The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 953 They Have Twin Towers

Although he lost the game, Gan Guoyang remained calm. He wasn't happy, but he wasn't too frustrated either.

The greatest lesson that sports can teach us is to accept failure and learn from it.

In any competitive sport, defeat is the main theme, and champions are no exception.

Behind every dazzling victory lies a somber defeat.

But failure does not mean annihilation, nor does it mean destruction.

They can be the prelude to victory, the stepping stone to progress.

As long as your athletic career isn't over, anything is possible.

Gan Guoyang walked to the Mavericks' bench, shook hands with Nowitzki, and hugged him, praising Nowitzki's good performance tonight.

With 21 points and 7 rebounds, Nowitzki did a decent job against Gan Guoyang's defense, but Nowitzki knew he was hesitant to take many shots. His role was to contain Gan, which was the pre-game plan.

Of course, Old Nelson told Nowitzki, "If you're not convinced, you can take on a few of them one-on-one and see how this old guy is doing now."

Nowitzki tried, but it was still difficult; he only managed one out of three shots. In the end, he gave up and decided to rely on tactics and teamwork.

Gan Guoyang's defensive skills and strength are one aspect, but he also has a strong presence; players with the ball will feel intimidated when facing him.

The Mavericks' real game-changer was Mike Finley and Eddie Jones, who tore apart the Glorious's weak perimeter defense.

Mike Finley, in particular, scored a game-high 35 points, the highest score on the team.

Gan Guoyang then said to Don Nelson, "You're a crazy old man. You don't play defense at all, just offense, offense and more offense. I think you don't want to win the championship."

Compared to more than a decade ago, Nelson looks much older, and his belly has grown considerably.

Old Nelson laughed heartily and said, "I just ran a little faster than the times, as for the championship... who knows? Anyway, it worked well for you, didn't it? You can't run anymore, Sonny."

This kind of high-scoring game format is indeed disadvantageous for a single-core team like Guanghui, as Gan Guoyang's scoring will be diluted.

This tactic was first used by the Nuggets in the 80s and is considered a relatively good way to deal with Gan Guoyang, reducing his contribution on both offense and defense.

"Yeah, I'm already a bit out of breath. I was already panting at the very beginning of the race, damn it, I used to finish a whole race without even panting."

"Heh, come on Sonny, don't try to fool me with those words. You've been panting since the beginning, right, right, right?"

"Lend your auspicious words."

"Welcome back."

The two hugged. Don Nelson can be considered Gan Guoyang's old rival.

In 1989, he led the Lakers to victory over the Portland Trail Blazers, making him one of the few coaches in the league to defeat Gan Guoyang in the playoffs.

Gan Guoyang's presence caused Don Nelson a great deal of trouble, but also gave him a lot of inspiration.

Nowitzki was, to some extent, a replacement for Gan Guoyang. Old Nelson saw certain qualities in the German, which solidified his decision to choose him.

After Gan Guoyang finished greeting the young people and old friends, and signed autographs for a few fans before leaving, Mavericks owner Mark Cuban ran over.

He wanted to shake hands and take a photo with Gan Guoyang, but Gan Guoyang looked at Cuban and asked, "Who are you?"

Cuban usually dresses very casually, with hoodies and jeans, or t-shirts and jeans being his standard attire.

He said somewhat awkwardly, "I'm Mark Cuban, the owner of the Mavericks."

"Oh, it's you... the guy who yelled 'Smash them, kill them' from behind the bench during the game, right? I was with the Trail Blazers back then."

Cuban was even more embarrassed. Not knowing how to respond, he kept scratching his head.

Gan Guoyang certainly knew Cuban; he did this on purpose to tease the big mouth.

Mark Cuban was one of the few owners who voted against the Glory's move to the NBA.

He believes that having an NBA team in Las Vegas would compromise the purity of basketball.

Even after everything was finalized and the vote approved the signing of the Radiant team, Cuban still stuck to his own ideas.

In reality, Gan Guoyang knew that Cuban had the financial backing of Las Vegas, and the entire state of Texas had deep ties with Las Vegas. Many casino owners in Las Vegas had businesses in Texas, and at the same time, the Las Vegas owners also wanted to expand their casino businesses to Texas.

The reason is simple: Nevada has too few people, while Texas has too many, making it a breeding ground for gambling.

By 2001, Nevada had only 210 million people and Las Vegas had 50 people. These populations were very small, not even comparable to a county in China.

