The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 159

The trip to Salt Lake City was short; Drexler left a dunk but didn't take any money, returning to Portland with the team.

The Trail Blazers then had two days to rest, but unexpectedly lost to the Kansas City Kings at home on December 4.

One reason is that Valentine missed this game due to injury. He strained his leg in the previous game against the Jazz while driving to challenge Mark Eaton.

He didn't pay attention during the game and insisted on finishing it. Only after the game did he feel pain in his left inner thigh. The Trail Blazers immediately initiated medical procedures and asked Valentine to rest and undergo examination.

In the past, a simple strain like this would have been treated and he could have returned to the court after a couple of days of rest. Now that the Trail Blazers are on a winning streak, they certainly hope to keep it going.

However, having learned from past experiences, the Trail Blazers are indeed paying more attention to player injuries, and as the season progresses, more and more players will experience physical problems.

Many players seem unremarkable when they're on the team, but you only realize how important they are when they're absent.

Valentine contributes 10 points and 6 assists per game. With him controlling the ball, the Trail Blazers' offense is very stable. There is no need to worry about not being able to pass the ball, no need to worry about problems with first pass in half-court sets, and no need to worry about the opposing point guard easily breaking through the first line of defense and disrupting the Trail Blazers' defensive formation.

Aside from lacking some mid-range and long-range shooting ability, Valentine is quite reliable. He played all 82 games under Ramsey in his rookie season and was highly relied upon by Dr. Jack.

Moreover, he has a strong physique. Although he is only 6 feet 1 inches tall, which is the average height of an average person (1.85 meters), he is one of the strongest point guards in the league, with extremely thick thighs.

Therefore, Valentine's perimeter defense is quite good. The Trail Blazers already have two big white holes on the perimeter. Fortunately, they have Valentine at the point guard position who can bite off the opponent's perimeter attackers and maintain the perimeter defensive intensity.

With Valentine injured, the Trail Blazers only have rookie Steve Cort as a usable point guard. Cort joined the Trail Blazers with Gan Guoyang and graduated from New Mexico State University.

He is the kind of point guard that Ramsey likes: someone who has honed his skills over four years in college, is familiar with all the routines, is obedient, doesn't make mistakes, and can execute the coach's intentions relatively well.

His problem was that his defense was mediocre, even a bit bad, because he was too thin and didn't look very smart. Gan Guoyang often doubted whether he understood his defensive instructions.

One Valentine plus two leaky players like Gan Guoyang can be somewhat compensated for, but three leaky players on the outside are truly intolerable for Gan Guoyang. This game needs more money.

In the game against Kansas, none of the Kings' key players performed well, including Eddie Johnson; no one scored more than 20 points.

But the whole team erupted, with Johnson, Reggie Thurs, Mike Woodson and others scoring over 15 points, and seven players on the team scoring in double figures.

The Kings' roster isn't actually that bad. After a series of losses at the beginning of the season, the team changed head coaches, with Phil Johnson replacing Jack McGinnis.

Phil Johnson, who was originally an assistant coach for the Jazz and served as the head coach of the Sacramento Kings in the 70s, came to the Kansas City Kings this season as a replacement.

Although he's not a famous coach, he's got some skills after more than ten years in the NBA. He was a student of Coach Dick Motta in junior and senior high school and was a star player on the high school championship team. Later, he served as Dick Motta's assistant coach for the Bulls and is now capable of handling things on his own.

After defeating the Portland Trail Blazers on the 4th, the Kings seemed to have sounded the horn of recovery, and in December they ushered in a five-game winning streak. Among the opponents they defeated were strong teams such as the Nuggets and Pistons, which is enough to show that there are no weak teams in the regular season. Many times, winning or losing depends on form and morale.

Of course, Phil Johnson's great work as a coach didn't really begin until many years later in Salt Lake City.

Compared to the Kings' resurgence, the Trail Blazers have entered a period of fluctuating performance.

Perhaps because Christmas is approaching, everyone seems to be looking forward to the holiday.

After more than a month of intense work, everyone from the coaches and work groups to the players began to lose focus.

As the games progressed, a host of health issues emerged, including Valentine's thigh injury, Vandeweghe's back discomfort, and Jim Paxson's ankle swelling.

