Champion Rules

Chapter 1001: Lynch and Theo
2002, Belgrade, Serbia.

The morning mist, wrapped in the water vapor of the Danube, blew in our faces. The streets were lifeless, and the old bungalows crowded together on both sides were filled with a sense of depression.

The cold sky without the sun made the city look even more desolate.

Lin Qi smoothed his hair against the glass window of a dessert shop and once again looked at his handsome but unfamiliar face.

Three days ago, he was just an ordinary 18-year-old boy who was full of youthful energy and loved basketball, video games and body art appreciation.

As a carefree high school graduate, Lynch enjoyed every night.

On the basketball forum, I complained about the Dallas Mavericks' "O'Mei blockbuster" which just started and ended in less than one game. I also made fun of Jimmy Butler for his excessive tribute to Paul Pierce, then played a few games and watched a good movie. In short, I would never go to bed until I couldn't stay up any longer, and I would cherish every minute and every second to entertain myself to the end.

Lynch did not think that this was a waste of time, because he knew very well that for an ordinary boy raised in an ordinary family without any lofty ambitions, this good life of being free from the three loans and five social insurances and living a carefree life alone was beginning to run out.

After twelve years of hard study, you will have to work like a beast of burden for decades. What's wrong with enjoying yourself now?
There is no sin in enjoying life, and there is even less sin in letting the youth slip through your fingers.

However, this comfortable period of lying down did not last long, as his consciousness was suddenly transported to the year 2002, to the body of a 16-year-old boy with the same name as him.

Good news: He became a basketball player.

If Lynch has any dream in his heart, it is to become a professional basketball player.

This is not difficult to understand. Liking basketball is one thing, but becoming a top professional basketball player also means that your life will be completely changed and that you will have unimaginable wealth.

Of course, like most ordinary children, Lynch's height of 173 cm, which is not outstanding even on the street, and his non-existent basketball training foundation, make it possible for him to realize his dream only by relying on his imagination - you know, now even if you want to realize your dream in the NBA2K game, you have to spend a lot of money.

Now, Lynch has become a player playing for the youth team of the local FMP basketball club (Belgrade Metal Products Factory Club) in Belgrade, which seems to make the dream of professional basketball no longer out of reach.

Although he is not yet a real professional player, he has at least touched the edge of professional basketball.

But the bad news is: this body is as fragile as Kawhi Leonard, the NBA's top salary fraudster.

In Lynch's memory, the original owner of this body had only played a few games after joining the FMP youth team. He was either injured or on the way to being injured. Even the 63-year-old security guard of the youth training team had a higher attendance rate than himself.

I sprained my knee in a training match six months ago, fractured my ribs three months ago, and sprained my ankle a month and a half ago.
Every time he examined me, the team doctor would murmur in a pitying tone, "Son, your medical report looks like the bombed-out Novi Sad Bridge."

Without a healthy body, the dream of playing professional basketball is still out of the question.

Lynch shifted his gaze from the window glass and looked at the gloomy sky.

The stagnant city, the gloomy sky, all created an atmosphere that seemed to be deliberately telling Lynch: Basketball? Stop struggling.

"Fuck it!" Lynch punched the window glass. "I'm going to try!"

In my previous life, I had to lie low because no matter how hard I tried, there was no way for me to move up. Now that I have the basic conditions to change my life, how can I let it go?

No matter what difficulties he encounters next, no matter who blocks him, Lynch will not escape or be afraid.

He will fight to the end to realize his dream!

"Hey kid, you wanna pick a fight?!" A muscular man as tall as a professional player, with tattoos all over his arms, walked out of the dessert shop.

In this country where the average male height is 180 cm, similar men are everywhere.

He stared at Lin Qi, who had just punched the window, with dissatisfaction, "What are you doing? Playing basketball? Bullshit! Stay and clean my window!"

Lynch stared at the first person who came out to stop him from realizing his dream with anger in his eyes, and rushed forward quickly.

Escaped onto the bus.
-
Relying on his memory, Lynch took a bus to the training ground of the club's youth team. Today was the day he returned to the team after suffering a serious ankle injury.

Although FMP is a professional basketball club that is eligible to participate in Serbia's top basketball league, the club's youth team training base is not as luxurious as Lynch imagined.

