Blazers. One of the important reasons is because their coach is Adelman.

As a fake fan of later generations, Gan Guoyang is also familiar with the Princeton style of play of the Kings under Adelman. The center of the Kings is Sabonis' old opponent in the European arena, Divac.

As a supporting center of the same kind, Sabonis is taller, stronger, more aggressive, and more comprehensive than Divac, just like an enhanced version of Divac.

Of course, if you think that Adelman will reuse Sabonis just because of some impressions of later generations, then Gan Guoyang will be in vain in the NBA in the past few years.

In fact, Adelman is not as stubborn and conservative as people imagine. It is not so much his stubbornness as he insists on his basketball philosophy abnormally.

And Adelman's basketball concept is "everyone has his own strengths". He should give full play to the strengths of each player and tailor tactics for the team according to the composition of the players.

This is also the biggest difference between him and Jack Ramsey.

For example, in the use of Gan Guoyang, Jack Ramsey has always wanted to train Gan Guoyang into a Bill Walton-style player with the most comprehensive center technology and become the team's offensive hub.

But Adelman realized that the biggest advantage of the young Gan Guoyang is his strong offensive power, which has been proved in countless games.

Transferring the ball is Gan Guoyang's weakness. We should try our best to make up for the weakness, but we can't expect it to be his specialty. Adelman believes that before the age of 30, Gan Guoyang cannot become a passing master.

Therefore, Adelman gave full play to Gan Guoyang's advantage in offensive power, designed offensive tactics around Gan Guoyang, and made Gan Guoyang in the 1988 season, after Moses Malone in the 1982 season, he became the center who averaged 30 points per game in another season.

Of course, such persistence also cost the Blazers in the Western Conference Finals, but you can hardly say that if Adelman makes changes, the Blazers will definitely be able to win.

A similar example is Terry Porter. Adelman believes that with Porter's size, shooting level, and strong will to dare to shoot, it is a waste for him to be a pass-first point guard. , So he made Porter an attack-first, pass-second point guard.

On the contrary, Drexler has a passing level no less than that of a point guard, but he can't shoot and his shots are not decisive enough, so Adelman let Drexler develop into an all-rounder in the backcourt. Porter is a perfect fit.

Other second-round picks such as Cosey and Duckworth all exuded dazzling brilliance under the guidance of Adelman, which fully shows that Adelman is a coach who is good at discovering the potential of players and is also good at " A coach who develops strengths and avoids weaknesses".

Since Gan Guoyang entered the NBA, Adelman has been staying with the Blazers, and he has been with Gan Guoyang day and night. It is through his daily understanding that Gan Guoyang is confident that Adelman can make good use of Sabonis, and Sabonis is definitely suitable for the Blazers.

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After the two practiced together for nearly an hour, other players from the Blazers also arrived at the arena one after another. In fact, they had already arrived very early. Many NBA teams practiced at nine o'clock in the morning.

When Adelman also arrived at the training hall, the team's training officially began.

However, Sabonis did not directly participate in the team training. Adelman handed the team training baton to Bellman. He walked to Sabonis by himself and began to have some in-depth exchanges with Sabonis. .

This is Adelman's habit, to communicate with players, to understand a player's inner thoughts, and to know his understanding and views on basketball.

The two chatted a lot on the sidelines. Sabonis used his not-so-fluent English to pour out his unique understanding of basketball with the head coach who looked like Hitler.

It should be said that Sabonis is lucky. If he came to the Trail Blazers a year later, to the Trail Blazers that have already won the championship or entered the finals-with the current lineup of the Trail Blazers, there is no such thing as Sabonis without Sabonis. Problem, then, Adelman may not accept him again.

Adelman is like this, when everything has not yet formed, he is willing to try any method and means to discover and shape the best team.

And once the system is formed and a certain amount of success has been achieved, he is not willing to change it, but wants to go all the way until he wins the final victory.

Therefore, Sabonis is lucky, he came just in time.

Of course, Adelman is also lucky. Historically, in his basketball life, there is always a lack of essential elements for success.

Now, the most important element is already in the formation.