NBA: Northeast China's spectacular dunks sweep the entire league.

The news of Musselman's dismissal exploded like a depth charge in the locker room.

Everyone expected a storm to break out, but what happened? Nothing. There were no tears, no slamming of tables or cursing, not even a proper farewell. The players left in small groups, like they'd just attended a boring funeral, going about their own business.

When Lin Hao came out of the tactics room, the corridor was already empty. He walked towards the locker room with his head down, his mind filled with Mu Lin's words—"A madman who can afford to play with 'speed'."

madman.

This title is quite uncommon in the NBA. The last one was "Mad Scientist," and that person was Don Nelson.

Lin Hao paused, his heart skipping a beat. Could it be? Wasn't that old guy retired in Dallas? Besides, he's 67 this year, how could he still be so energetic?

"Lin! Wait for me!" Payton's voice came from behind.

Lin Hao didn't stop and kept walking. Peyton caught up, put his arm around his shoulder, and whispered, "Did you hear? Who is that old fox Mullin talking about?"

"I don't know," Lin Hao said expressionlessly.

"Come on, stop pretending with me." Payton twirled a toothpick in his mouth. "What you said to Musselman just now was practically telling him to 'get fired.' You know exactly what you're doing."

Lin Hao stopped and turned to look at Payton. There was no blame in the veteran's eyes, only a kind of curiosity that seemed to say, "You little brat, give me a piece of your mind."

"Uncle Payton," Lin Hao said, "I only know one thing—starting tomorrow, our running style will change. I don't know how much it will change, but it's definitely not the kind of change where we have to squat in the toilet."

Payton paused for a moment, then burst into laughter: "Damn, you're making it sound so real. Okay, I'll be waiting."

When the two entered the locker room, it was already in an uproar.

Backup center Foyle stood in the middle, waving his arms and shouting as if he were arguing: "I'm telling you guys, this isn't normal! Changing coaches before the season is even over, this is clearly using us as an example! Who's next? There's definitely going to be big moves before the trade deadline!"

"Give me a break," Richardson said, sitting in his chair and untying his shoelaces. "Changing managers isn't the first time. Musselman's system should have been replaced a long time ago."

"Change? Change to whom?" Foyer retorted. "Who else is on the market now? Larry Brown? That old man is even more stubborn than Musselman."

"Maybe it'll be someone even crazier," backup point guard Boykins muttered quietly from a corner.

Everyone fell silent and turned to look at him.

Boykins shrugged and pulled out his phone: "You guys see for yourselves. ESPN just released a report saying the Warriors' management has contacted Don Nelson."

"Old Nelson?!" Foyer nearly jumped out of his chair. "That old madman? How old is he? Can he still coach?"

"67," Lin Hao said calmly.

Everyone looked at him. Lin Hao didn't explain, walked to his locker, and began to change his clothes.

"Lin, what do you think?" Richardson asked.

Lin Hao took off his training clothes, revealing his well-defined muscles, with several physique tape patches on his back. He didn't turn around, his voice frighteningly calm: "I'll watch from here."

"..."

The scene became awkward at one point.

Payton quickly smoothed things over: "Alright, alright, stop guessing. Coaching is management's job; our job is to play basketball. Whoever comes in, we still have to put the ball in the basket."

"Well said." Lin Hao suddenly turned around, looking at everyone, his eyes sweeping across each face like knives. "But I'll make this clear—whoever comes, I have only one request: don't hinder my winning. Whoever hinders me, I'll kick them out."

After saying that, he picked up his bag and left.

The locker room was completely silent.

After a long pause, Foyer swallowed hard. "He...he's threatening management?"

Peyton patted him on the shoulder and sighed, "No, he's threatening you."

---

As Lin Hao walked out of the stadium, his phone vibrated. It was a text message from Zhao Dabao:

"Haozi, I've delivered the things you asked me to pick up. It's SF Express, it'll arrive tomorrow. Also, I asked around, and that old madman is indeed talking to Warrior. And I heard he made a condition—"

Lin Hao stopped and stared at the screen.