On a small path beside a slope, there is an old-looking basketball hall with a rusting sign that is neither new nor shiny.

This is all the FMP Club Youth Team has.

Inside the basketball hall, Lynch saw a huge team flag with the Black Panthers printed on it and the words "Started in 1975" written on it. The scratches on the wooden floor seemed to also tell the history of this place.

In addition, Lynch also saw a man who was not old, but had very few hairs on his head.

The man seemed to know that he was still young, so he still stubbornly combed a few hairs horizontally from both sides to try to cover up the bald head. However, this self-comforting behavior made his hairstyle look worse. It would be better for him to shave his head.

Memory told Lynch that the guy with the stubborn Mediterranean hairstyle was the club's youth team coach Boshko Jokic, and Boshko quickly discovered Lynch.

As a "big" kid with a height of 203 cm and a wingspan of 225 cm and still growing, it is really difficult for Lynch to enter the venue in a low-key manner.

The two men's eyes met in the air. Lynch did not see the expectation for a returning player in the coach's eyes, but only saw a trace of pity.

Boshko really felt sorry for Lynch. He once thought that this Chinese kid who had been training with the FMP youth team since he was 12 years old was a genius, because Lynch's static and dynamic talents were very outstanding.

But a basketball player is only valuable when he is on the court playing.

Boshko knew, and was even very sure, that repeated injuries had sentenced Lynch to death and blocked his path to professional basketball.

It wasn't just the injuries themselves that ruined Lynch, the continuous injuries also made Lynch afraid of confrontation. Previously, Lynch played particularly weak and timid on the court.

He didn't dare to use his strong body to attack the basket, and his amazingly long arms became the veins of a mimosa leaf when he was defending.

The more injured he was, the weaker he became. Lynch had fallen into a vicious cycle.

If the youth team games have caused Lynch to get injured repeatedly and become afraid to compete, then there is no way he will be able to participate in the more intense adult team games.

In Boshko's view, this child who he once had high hopes for seemed to have become one of the thousands of shooting stars.

Boško has now focused all his work on the team's most outstanding talent, Milos Teodosic - the starting point guard of the Serbia and Montenegro U16 national team that won the European Championship. Maybe he is not as dazzling as another young Serbian talent, Darko Milicic, but he is already good enough.

As for the Chinese boy who was once so highly expected? I hope he can at least stay healthy and enjoy the joy of basketball. He can only play basketball for fun.

The talented youth team player Teodosic also walked into the field at this time. He was a taciturn man, just as lifeless as this city.

This kind of personality resulted in no one greeting him when he walked into the basketball hall, and he didn't talk to anyone.

Except Lynch.

This 16-year-old genius who already had a 35-year-old face nodded at Lynch, and then said in a cold tone, "Welcome back."

To be honest, Lynch felt that his face was completely incompatible with the identity of a "young genius".

His old face and unkempt, messy hair would only make you think that he was a sleazy middle-aged man selling pirated American pornographic CDs to passers-by on the banks of the Danube.

Even more inconsistent with his "genius" status, his only friend on the team is the "loser" Lin Qi. In the plots of third-rate novels, geniuses are always arrogant and insolent, the tools that try to step on the protagonist but end up being killed by the protagonist instead.

But Theo is different, he happens to have the best relationship with Lynch.

Theo's overly serious attitude and dull personality made him unpopular in the noisy youth team, and Lynch's Asian face also meant that he had few friends here.

Their teammates weren't exactly ostracizing them, but they were certainly not very enthusiastic about them. They seemed like the kind of guys who would never be invited to a class reunion.

However, there was some chemistry between these two weirdos.

The previous Lynch thought that Theo was actually cold on the outside but warm on the inside and very enthusiastic, and that Theo did not exclude Asian friends.

After greeting, Teodosic continued in a cold and emotionless tone: "Don't worry too much about getting hurt."

"Yeah." Lynch nodded in agreement.

"The first-team coach is coming to watch the game today."

"Oh, are you nervous?"

Theo didn't answer, just shook his head.

"Uh, water? I just bought an extra bottle."

"Do not."

