The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 955 Horror Story

A 35-point victory in a single game, a relatively easy win.

Gan Guoyang is no longer afraid of teams like the Spurs that play a slow and methodical style of play in the paint.

In positional warfare, no one is better, more experienced, or has more methods than him in terms of positional attack and defense.

On the contrary, Gan Guoyang would have a hard time playing against a fast-paced, high-scoring offensive team like the Mavericks.

The saying "the legs are the first to show signs of aging" is absolutely true.

So two days later, in Houston, the Glorious team unexpectedly lost to the mediocre Rockets.

The Rockets' winning strategy is simple: run, attack relentlessly, get the ball to the perimeter, drive, pass, shoot, drive, pass, shoot.

Rockets point guard Steve Francis has developed into a fairly good perimeter ball-handling scorer this season.

He and Mobley, with one driving and the other shooting, each averaging 20+ points per game, are a very sharp perimeter offensive duo in the league today.

The Rockets' interior defense is completely blue-collar, and in fact, the Rockets had the opportunity to further solidify their wing and guard positions during the draft.

They selected Richard Jefferson in the first round, a very good small forward and a classmate of Gilbert Arenas.

But the Rockets believe they need an inside player and a power forward, like Chris Webber did back in the day, to pair with Francis on the perimeter.

So they packaged Jefferson and traded him to the New Jersey Nets, acquiring power forward Eddie Griffin in return.

Like many talented players who enter the NBA, Eddie Griffin rose to fame at a young age. He was a nationally renowned player in high school, participated in the McDonald's All-American Game, and attracted national attention in his freshman year of college with a performance of 17.8 points, 10.7 rebounds and 4.4 blocks, and was considered one of the top picks in the 2001 NBA draft.

However, due to his attitude during the game, his market value declined all the way to the draft. The Nets selected him with the eighth pick and quickly reached an agreement with the Rockets to trade for Richard Jefferson. The fates of the two men diverged from then on.

Such stories unfold time and again in the NBA, with both joy and sorrow.

The new season has just begun, and it remains to be seen whether it will be a tragedy or a comedy.

But Houston fans should soon realize that Eddie Griffin is no match for Chris Webber.

Because when Webber was young, he was able to go toe-to-toe with peak Forrest Gump in games, and even had the upper hand in some rounds.

And Eddie Griffin? In his first game against Forrest Gump, he scored 0 points and grabbed 2 rebounds, while also giving Forrest Gump two blocks.

The gap between the NBA and college is so vast that after the game, Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson went to the locker room to comfort Eddie Griffin, telling him that not every game is as difficult and painful as the battles in the paint against Forrest Gump.

Meanwhile, Carroll Dawson also hopes that facing off against Forrest Griffin will help him correct his work attitude.

From the start of training camp, the Rockets noticed that Griffin was often late for training and left early, and lacked a strong competitive spirit, which was very detrimental to the development of a rookie.

The good news is that the Rockets at least won the game.

If the Glory team loses Gan Guoyang's strong performance on both offense and defense, their mistakes will be magnified.

The game against the Spurs exhausted some of Gan Guoyang's shooting touch, and the fatigue from back-to-back games also affected his performance.

With the last away game, everyone was eager to catch a plane and leave for the wonderful Las Vegas. This terrible schedule started with a three-game road trip in Texas.

The Rockets' home arena, Compaq Center, is quite dilapidated, and the atmosphere at the games isn't particularly enthusiastic.

Although the stadium was still packed when the game actually started, the fans weren't as enthusiastic as they were in Dallas and San Antonio.

They came more to see Forrest Gump than to see the Rockets; some fans arrived late, and others left early.

In 1986, the Rockets' twin towers battled the Portland Trail Blazers to seven games in the Western Conference Finals. More than a decade later, looking back, that game was the one that determined the fate of both teams.

From then on, the Trail Blazers climbed to the top step by step, while the Rockets' twin towers collapsed, Sampson was injured and retired, Olajuwon left, and Houston's basketball championship dream was never realized again.

After returning to Las Vegas, the Glorious team had two days to rest.

A record of 2 wins and 2 losses did not satisfy Gan Guoyang, and he wanted to spend all his time on training and tactical research.

But when he got home, Wang Fuxi told him that wouldn't work. He said that after returning from the away game, he should spend some time with the two children.

“I’m too busy with work, there’s a ton of stuff going on with the team. Your child just transferred schools, you need to spend some time with her. There’s a parent event at her school tomorrow, you should go, I really don’t have time. It’s been over a month.”