Another text message came in: "He wanted the position of president of basketball operations for the team, plus a four-year contract. That old fox Mullin actually agreed."

Lin Hao stared at the text message for a full ten seconds, then smiled.

That old man is a madman.

Generally speaking, a head coach is just a head coach, at most holding a nominal vice president position. But Don Nelson went a step further, directly becoming the president of basketball operations, which means he'll be in charge of personnel, trades, and the draft, and even the general manager has to listen to him.

This isn't a coaching position; it's a power grab.

Lin Hao put his phone in his pocket and looked up at the Auckland night sky. The fog had lifted, and the stars were shining brightly.

"Interesting," he said in a low voice.

---

The atmosphere in the training hall was off the next morning.

As the players arrived one after another, they found several unfamiliar cars parked outside, and a few unfamiliar faces in suits wandering around the corridor. Most absurdly, there was a note posted on Mullin's office door that read: "Meeting in progress, please do not disturb."

"They're negotiating a contract," Payton said, a toothpick dangling from his lips, looking completely unconcerned. "I'm telling you, practice is definitely canceled today. Don't bother changing, just wait."

Sure enough, ten minutes later, the assistant coach came out to announce: the morning training session was canceled, and everyone would meet at 2 p.m. at that time, when the new head coach would meet with everyone.

"See? I told you so." Peyton proudly raised his chin.

Lin Hao ignored him and went to the weight room by himself. No matter who the coach was, he couldn't let his body go to waste. He did three sets of bench presses, five sets of squats, and then trained his core strength for half an hour. His clothes were soaked with sweat before he stopped and leaned against the wall to catch his breath.

A notification suddenly popped up in my head:

[A major change in the team's environment has been detected. The host is advised to prepare to adapt to the new tactical system.]

[System Prompt: If the new coach's tactical philosophy aligns perfectly with the host's abilities, there is a chance to unlock the hidden ability: [Run-and-Gun Core]. This ability increases the team's offensive and defensive transition speed and reduces the team's passing error rate.]

[Would you like to preview this capability in advance?]

Lin Hao was stunned for a moment. Run-and-gun core? This system can even provide team buffs?

"Preview," he murmured to himself.

A semi-transparent panel appeared before my eyes, with several lines of text written on it:

[Run-and-gun Core (Not Activated): When the host becomes the initiator of the team's offense, the entire team's movement speed increases by 10%, passing vision increases by 15%, and shooting interference resistance increases by 5%. This effect fluctuates based on the host's performance on the court.]

[Unlock condition: Achieve a tactical alignment of over 90% with the new head coach.]

Lin Hao stared at the panel, his heart pounding. Wasn't this an ability tailor-made for him? He was already a scorer; if he added a team buff, how terrifying would the Warriors' offense become?

"90% compatibility..." he repeated in a low voice, "Then we'll have to see just how crazy that old madman really is."

---

Two o'clock in the afternoon, in the tactics room.

All the players were present, even the rookies who were usually late for practice sat quietly, not daring to make a sound.

The door opened, and Mulin walked in, followed by an old man with gray hair and gold-rimmed glasses.

Old Nelson.

This was the first time Lin Hao had seen this legendary madman up close. The old man was wearing a dark blue suit, without a tie, and his shirt collar was open, revealing a section of his wrinkled neck. He wasn't holding a tactical board in his hand, but rather a stack of papers—printed copies of the "Northeast Sniper's Handbook" that Lin Hao had given to Mu Lin yesterday.

"Ladies and gentlemen," Mullin began, "I would like to formally introduce the team's new head coach and president of basketball operations, Mr. Don Nelson."

Scattered applause rang out in the tactics room. Old Nelson ignored it, walked straight to the podium, and slammed the stack of papers on the table with a dull thud.

"I won't waste words," Old Nelson said, his voice hoarse like sandpaper rubbing against glass. "Your defense is awful. Your offense is awful. Your tactics are awful."