Texas has a population of 2132 million, while Nevada's population is only a fraction of that.

Without people, there is no consumption, no employment, and no economic effect, so the prosperity of Las Vegas often depends on tourists.

But tourists are like migratory birds; they come last year, they come this year, but what if they don't come next year?
Therefore, a more stable permanent population is still needed. While Las Vegas is attracting people, its gambling industry is also expanding to places like California and Texas.

Gan Guoyang's arrival will naturally greatly boost the development of tourism, gambling, sports and other industries in Las Vegas.

But Las Vegas only has so many people, and the addition of the Glorious team will definitely take away some of the casinos' business.

As the saying goes, when a powerful dragon crosses the river, it is bound to clash with the local bullies over their interests.

With Mayor Oscar Goodman's mediation and Gan Guoyang's efforts, most business owners were willing to cooperate, but a small number were unwilling and naturally tried to obstruct the process.

Mark Cuban was a partner of the Adelson family, who were behind the scenes, and as a friend of the Adelson family, he naturally did his best to oppose Gan Guoyang bringing the NBA to Las Vegas.

As for why the Adelson family had a conflict with Gan Guoyang, it involves a business deal involving a Macau casino and their entanglement with Tang Jianguo.

When your wealth and interests reach a certain level, it's inevitable that powerful figures will encroach on each other's territory and fight each other.

Gan Guoyang emerged victorious in this contest, especially in the investment in Macau casinos, where the Adelson family suffered heavy losses, which explains why the two sides became enemies.

Deep behind this struggle lies a contest between nations. The Adelson family has long been a donor to Israel, while Gan Guoyang is backed by his own country.

The intricacies involved were beyond the comprehension of Mark Cuban, the small-time boss in the public eye. He thought Forrest Gump knew nothing and tried to make amends after the game to mend the relationship between the two sides.

Seeing Cuban's embarrassed look, Gan Guoyang had achieved his goal. He patted Cuban on the shoulder and said, "This is what you should do. No one will blame you, including your opponent."

Cuban has already figured out the double meaning in this sentence.

Gan Guoyang shook hands with Cuban and had a photographer take a picture of the two of them together.

Then, Gan Guoyang took off his jersey from tonight's game and gave it to Cuban, who finally smiled.

After Gan Guoyang left, Cuban realized to himself that Gan was a terrifying person both on and off the field. From now on, he'd have to be more careful around him, or he'd definitely get what's coming to him.

In the next decade or so, the only person who can make the NBA's number one basketball fan, owner, and the epitome of human fines, Mark Cuban, wary is Gan Guoyang.

Leaving Dallas with a defeat, the team had little time to reflect before immediately heading to San Antonio for a back-to-back game against the Spurs.

The Glorious team's schedule at the start of the season is also quite explosive. They started playing an away game in their second match and a back-to-back game in their third match.

The chartered plane departed from Dallas overnight, and upon arrival at its destination, the passengers immediately took a bus to a hotel to rest. It was already past midnight.

After everyone took a nap until noon, they packed up, had lunch, and then headed to the SBC center to warm up and get used to the venue.

The schedule was packed, but thankfully there was a chartered plane, the two cities weren't far apart, and the hotels and other facilities were good.

Gan Guoyang recalled that when they played away games in the Great Lakes region in the 80s, they often took a bus to the next city.

If you encounter back-to-back trains and then run into bad weather on the way, it's really a nightmare; whether you can even get there on time is a question.

On the way to the SBC Center, Gan Guoyang and Porter sat together, and Gan Guoyang told him about the 1984-1985 season, after the game in which he slammed Bill Laimbeer, the whole team was stuck on the way to Cleveland.

"The snowstorm was so bad that we had to find a hotel to stay in. Luckily, we had already arrived in Ohio, but the hotels were full, so we had to sleep in our car. Because I hit Lambir, the owner gave us free food and a wood-fired heater to prevent us from freezing to death in the car."

“Clyde told me about this. He heard that Jack was telling everyone a story in the car, and you were the first one to fall asleep.”

"I was so damn tired, and it was so warm in the car, why wouldn't I sleep? The price I paid was a photo of me with the boss. The year before last or the year before that, I went to that store when I went to Cleveland for a game, and my picture became their signboard advertisement."

Although Porter didn't experience that snowy night when the ship broke down, he could empathize with it the most, and the story had been told by the same group of veterans, including Clyde and Kiki, which left a deep impression on Porter.