After his comeback, Wang Fuxi became even busier than Gan Guoyang, who was relatively free.

Although playing ball is tiring and often requires traveling long distances, the work is simple and routine, allowing you to focus on doing just one thing.

Especially at Gan Guoyang's age, training no longer needs to be too intense; only low to medium intensity is needed to maintain his condition.

Advertising, endorsements, and commercial activities will be arranged reasonably according to your competition schedule and training, with a team supporting you behind the scenes.

Moreover, having lived like this for over a decade, Gan Guoyang has long since adapted and is able to effectively manage and balance the pace of his work and life, maintaining a state of ease and composure.

Being a team owner is different. If the team has been running stably for ten or twenty years, the owner can simply be a hands-off manager.

However, the Glorious Team was rushed into the game. If NBA teams were likened to games, the Glorious Team went from preparation to launch in just one year, obtaining its license through a major event.

Then, from launch to official operation and charging, it only took a month and a half, and the server crashed on the day of launch as users frantically rushed in.

It is foreseeable that no matter how well the game is made, it will inevitably be riddled with bugs, and the programmers will have to work overtime to maintain it until they go bald. Various miscellaneous tasks and unexpected events will erode a person's energy every minute.

As the team owner, Wang Fuxi has to deal with all sorts of unexpected situations and problems every day. In order to achieve the perfect team operation, he has to be personally involved in everything from the team's strategic direction and the signing of partners and suppliers to the color of the stadium seats and the color scheme of the promotional posters, striving to create a good team culture environment in the first season.

Gan Guoyang understood Wang Fuxi's hard work, so he agreed to give up the training plan the next day and go to his daughter's school to participate in a parent activity.

Born in 92, Gan Wenyi is in the third grade this year. After studying in Portland for two years, she had to transfer to a school in Las Vegas with her parents this year.

My older brother, Gan Wenshan, is already in fifth grade. He doesn't want to leave Portland and insists on finishing elementary school.

In Portland, he was good friends with Kevin Love, Klay Thompson, Stephen Curry, and others, and they all attended Lake Hill Park School in Oswick.

After much consideration, the couple decided to let Gan Wenshan stay in Portland and stay with Klay Thompson.

After he graduates from elementary school, we'll transfer him to a middle school in Las Vegas. Anyway, boys are all grown up now.

If he insisted on staying in Portland to attend school, that wouldn't be impossible, but he would have to attend a boarding school. As for his youngest daughter, Gan Guoyang was absolutely unwilling to leave her, who was so young, in Portland, so he brought her to Las Vegas.

Moving or changing schools is a painful experience for children, as they have to leave behind familiar environments.

They have to part ways with their good friends and classmates and then adapt to a new environment and new friends.

When they left, the children always thought that one day they would return to their old friends and reunite with them.

In most cases, however, they will forget each other, and the other party will forget them as well.

Thus, they learned for the first time what true separation was and understood how feelings can be diluted by time.

For Gan Wenyi, this meant not only leaving familiar Portland and her friends, but also separating from her brother with whom she grew up.

Although the two often argued and fought, the girl still felt empty inside when she was truly separated from her brother and without his protection.

Gan Wenshan, on the other hand, was heartless and said things like "distance makes the heart grow fonder" and "I will call you every day." Then, with a sense of joy and exhilaration, he moved into Klay Thompson's house.

He would also occasionally go to Stephen Curry's house for a couple of days, and he had a good relationship with both brothers. Without his parents to discipline him, he was practically lawless.

Meanwhile, Gan Guoyang and Wang Fuxi have been busy with the new team, so busy that they are rarely seen together.

Gan Wenyi spent most of her time with her grandfather, while Gan Youwei himself was a patient whose memory was sometimes good and sometimes bad.

Of course, there were nannies and housekeepers at home to take care of him, and he didn't have to worry about food, clothing, or safety. But Gan Wenyi felt unfamiliar and lonely.

This resulted in Gan Wenyi not being in a very good mental state during the first few weeks after arriving in Las Vegas to study.

At school, she was unwilling to interact much with new teachers and classmates, was not active in class, and lost interest in many things she used to enjoy.

She wasn't in a good mood every day when she went to school, but no one bullied or targeted her.

Gan Guoyang has been busy with his new team and matches, and hasn't paid much attention to his daughter's growth for a long time.