The audience was silent.

"But this isn't your fault." Old Nelson pushed up his glasses. "It was your previous coach who turned you into trash. From today onwards, forget everything from before. I'm going to teach you how to play basketball again."

He flipped open the stack of papers, and the first page was a heat map hand-drawn by Lin Hao.

"Who wrote this?" Old Nelson held up the page, his eyes scanning everyone.

Lin Hao raised his hand.

Old Nelson stared at him for three seconds, his lips twitching as if he was trying to suppress a laugh.

"Hey kid, come here."

Lin Hao stood up and walked to the front of the podium.

Old Nelson handed him the paper: "Read page three, line seven."

Lin Hao took the paper, glanced at it, and read it aloud: "Basketball isn't like playing mahjong; you can't wait for others to play. You have to steal, you have to snatch the ball from the opponent."

"Read the second paragraph on page eleven again."

"The saying 'defense wins championships' is bullshit. You only win if you score more points than your opponent. No matter how good your defense is, if you can't score, you'll still lose."

Old Nelson laughed heartily, his laughter echoing in the tactics room and making the windows buzz.

"Good! Well said!" He patted Lin Hao's shoulder hard, making a loud thud. "You're just my type!"

All the players were dumbfounded. What kind of move was this? The first thing the new coach did was to have a second-year student read what he had written?

Mullin stood by, smiling silently, his eyes conveying the message, "I knew this would happen."

Old Nelson turned around, looked at everyone, and his smile suddenly vanished, replaced by an almost manic seriousness.

"From today onwards, the Warriors will not play half-court games. We're going to run, we're going to shoot, we're going to break their legs, we're going to burst their lungs." He pulled a stopwatch out of his pocket. "Seven seconds. From the backcourt to the frontcourt, the shot, a maximum of seven seconds. If you haven't shot by seven seconds, even if it goes in, it's a turnover."

"Coach, this..." Foyer raised his hand to speak.

"Shut up!" old Nelson roared. "I didn't tell you to speak, so shut up!"

Foyer shrank back in fright.

"I know what you're thinking." Old Nelson threw his stopwatch on the table. "'This old man's crazy,' 'This can't be won,' 'We're going to get crushed'—right? I'm telling you, you're right, it really is crazy. But only madmen can win, normal people can only watch others win."

He walked to the whiteboard, picked up a marker, and drew a line on the whiteboard.

"This is your strategy." He wrote "Backcourt" on one end of the line and "Frontcourt" on the other. "Run from one end to the other, shoot. It's that simple."

"Complex things are for smart people. But I don't need smart people, I need madmen." Old Nelson threw down his marker. "Who's the madman? Raise your hand."

Lin Hao was the first to raise his hand.

Payton is the second one.

Richardson was the third.

Boykins is the fourth.

One by one, all the players raised their hands.

Old Nelson looked at the raised hands and smiled, a smile that carried a shrewd satisfaction.

"Okay," he said, "then let's go crazy for them."

---

The training started at 3 p.m. and didn't end until 9 p.m.

Don Nelson's training methods are completely different from Musselman's. There are no complicated tactical runs or complex zone defense formations; it's all about one word—running.

Fast attack, fast attack, and more fast attack.

Once the ball crosses half-court, shoot regardless of whether there's an opportunity or not. It doesn't matter if you miss, but you have to shoot quickly.

After six hours of training, everyone was exhausted. Foyer lay directly on the floor, panting like a dead dog. Payton clutched his knees, his face flushed red. Even Lin Hao, a stamina monster, felt his legs go weak.

"Alright, that's enough for today." Old Nelson stood on the sidelines, a cigar dangling from his lips. "We'll continue tomorrow. That's all for now."

The players dragged their weary bodies out. Lin Hao was the last to leave, and as he reached the door, Old Nelson called him back.

"Hey kid, wait a minute."

Lin Hao turned around.

Old Nelson walked up to him and handed him a stack of printed copies of "The Northeast Sniper's Handbook".