Gan Guoyang told him these things and they resonated with him, while the other young players had no concept of them at all.

This is also why Gan Guoyang insisted on keeping Porter around to play. With this old friend and buddy by his side, he wouldn't be left without anyone to talk to.

Before the game started that evening, the Glory team was filled with a sense of fatigue.

Even without taking the bus, having just finished a match last night and then playing again today will still be a huge test of physical endurance.

Moreover, the game against the Mavericks involved a lot of running and was very physically demanding; some of the younger players still have sore legs.

This is just the beginning. It is foreseeable that by January next year, the team's young players will be even more unaccustomed to the new environment.

They will find that the NBA schedule is too intensive and the intensity is too high, and the so-called rookie wall will appear.

Tomjanovich is a very experienced coach, so he made contingency plans early on and designed several starting lineups as backups.

Apart from Gan Guoyang, who is a guaranteed starter, the other four positions will be changed depending on the actual situation.

For example, tonight, Terry Porter started, while Arenas was placed on the bench.

Arenas did have some impressive performances in the first two games, but his overall efficiency was too low, and his shooting percentage was even worse.

Tomjanovich demanded that Arenas work hard on his shooting and improve his shooting percentage in order to secure a starting position.

Tomjanovich hopes that while young players are valued by the team, they should not take starting positions and playing time for granted, but rather earn them through their performance.

Gan Guoyang had no objection to Tang Shuai's arrangement; he believed it was the right one.

Right now, the entire Glory team only has performance pressure, not much pressure to achieve results.

The first priority is to sell tickets; results are secondary. The key to selling tickets isn't winning, but first and foremost, for Forrest Gump to be able to play. Therefore, Coach Tomjanovich needs to further protect Forrest Gump and prevent him from getting injured.

Secondly, young players need to grow and be able to play beautiful games.

Judging from the first two games, Gerald Wallace's spectacular dunks and aggressive playing style are gradually attracting the attention of fans, while Arenas still needs more time.

Compared to the Glorious Spurs, the San Antonio Spurs this season also have young talents joining them, including two international players.

One of them is Manu Ginobili, a defender from Argentina.

In the 1999 NBA draft, the Spurs selected this South American player in the second round. At that time, many teams had no idea who this player was, but the Spurs had been eyeing him for a long time.

The Spurs' luck was shrunk after missing out on Tim Duncan in the 1997 NBA draft.

The management has intensified its efforts to scout overseas players in order to compensate for its lack of competitiveness in the domestic market.

Because it's a small market and lacks the appeal to superstars, the Spurs must work hard on the draft.

After being drafted, Ginobili did not immediately come to the United States to play; he still had a team contract.

After playing in the 1999-2000 and 2000-2001 seasons, Ginobili wanted to play for the Italian club for another year in an effort to defend his European title.

However, the Spurs tried their best to persuade him to come to the United States to play as soon as possible and showcase his abilities on a bigger stage.

After much hesitation, Ginobili finally decided to leave Italy and play in the NBA after the 9/11 attacks and Gan Guoyang's decision to make a comeback.

Because he didn't know how long Forrest Gump would stay in the league, he didn't want to miss the opportunity to face off against the greatest player of all time.

So Ginobili decided to join the Spurs and become a member of the Black and White Army.

With his extensive game experience, the 24-year-old quickly became Popovich's starting shooting guard.

Another young player is Pau Gasol, a young center from Spain, whom the Spurs selected with the fourth pick in this year's draft.

This handsome 7-foot-tall man from the Barcelona club has a physique that seems born for basketball.

His height is solid, a true 7 feet, with an excellent wingspan, agility, and a great shooting touch.

If we're talking about weaknesses, like most European interior players, he seems to lack physicality after coming to the United States, but this is something that can be improved.

The Spurs were missing just that kind of inside player, and since they didn't have Duncan, they set their sights on Gasol.

Throughout the 2000-2001 season, the Spurs tanked again. This time, they didn't need the number one pick; the fourth pick would have been enough.

With Ginobili, Billups, Pau Gasol, and David Robinson, who hadn't yet retired, the Spurs quietly rose again.

Before the game started, Gan Guoyang said to Tomjanovich, "Let me play center tonight."

Tomjanovic said, "Don't overexert yourself, the season has just begun."

"I didn't overwork myself; they have Twin Towers."

(End of this chapter)