The Golden Age of Basketball

The goal is to enhance Yao Ming’s instinct in sports and imagination in offense, attributes which Yao Ming already possesses.

If you don’t pay attention to developing them, instead focusing solely on increasing his muscle mass and weight, following the American method of adding volume and intensity, it may have miraculous short-term effects, but in the long run, it won’t be beneficial to his career development.

This year, Yao Ming is only 26 years old, and Gan Guoyang hopes he can maintain his competitive edge on the court for another 10 years, both to uphold the Glory Team’s reputation and to bring honor to the national team.

"I can only nurture you to this point, but as for who you nurture afterwards, that’s beyond my control," Gan Guoyang said to Yao Ming during training.

Yao Ming is a very perceptive person, recently sensing something, wondering if Ah Gan is planning to retire? Is this his last season?

But unlike Jordan and Kobe, Yao Ming sees through but doesn’t speak out, remains tight-lipped, only doubling his efforts in training and games, especially focusing on greatly improving his shooting technique.

In his rookie season, under Gan Guoyang’s recommendation, Yao Ming began to correct and improve his shooting form, making the release arc higher and the spin stronger.

Habits formed from a young age, muscle memory, really aren’t easy to change, but Yao Ming kept modifying while playing in the NBA and over the past two seasons, he truly has changed.

The release point lowered, the ball-protection position of the left hand changed, the curvature of the upper arm increased, adding force to the forearm rather than relying solely on wrist strength.

Unlike Gan Guoyang’s shooting style with straight arms relying purely on wrist strength, very few in the world can shoot like that because it requires massive strength to shoot threes that way.

Yao Ming can’t manage it, relying too much on wrist strength, which works well for close range, but the trajectory is too straight for mid to long-range shots, resulting in a low shooting percentage.

Through scientific training and intensive practice, Yao Ming developed better shooting, with Gan Guoyang emphasizing the importance of shooting.

"The future NBA will belong to players with excellent shooting skills. Your touch and talent are exceptional, so don’t miss out. Train hard and improve every season. Don’t just look at shooting percentages; they can be misleading. Trust your own feel on the court."

The entire Glory Team places a high value on shooting practice. They not only have dedicated shooting coaches but also a specialized "shooting group" to study players’ shooting trajectories, shooting percentage heat maps, and shooting posture analysis, all aimed at improving seemingly trivial but crucial shooting percentages that can determine victory or defeat.

After Christmas, Glory Team has three more games in all of 2006, all away games.

On December 27th, an away game against the Detroit Pistons.

The Pistons have been trying to rebuild for years but haven’t found the right direction.

It wasn’t until they traded for Ben Wallace in 2005 that they found a glimmer of hope.

Then they got Rashid Wallace and drafted Ben Gordon, traded for Ricky Davis, returning to the aggressive defense that marked their "Bad Boys" era, which gave them some competitiveness again.

However, Ben Wallace, now 32, left his best years in Portland, and what he brings to Detroit is gradually diminishing.

Rashid Wallace joined the Pistons and formed a "Wallace duo" with Ben Wallace, a unique and highly defensively impactful pairing among the league’s many frontcourt combinations.

Ben Gordon has grown into one of the league’s standout scorers this year, his backcourt pairing with Raymond Felton, although slightly lacking in height, still boasts solid offensive and defensive capabilities.

In this game, the Pistons played very well at home, dealing blows to the somewhat relaxed Glory Team, fresh off Christmas.

The absence of Gerald Wallace exposed many defensive gaps on the flanks for Glory, which the Pistons repeatedly exploited with mid and long-range shots.

In the end, the Detroit Pistons took a 103-98 home victory over Glory.

The highlight for Glory in this game was Yao Ming scoring 33 points, marking his highest single-game score of the season.

The problem is, as Yao Ming increased his shots and ball possession, Glory’s offense exhibited some issues.

Movements stagnated, passing was not smooth, and Yao Ming’s five turnovers were quite damaging to the team.

