Sports Medicine Master System

In front of Chen Yu, Little Curry was humble and well-behaved.

Chen Yu patted his shoulder.

He had shot up a bit compared to two years ago, so patting his head didn’t feel quite right anymore.

But Chen Yu still felt like he had watched him grow up.

"By the way, Seth told me you had a fight with your girlfriend and broke up. What happened?" Chen Yu asked casually.

Little Curry’s expression changed slightly. ’That loudmouth brother of mine!’ he thought, cursing inwardly. He then said awkwardly, "It was nothing. We’re back together now."

Chen Yu nodded and didn’t press for details.

Chen Yu wasn’t curious about the love lives of young people.

"By the way, Steve, has he been practicing his ball-handling in private?" Chen Yu asked, pointing at James.

There wasn’t much of an age difference between them, only four years.

After James arrived in Phoenix, the first thing Chen Yu demanded of him was to practice his ball-handling, or more specifically, his ability to be one with the ball.

The kid had a top-tier physique, but he had started formal basketball training relatively late. He’d spent too much energy on football, which created a problem: his fundamentals weren’t that solid.

Among these issues, Chen Yu felt the biggest one was his footwork.

His footwork was a bit choppy, especially on his first step. This might have been related to his time playing wide receiver in football.

A wide receiver has to catch the ball, keeping an eye on the quarterback’s pass. The moment of the catch requires small, adjusting steps to get into position. When facing defenders trying to block them, they also have to use their footwork to quickly change direction and evade them.

If you can’t take long strides, your steps are bound to be somewhat choppy.

Once these habits form, they’re hard to break.

And since his game was centered around driving to the basket, his footwork problems were bound to be magnified.

So, after learning that James and Curry often hung out together, Chen Yu had instructed James to learn from Curry’s ball-handling synergy.

When it came to being one with the ball, Little Curry, who had been training with Chen Yu for the past few years, had truly developed his skills. He was leagues ahead of James, an active NBA player.

Little Curry nodded repeatedly, saying that James was practicing very diligently.

It didn’t seem like he was just covering for him.

Chen Yu told Little Curry to go practice on his own and called James over to the tech table.

There was a pile of electronic equipment here now, so they had just started calling it the tech table.

Nelson was standing with his arms crossed, staring at several screens and watching everyone’s training.

For example, Yao Ming was wearing a motion-capture suit covered in sensors. All his movements were being turned into a simple humanoid model, recorded by software for analysis.

Chen Yu walked up, inserted a disc, and played a video on one of the screens.

"LeBron, come take a look."

Chen Yu pointed at the screen and said, "This summer, you’re going to practice these two moves."

James, Nelson, and the others all gathered around to watch.

"First move: the pull-up jumper after a high screen. I know the Knights had you practice this, but the results weren’t great, so you need to keep working on it."

"And then, in one-on-one situations, a fake drive followed by a pull-back jumper."

James stared intently at the screen, while Nelson subconsciously stroked his chin and began to think.

Chen Yu explained his reasoning for these requirements.

Over the past few days, Chen Yu and Nelson had held many meetings to discuss how to train and improve James’s shooting technique.

This wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision. It had to be based on the player’s physical condition, technical foundation, and even his future development trajectory.

After all, what suits you best is what’s best.

The pull-up jumper off a screen was the primary choice.

The Knights had Big Z and Boozer, so the quality of their screens was quite high.

After shaking off a defender, a pull-up mid-range shot was the best option.

The Knights’ coaching staff thought so too.

But again, his ball-handling synergy wasn’t good, making his footwork before a shot very awkward. So they had to fine-tune the details and keep practicing.

Then came the second move.

After one season, the league’s teams had more or less figured James out.

The kid’s greatest strength was his drive.

So when defending him, players would often give him a step to block his drive.

He had no long-range shooting ability.

This season, shots at the rim accounted for a high of 31% of his attempts, and he made 60% of them. However, his mid-to-long-range shooting percentage was a pitiful thirty-something percent.

And he attempted 2.7 three-pointers per game, which wasn’t a small number, but he only had a 29% success rate.

Even if they gave him space, it was hard for him to make the shot.

Faced with this kind of defense, someone like Tracy McGrady might just pull up and shoot.

But James couldn’t. His percentage on pull-up shots was very low.

Besides, even if they give you an extra step, with the athleticism of an NBA player, they can still contest your shot if you dare to shoot right away.

So, after much consideration, Chen Yu decided to build on James’s technical strengths. Since he excelled at driving, the plan was to have him initiate with a fake drive. When the opponent retreated and moved laterally to cut off his lane, he would immediately execute a sharp pull-back to create more shooting space.

"Then you can use this as a foundation. When your opponent is slow to react, you can choose to drive directly. If they close out fast, you can change direction and continue your drive. Once you’ve mastered it, you can add changes in rhythm to create even more scoring opportunities."

To put it bluntly, it’s about using rhythm, and Hardaway was a top master at that.

"Most importantly, starting next season, your driving environment will become much easier. This will be beneficial for you and is the best training direction considering your skillset," Chen Yu added.

