The longest river

Chapter 21

The tournament schedule is two matches a day, one in the morning and one in the afternoon.

The Geswell team's afternoon opponent was not as strong as the Miracle team, but they had a tougher time than in the morning.

Thaddeus believed the team's lack of stamina was due to the high intensity of the morning's match and didn't pay much attention to it.

However, after returning to the hotel from the afternoon's game, Yang Shuai, Pierce, and Garnett got together to talk about their teamwork issues.

Ultimately, they all agreed that Garnett should initiate more of the team's positional offense.

Because Pierce is essentially a scorer, his passing vision and awareness are not as good as Garnett's.

Moreover, Garnett is not a traditional center; he can play high post playmaking, open up the paint, and greatly help the team attack the opponent's paint.

The defining characteristic of young people is that they act on their impulses, and when the competition started the next day, they followed the new competition strategy.

As a result, they took less than three quarters to build a 30-point lead over their opponents, and the game became completely one-sided.

Such matches continued to happen to the Geswell team, who won one victory after another, ultimately advancing to the knockout stage with a perfect record.

The so-called physical fitness problem disappeared without a trace in them.

This performance has attracted increasing attention from scouts and reporters, who consider them a team overflowing with talent.

The most direct result was that their rankings on various lists improved. Garnett began to break into the top three of the 1995 rookie lists on various media outlets, and Pierce also broke into the top forty.

Of course, the one who improved the most was Yang Shuai.

原本排名1995届120名的他直接坐火箭似得，先是直接杀进前100，然后90、80、70，最后杀到了69名。

Looking back at Paul's advice now, it fully illustrates that choice is more important than effort.

The tournament entered the knockout stage on the fifth day, and Team Geswell's performance remained undiminished.

They eliminated their opponents one by one and finally made it to the tournament finals.

The final match was played on the last day, and the venue was changed to the Thomas Mark Center, the home stadium of the University of Las Vegas (UNLV).

This is an NBA-level arena that can accommodate more than 18,000 spectators.

Yang Shuai couldn't imagine what it would be like to play basketball there when he was at the Western Forum Arena before, but now he has the opportunity to experience it in advance.

Paul also came to Las Vegas the day before the final.

He brought Yang Shuai some important news: a "big shot" named Sonny Vaccaro would be at the final tomorrow.

Yang Shuai didn't know who Vaccaro was, but he learned about this legendary figure from Paul's subsequent introduction.

Everyone knows that Jordan built Nike's current brand status, but few people know that Nike's success is inseparable from Vaccaro's existence.

It was Vaccaro who introduced Jordan to Nike and persuaded Nike executives to bet everything on Jordan when they were hesitant.

In a sense, Vaccaro was the mastermind behind the Nike empire.

However, due to a conflict of interest and a falling out with the president of Nike, Vaccaro followed former Nike vice president Rob Strasser and chief designer Peter Moore to Adidas.

Of course, these business matters are not very relevant to Yang Shuai now. What is truly relevant to him, and the most important point that Paul and Yang Shuai talked about, is that Vaccaro once founded an elite basketball training camp for high school students at Nike, and it became very famous.

After Vaccaro moved to Adidas, he also brought the training camp with him and named it the ABCD Training Camp.

So when he sent the videotape to the coach, he also tried to send a copy to the Vaccaro team, but it never came to fruition.

Either Vaccaro himself didn't see the recording, or Vaccaro felt Yang Shuai wasn't good enough after watching it; in any case, the previous plan failed.

But now that Vaccaro himself is at the match, there couldn't be a better opportunity.

If Yang Shuai can perform well and catch the eye of Vaccaro, joining the ABCD training camp, it would be even more beneficial to him than this AAU tournament.

Because in those elite training camps, scouts and media attention will be more focused, and there may even be NBA scouts present.

So, to sum it up, this is a game he absolutely must play well.

In this era, there was no social media, and video recording equipment was rarely seen in events of this level, making it very difficult to study opponents.

However, during the training session on the day of the final, Thaddeus still shared as much information as he knew with his players.

Their opponent in the final is the Paterson team, the defending champions of the previous tournament, who defeated them by 60 points in the previous championship game.

The core of the Paterson team is Tim Thomas.

Thomas is a 2.08-meter-tall power forward whose strength lies in his versatility, especially on the offensive end. He was the number one high school player in the nation in the class of 1996, starting in ninth grade.

The team's other key player is small forward Vince Carter, nicknamed "The Sun" because he comes from Daytona Beach.