After learning about these circumstances, he felt very guilty and went to his daughter's room to tell her a story before going to bed.

Gan Wenyi wasn't very interested in the fairy tales that ordinary children liked; she found them boring. She preferred to hear strange and unusual stories, even some scary ones.

Gan Guoyang was naturally unwilling to tell scary stories to a third-grade girl, fearing it would cause her psychological trauma.

But Gan Wenyi kept pestering Gan Guoyang to tell her the story. She said, "My brother has told me so many stories already, I'm not scared at all. Those things are all fake, just for fun, not scary."

Since 1999, affected by the espionage case, Gan Guoyang has not been able to spend much time with his daughter for more than two years.

Various events put immense pressure on the two children, and their personal safety was once threatened. The siblings helped each other through that period.

Faced with his daughter's request, Gan Guoyang found it really hard to refuse. He could only say, "Okay, I'll tell you one. If you get scared halfway through, just tell me and I'll stop, okay?"

"I'm sure I can listen to the whole thing, I'm not afraid."

"Okay, I'll tell you a story about... my boyfriend who died."

"I know my boyfriend, the kind we'll marry in the future."

"Not necessarily. Don't overthink things at such a young age. Listen carefully. This story takes place in 1988 in Portland, before you and your brother were born. Your father was playing for the Trail Blazers. On the side road of Interstate 5 in Oregon leading to the Holiday Inn, a young couple was driving out on a date. They parked their car under an oak tree on the side road. It was getting late, and the girl was a student; she needed to go back to her dorm to rest."

"But the car wouldn't start, so her boyfriend told her to stay in the car and he'd go to the nearby Holiday Inn to call for help. Back then, there were no mobile phones, only landlines. So he left and locked the car doors. The girl waited and waited in the car, but her boyfriend never returned. Suddenly…"

Gan Wenyi clung tightly to Gan Guoyang's strong arm for some sense of security. Gan Guoyang laughed and said, "How about it? Are you scared? Let's not talk about it anymore and go to sleep."

"No! I want to hear it all, please finish. I'm not scared, I'm just a little cold."

“Okay, I’ll continue. Suddenly she heard a scraping, scratching sound above her head, like something was scratching at the roof of the car. The girl was terrified, but she didn’t dare go out because it was too dark. She could only curl up in the car and fall asleep. When she woke up at dawn, her boyfriend still hadn’t returned. But a lot of people had gathered outside and rescued her from the car.”

"When she was rescued from the car, she almost fainted because she saw... her boyfriend hanged himself on that oak tree. The 'scratching' sound at night was his shoes scraping against the roof of the car. From then on, that road was called Hangman's Road~ Okay, that's all. You should go to sleep."

Gan Wenyi pouted and asked, "Why did he...?"

"Oh, there's no reason why, it's just a weird urban legend, don't overthink it. If you're scared, Dad will stay with you a little longer."

"No, there's nothing to be afraid of, Dad. I'm going to sleep now."

Gan Wenyi said he was not afraid and sent Gan Guoyang back to his room to sleep.

Fifteen minutes later, Gan Wenyi pushed open the door to his parents' room, crawled onto the big bed, and said he wanted to sleep with his parents.

Wang Fuxi asked curiously what was wrong, since it was agreed that he would sleep alone starting in the third grade.

Gan Wenyi said he was very scared after hearing his father's story.

After learning that Gan Guoyang was telling his daughter scary stories before bed, Wang Fuxi angrily kicked him out of the room and told him to sleep on the sofa while she slept with her daughter.

Gan Guoyang rolled his eyes at his daughter and said, "It's what you wanted to hear!"

Wang Fuxi threw a pillow at him: "I think you're getting more and more unreliable as you get older, and you're going backwards as you get older!"

The next day, on the way to school with his daughter, Gan Wenyi said to Gan Guoyang, "Dad, tell me another scary story tonight."

"Please spare me, my dear daughter. You won't be able to sleep, and these stories are boring. Go listen to some meaningful, interesting, and beautiful stories."

No, I like it.

"But you're scared."

"I like it too. The more afraid I am, the more I want to try. Besides, there's nothing to be afraid of. I'll be fine as long as I don't have a boyfriend in the future."

"Oh, that's a good idea."

Later, during a school event, Gan Guoyang donated a modern gymnasium to the primary school and named it after his daughter.

From then on, Gan Wenyi felt much better about going to school.

(End of this chapter)