Lynch:
No wonder this bastard has no friends. Every word he says sounds like an emotionless robot, and he never says a single extra word if he can be concise!

Talking to DeepSeek is more humane than him!
But then, this emotionless Serbian artificial intelligence said something that warmed Lynch's heart.

"I'll pass the ball to you later."

After some simple warm-up exercises, the training match was about to begin. Lin Qi was eager to see what this body with explosive static talent could do.

But in the end he found out that he was not included in the training match roster.

The youth team coach Boshko decided to tell Lynch a cruel news:

"I don't think you're ready to play yet. You're not currently on our official roster. In fact, Lynch, I think it would be more appropriate for you to return to the U16 team first."

God is my witness, Boshko has no personal grievances against Lynch, he just really doesn't want to see Lynch curled up in pain on the wooden floor after the confrontation.

This 203-centimeter skeleton looks like a damaged armored vehicle displayed in a war memorial, no longer usable.

Every year in Serbia, countless children enter the echelons of various clubs for training, from the age of 5 to 16, and put in years of hard work, but only a tiny handful can finally step onto the professional stage, and most of these children will lose the opportunity to pursue their dreams.

This is indeed cruel, but it is reality.

Lynch, who has been looking forward to it for a long time, obviously will not accept this result. In Europe, if you cannot play with the youth team at the age of 16, it is basically equivalent to saying goodbye to professional basketball.

"Going back to the U16 team? Are you kidding me? The team doctor said there's nothing wrong with my body! You're bald and you're still trying to save it with your hairstyle, why should I sit on the bench? I should also have a chance to try, even if it's just a few minutes of playing time!"

Boshko was both angry and surprised by Lynch's reaction, and subconsciously touched the top of his head.

Isn’t it obvious that I went bald early?

Didn’t I cover it perfectly with the hair on the side?!
Boshko was so angry that he immediately took out a comb and combed the hair on the top of his head, trying to cover his head more tightly to prove that he still had thick hair.

This behavior is full of self-deceiving ridiculousness, like "LeBron James trying to prove his innocence by spreading his hands."

"Don't go against my decisions, kid. Also," Boshko put away his comb and said word by word, "never question the amount of my hair! I just have soft hair that falls apart easily, so even though it may look thin at first glance, I actually still have a lot!"

Lynch was so angry that he laughed.

When a man gets cruel, he even deceives himself.

At this moment, Teodosic immediately grabbed Lynch and whispered, "Don't be impulsive."

"But."

"The first-team coach will definitely ask everyone to come out and show it."

"Ah? Really?"

"Even Boshko has to listen to him."

"That's it."

"So you'll get your chance too."

"Uh Theo, can you."

"Even if it's just 30 seconds, I'll find you with the ball."

“Thank you, but could you please…”

"But if you quarrel with him now, you might not be able to go on stage."

Lynch:
But could you please finish your words at once?
Doesn’t your CPU support you speaking longer sentences?

Although he was speechless, Teodosic's cold voice, like an AI, did calm Lynch's restless soul. He sat on the bench, waiting for the first-team coach to give orders.

Just like that, he was left out in the corner of the bench, watching his teammates running, jumping and shouting on the court, he felt like an outsider.

Lynch felt that fate had played a huge joke on him. Professional basketball seemed to be inextricably linked to him, yet it also seemed to have nothing to do with him.

Suddenly, a few lines of small words appeared in front of Lynch.

Due to repeated injuries, you only managed 35 minutes of playing time in the three years since joining the FMP club's senior team. Relying on the reputation of a European youth academy product, you returned to China to play in the NBL (China's secondary basketball league), only to encounter a wage arrears dispute with the team. Losing the courage to pursue your dream of professional basketball, you ultimately retired and became a coach for children's after-school programs, living an ordinary life while paying off your mortgage.

At 30, you look at those talented players who also came from the European youth training system and are now dominating the NBA. You regret your initial cowardice and rekindle your original desire for basketball and want to participate in the game again.

[Goal: Find the courage of your youth, bravely stand on the court again to compete, and pick up your dreams!]

[Reward: NBA role player skill package.]

(A new book is here, and I'm begging all the fathers to give me some advice, or rather, vote for me!)
Fathers, here I come, I’m back!



(End of this chapter)