Yang Shuai has been playing on this court for the past few days, and he's heard these two names quite a bit. Especially Carter, whom Paul mentioned when discussing the class of 1995, and he even knew about the nicknames "UFO" and "half-man, half-god" from his past life.

In addition, another player worth noting on this team is Carter's high school teammate Kevin Freeman, a five-star high school player from the class of 1996, a 2-meter forward who can play both inside and outside;

Edmund Sanders, a 1'96" shooting guard from Arizona, was ranked 58th in the 1995 class.

"The biggest difference between them this year and last year is the addition of two new players from Philadelphia, Kobe Bryant and Richard Hamilton, both from the tenth grade."

When Thaddeus said this, Yang Shuai was completely stunned.

He wasn't very familiar with Hamilton, but if he remembered correctly, he was one of the Pistons' "Fab Five".

But Kobe, even those born in the 00s are familiar with Kobe.

In fact, even in this era, Kobe, as a second-generation NBA player, was quite well-known among high school students.

Kobe, Hamilton, Carter, Thomas... What an incredible lineup!
Yang Shuai now understood why Vaccaro had come to the event in person; among high school students, this was definitely a star-studded event.

However, this also gave Yang Shuai greater motivation. If he could stand out in such a competition, his ranking could soar once again.

On the day of the competition, the Mark Center was more than half full, with nearly 10,000 people watching the game, setting a new record for the highest attendance at an AAU Championship event.

When Yang Shuai came out of the player tunnel, he was still shocked by the scene in front of him, even though he was mentally prepared.

The vast, dark mass of people, stretching as far as the eye could see, along with the chaotic atmosphere, could instantly ignite a surge of excitement.

However, his gaze soon settled on the middle of the stands, where Rondo was frantically waving at the players on the court.

Lin Xiulan actually brought her whole family to the scene, and she didn't even tell him before the match!
This gave him a huge surprise.

Yang Shuai waved back at them, and having family and friends present at such a crucial match was a great encouragement.

In fact, most of the audience members were parents of the tournament participants. Although their children were eliminated one after another, they still couldn't miss the final.

In a prominent position in the front row of the audience, there was a short, stout Italian man wearing a wrinkled warm-up uniform, with stubble on his face that he hadn't shaved all day, and droopy eyelids, looking like a mafia boss—that was Vaccaro.

After the opening ceremony, the starting lineups for both sides took to the field one after another.

It was at this moment that Yang Shuai was surprised to find that Kobe was actually the starting point guard for Patterson's team, which was very unusual.

Garnett beat Thomas in the jump, giving the Geely team possession of the ball on offense.

After advancing into the attacking third, Garnett held the ball high at the top of the arc, while Pierce and Yang Shuai made off-the-ball runs on the wings.

Pierce finally found an opportunity, receiving a pass from Garnett and taking a mid-range shot.

The timing of his shot was good, but at the very moment of release, a figure suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of him, like a ray of sunlight shining down.

Pierce was forced to raise his shooting angle, and although he barely avoided being blocked, the shot ultimately went completely airball.

The crowd gasped in amazement.

Yang Shuai could see it clearly from a distance; Carter jumped so high, it was as if he were flying.

Freeman secured the defensive rebound, glanced ahead after landing, and then delivered a long pass to the frontcourt.

On the other end of the ball, Kobe was already galloping ahead like a wild horse.

After receiving the pass, he slowed down, took a big step, and leaped up, performing a gliding dunk with the ball in both hands, switching to one hand in mid-air.

That dunk instantly ignited the arena.

Garnett faked a shot at the top of the key and drove past Thomas, then took the shot despite Freeman's help defense.

Although Freeman has good speed, he is much shorter than Garnett, so his interference with the ball is limited.

But then the sunlight came again.

Carter flew out from the side and swatted the ball onto the backboard before it reached its highest point.

Moreover, his speed is extremely fast. After landing, he seems to have springs under his feet and quickly bounces up to grab the defensive rebound.

Patterson's team launched another fast break, and this time Kobe delivered an alley-oop pass during the break, which Thomas followed up with a powerful alley-oop dunk.

4:0.

The Paterson team not only demonstrated the strength of the defending champions, but also featured a series of outstanding performances from players such as Carter, Kobe, and Thomas.

Compared to the Geswell team, they are the ones who truly have overflowing talent.

　I hope everyone will continue reading and vote for me! Your continued reading and support are my motivation to keep going.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)