These are the challenges Yao Ming must face with the shift in ball possession, learning to control the team’s offensive rhythm.

Losing is part of the learning process.

Gan Guoyang has become incredibly calm about losing.

Excuses like poor performance or some "ugly girl" excuse just don’t matter to him.

After the game, when interviewed, he even said, "Without losses, where would wins come from? I almost enjoy losing now, as failure is the mother of success; it shows that I’m not far from success and victory."

He was obviously joking, indicating his mindset at the time, where his desire to win or lose is diminishing, or rather, it’s becoming more focused.

Focused on June, focused on the true last game.

After leaving Detroit, they headed to Chicago, the second stop of the Eastern trip.

When the 2002-2003 season ended, Jordan’s championship victory with Glory completely crushed Jerry Krause.

Krause resigned, and the Bulls entered another rebuilding phase, with Krause’s legacy pieces again being sold off and thoroughly cleaned out.

In the fast-changing world of the NBA, leaving a legacy for others to enjoy is not an easy feat.

Ah Gan’s legacy gave the Trail Blazers a championship, but Jordan left nothing behind, and they’ve never truly risen again, remaining mostly in the middle tier, unable to find the glory of when Michael Jordan was there.

With a score of 100-87, Glory easily secured a victory in Chicago.

Iverson led the team with 38 points, Yao Ming scored 26 points, and Gan Guoyang showed an ordinary performance with 15 points, 14 rebounds, 5 blocks, and 11 assists, a triple-double.

In recent games, his blocks have been increasing. In a post-game interview, he irritably said, "Recently, my average blocks per game are increasing because the youngsters aren’t afraid of me anymore, everyone wants to score above my head, charging in instead of avoiding me! Damn, I need more respect!"

Everyone knew Ah Gan was speaking nonsense, and since no one in the league can control him now, he says what he likes and plays how he likes.

The last game of 2006 was on December 31st, at 7:30 PM at Cleveland Gund Arena against the Cavaliers, and after that, they would return to Vegas, welcoming 2007.

On the 30th, Glory Team arrived in Cleveland, where the weather wasn’t good, continually snowing.

Gan Guoyang was long accustomed to it, as snow always fell during their December and January road trips to Michigan, Ohio, and other states in the Midwest.

If he didn’t see snowflakes or flights weren’t delayed, he found it strange, declaring, "It’s a sign of global warming, mainly because Americans are farting too much."

On the same day, a major news story broke on TV: on the morning of December 30th, Baghdad time, former Iraqi President Saddam was sentenced to death by hanging.

He was executed by the US Army at a camp north of Baghdad, leaving his final footage publicly broadcasted on TV, marking the end of a historical era.

Gan Guoyang and his teammates watched the broadcast in the hotel restaurant, and everyone was silent, having witnessed a man being led to the gallows.

Gan Guoyang recalled the 1991 Gulf War, when all America was fervently passionate and supportive of the country’s just actions, with many American players donning jerseys embroidered with the Star-Spangled Banner during games.

More than a decade later, the primary villain was gone, but the vibrant, enthusiastic patriotism of Americans had all but vanished.

Nobody wanted to discuss war anymore, and instead, movies reflecting on wars, such as "Jarhead," were appearing.

Americans seemed to always do this: fight without a second thought, then reflect on the heaps of issues after the fight, yet it wouldn’t affect them going to fight again and then reflect afterwards.

Make mistakes, correct them, make them again, and then correct them again.

On December 31st, the team warmed up in the afternoon, preparing for the evening game.

Iverson came over holding a newspaper, handing it to Gan Guoyang, saying, "Look at Sonny, some interesting remarks."

"Remarks? What’s that? Did he say Saddam was betrayed by me?"

Gan Guoyang took the newspaper, reading from the Cleveland Plain Dealer sports section.

[LeBron James stated that the 42-year-old Ah Gan is his role model. He aspires to work in the league for as long a time and play like Ah Gan, becoming a versatile warrior adept in defense and organization.]

"Oh boy, I’ve become a versatile warrior skilled in organization and defense?"