After defeating the visiting Golden State Warriors on December 6, the Trail Blazers ended their break in Portland and began a road trip in the West.

For their first game on their Western road trip, they arrived in Denver to face the Denver Nuggets, a team that has emerged as a dark horse in the West this year.

Currently, the Trail Blazers and Nuggets are ranked first and second in the Western Conference, which was unexpected by everyone before the season started. The two teams just made a big trade in the summer.

The Nuggets benefited greatly from this trade, sending away Vandeweghe, a player whose function and position overlapped with English and who lacked defense, in exchange for an excellent point guard, Fat Lever, a reliable center, Wayne Cooper, and a powerful small forward, Calvin Knight. By giving up one player and acquiring half a starting lineup, the Nuggets' strength increased dramatically, propelling them to the top of the Western Conference early in the season, even surpassing the Lakers.

The main reason Stu Inman acquired Vandeweghe was because he saw Vandeweghe's potential; he's only 25 years old and has room for further growth.

However, once Vandeweghe joined the team, Inman and Portland fans discovered that his offense was truly exceptional, with a kaleidoscope of outside shooting skills comparable to Larry Bird's outside shooting ability.

But aside from that, he is truly remarkable in other aspects as well. His assists per game are in the single digits, starting with 1; his rebounds per game are 3; and his blocks and steals are all in the zeros.

This is just what the data shows; there's also his ineffectiveness on the defensive end that the data doesn't reveal.

For example, I never box out for rebounds because I want to launch a fast break.

I never go to the basket to help defend, because I'm always on the fast break.

They never proactively help defend other players.

If you can't even keep an eye on the person in front of you, how can you have time to worry about others?
He played flawlessly in every game, averaging less than 2 fouls per game.

He hasn't received a single technical foul so far; he's a true gentleman.

A player like that at the small forward position is like a piece of easy prey for the league's abundance of top-scoring small forwards.

Players like Aguirre, English, Dantley, and Worthy have all scored 40 points against Vandeweghe.

Despite having such a leaky defense, the Trail Blazers are currently second in the Western Conference with a record of 16 wins and 6 losses.

The reason is that the Trail Blazers were lucky enough to draft Gan Guoyang, which made up for the problems caused by the Inman trade.

Gan Guoyang didn't care that Vandelvich's defense was poor; he had coached players who were even worse and had poor offenses.

Vandeweghe doesn't box out for rebounds? No problem, I'll protect the defensive rebounds. After 22 games, Gan Guoyang leads the league in rebounds by a wide margin.

Vandeweghe doesn't help on defense? No problem, I don't need anyone else to help on my three-second zone. Gan Guoyang averages 3.2 blocks per game, second in the league, only behind Mark Eaton.

Vandeweghe only needs to focus on offense, especially his fast breaks. He's faster than a rabbit and is often the Trail Blazers' weapon to widen the score gap.

Although his average points per game are slightly lower than last season, Vandeweghe's field goal percentage is two percentage points higher than last season's 55.8%.

He plays more efficiently and with more ease, and sometimes he pays more attention to defense, and he gets into the zone in crucial moments.

A true superstar is someone who can make their teammates better.

Before the game against the Nuggets on the 6th, the two teams had already played one game in Portland, which was extremely intense.

Fat-Lee and others were quite familiar with the Trail Blazers and were driven by a strong desire for revenge and to prove themselves.

But in the end, they lost the crucial offensive rebound and were defeated by Thompson's game-winning layup.

With the Trail Blazers heading to Denver, Valentine is out and stayed in Portland instead of traveling with the team, while Vandeweghe is injured and not in good form. The Trail Blazers' chances of winning are slim.

But in this game, at the McNichols Arena in Denver, witnessed by Denver fans, Gan Guoyang delivered an explosive performance with 44 points, 33 rebounds, and 7 blocks, helping the Trail Blazers defeat the Nuggets 129-121 on the road, securing their second consecutive win and officially kicking off their Western Conference journey.

At the same time, the Trail Blazers successfully rose to the top of the Western Conference standings, marking the first time since 1978 that they have held the top spot in the West in December.

The rivalry between the Trail Blazers and the Denver Nuggets this season has only just begun.

(End of this chapter)