James was taken aback.

Nelson, standing beside them, guessed why Chen Yu had said that and immediately asked, "Chen, is the league really going to ban hand-checking?"

The media had been reporting rumors about it for a while.

Chen Yu nodded. "It should be officially announced next Monday."

Without hand-checking, for a powerful driver like James, it would be like giving a tiger wings.

"Sir, I understand."

James had complete faith in Chen Yu’s words.

’How else would Chen know in advance when the league was going to make an announcement?’

"You go on and train for now. We’ll arrange the specific training plan," Chen Yu said, sending James off. He then waved Nelson over and led him toward the weight room.

As they walked, Chen Yu asked, "How’s Dako’s motivation in training?"

Chen Yu had been running around a lot recently, so his attention on things here had been limited.

And with Milicic being only 19, Chen Yu was worried he wouldn’t be able to control himself.

"It’s pretty good. Or rather, he’s much more diligent than I expected," Nelson said with a smile, then explained, "Look, he’s been here for over 20 days. We schedule four hours of training for him every day, and he does extra work on his own outside of that. It’s mainly practicing explosiveness and strength, just like you requested. He puts in at least two extra hours, which is a very high training intensity."

During the offseason, players who truly let themselves go like O’Neal were rare. Most would use this time to focus on improving their skills.

Two sessions a day, two hours each, for a total of four hours, was a normal training load.

For Milicic to add at least another two hours of extra practice meant he was essentially doing three sessions a day, which was a high intensity.

"Chen, I feel like finding him that translator, Alex, made a huge difference for him," Nelson added with another smile.

After knowing each other for over half a year, the two—one beautiful, the other handsome—had actually started dating.

Most importantly, the well-educated Alex served as a good role model for Milicic.

She was an ambitious young woman. Outside of work, she was always studying philosophy, constantly improving herself.

And her drive influenced Milicic as well.

Especially after they started dating, Alex would actively push Milicic, demanding that he be ambitious.

At the age of eighteen or nineteen, having a good role model and good company is incredibly important for shaping one’s worldview.

That’s why Nelson said that finding a good translator for Milicic back then was a great move.

Chen Yu laughed. "And you said back then that I only decided to hire Alex to find him a girlfriend."

They entered the weight room.

There were quite a few people here too.

On one side of the area, Milicic was training.

A tall Trainer was holding a huge contact pad, repeatedly ramming into Milicic, trying to knock him over.

Not only did Milicic have to resist these collisions, but he also had a resistance band tied around him. He had to sprint a distance of about seven meters, grab a two-meter-tall, oversized sandbag around its middle, and exert all his strength to slam it onto the ground.

One rep was a takedown slam, and the next would be an all-out vertical jump after the sprint.

The purpose of this training was clear: to build his explosiveness and core strength.

Chen Yu couldn’t even move that sandbag, yet Milicic had to lift it by its middle and slam it to the ground, a motion that required his entire body to fire at once.

And this was just one of his daily exercises. To improve his explosiveness, Chen Yu and Nelson had prepared many different training programs.

Right now, he was drenched in sweat, his clothes soaked through.

But he still completed every rep meticulously.

Chen Yu was very satisfied with this attitude toward training.

It just goes to show that every drop of sweat you put in won’t be wasted.

"Aaron, do you think he has a shot at playing small forward?" Chen Yu suddenly asked after watching for a while.

Nelson jumped.

"Chen, you must be kidding, right? The guy is seven feet tall. I know he’s agile, but small forward? Isn’t that a bit of a stretch?"

"Don’t get so worked up."

Chen Yu mused for a moment before saying, "You know that all our training is designed to help Dako create matchup advantages. So sometimes I think, if Dako could be even more agile, as agile as a small forward, then with his height and size, his mismatch potential would be enormous."

"Or, to put it another way, if there was someone nearly seven feet tall who could play like a guard, he would be incredibly formidable."

Nelson shook his head without hesitation. "Seven feet tall and playing like a guard? How is that even possible?"

"By the way, what’s his weight now?" Chen Yu asked.

Nelson replied immediately, "117.5 kilograms."

Milicic had been steadily gaining weight. He was 112 kg at the start of the season and had now put on over 5 kg.

"Don’t let him get any heavier," Chen Yu said.

The league was dead set on getting rid of hand-checking. Chen Yu had also been chatting and gossiping with people inside the league, and he had a faint premonition that the NBA’s overall focus was shifting toward the perimeter.

And in Milicic’s case, if he kept bulking up to bang with O’Neal, he wouldn’t be able to handle him even if he reached 130 kg.

He would also lose his agility.

Since he couldn’t handle him either way, it was better to stay leaner and prioritize agility.

Besides, no player can be perfect in every aspect, and interior defense is a team effort.

Plus, the Pioneers’ team-building philosophy was centered on offense, so Milicic needed to lean in that direction too.

Now, they were just waiting for Nash.

Based on the intel Chen Yu had received, Paul Allen was already planning to recruit Nash, and at any cost.