The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 229 Loss of Interest
When Gan Guoyang was about to leave China, Qian Chenghai had a brief chat with him in person and expressed his deep appreciation for Gan Guoyang's extraordinary basketball skills.

When he lamented that Gan Guoyang had become a professional player and could no longer play for the national team, Gan Guoyang comforted Coach Qian:
"Coach Qian, although I can bring good results to the national team on my own, the real development of Chinese basketball still depends on the generation of basketball enthusiasts who form the country's basketball soil, and in this soil, good seedlings will grow." Just like the Americans have Bird, and if they didn't have Bird, they had Johnson, and if they didn't have Johnson, they had Jordan and Ewing, and before that, they had Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Russell. Only when one generation of excellent players follows in the footsteps of the next can a true basketball powerhouse be formed.

"No matter how strong my personal strength is, it is limited. If you ask what role I can play, I hope I can be a role model, a small spark, so that the next generation of Chinese basketball players can learn from me, catch up with me, guide them, and let them have ideals and passion in their hearts. That is the role I can play."

Gan Guoyang spoke with heartfelt sincerity. Although he knew that professional players could join the national team in 1992, that was, after all, a matter for the future.

The national team's performance is merely a result of basketball's strength. Trying to change the result directly without addressing the root causes of basketball's problems will only lead to the embellishment being torn away once a star player leaves the national team.

Qian Chenghai nodded repeatedly and said, "Comrade Gan, you are right, what you said makes sense. However, the gap between us and the world's advanced basketball level is indeed very large. I hope that there can be a group of people who can truly experience the world's best basketball environment, so that they can realize their shortcomings and have the motivation to improve."

Gan Guoyang said, "Don't worry, the NBA won't miss the opportunity to have a good exchange with China. This time we are visiting China, and in a while, it will be your turn to visit the United States!"

Sure enough, a month after Gan Guoyang, Jordan, and others returned to the United States, in August, in the height of summer, the Chinese men's basketball team received an invitation from the NBA to conduct a ten-day basketball visit.

This is not the first time the Chinese basketball team has visited the United States. Back in 1979, before the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, the Chinese men's and women's basketball teams visited the United States together.

Previously, table tennis played a diplomatic role in promoting relations between major powers through a smaller sport, while basketball, as a major sport, became a weathervane on the eve of a historic shift in relations between the two great nations.

The national men's basketball team, represented by Zhang Weiping, visited cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Greensboro, Washington, and New York, and played several friendly matches with American college basketball teams, such as the famous UCLA and Wake Forest. They also took a photo with the famous NBA star Wilt Chamberlain.

In January 1979, China and the United States formally established diplomatic relations, which led to several visits to China by American football teams in 1979 and 1982.

Unlike the politically charged visit in 1978, the men's basketball team's visit to the United States in 1985, under Stern's planning, had a much stronger commercial character.

This was also a statement made by Stern in response to Larry Fleischer's grand tour of China – I can't fall behind Fleischer.

This men's basketball delegation was an expanded group, including not only national team members, staff, and coaches, but also some elite players from various local teams. They all had the opportunity to be selected for the new national team to participate in the 1986 Men's Basketball World Championship.

The national team's first stop is New York.

"Little Deer, see this? This is an American taxi. It's much better than the Xiali in Beijing. It's just that the color is a bit ugly, all yellow."

On the bus to the destination hotel, Song Tao, who wore glasses, said to Min Lulei, a young man from Beijing.

"There are so many cars in America. I wonder when Beijing will become like this," Min Lulei sighed, looking at the locust-like traffic in New York.

He didn't know that in a few decades, BJ would be overcrowded with cars, even more so than New York.

Both players were selected for the expansion of the men's basketball team and did not participate in the 1984 Olympics.

Min Lulei is an elite player from the local team, while Song Tao was too young and stepped down just before the Olympics, letting the veteran players play first, while he played in the later matches.

The group arrived at the InterContinental Hotel on East 48th Street in New York, which was arranged by the NBA for the men's basketball team. In the evening, the NBA held a grand welcoming ceremony for the Chinese men's basketball team delegation in a small auditorium at the hotel.

Gan Guoyang and Stern, along with a group of senior NBA officials, attended the reception ceremony.

Recently, Gan Guoyang attended a training camp in New York, assisting his good friend Bernard King with his rehabilitation training and also taking the opportunity to learn some offensive techniques from him. When the Chinese players entered the auditorium, the band played soft blues music, instantly enlivening the entire hall.

After shaking hands with Stern, Qian Chenghai immediately came over and grabbed Gan Guoyang's hand tightly: "Comrade Guoyang, just as you said, we meet again!"

Coach Qian has changed his way of addressing Gan Guoyang from "Comrade Gan" to the more affectionate "Comrade Guoyang".

Subsequently, the other members of the Chinese national team came over one by one to shake hands with Gan Guoyang, but each of them had a different mindset.

For example, the young and impetuous Min Lulei thought, "They seem to be similar to us, they don't have three heads and six arms."

Min Lulei watched the Trail Blazers vs. Lakers game in Beijing, and his feeling after watching it was, "I could do that too," that's how confident he was.

Afterwards, everyone took their seats, and Stern went on stage to give a welcome speech to the men's basketball team, introducing the visiting Chinese team to the guests present and expressing his hope that this visit would promote exchanges between China and the United States in basketball.

Of course, the NBA is a business league. Promoting basketball exchange is only the surface; the key is to promote commercial development and expand the basketball market.

For example, Stern sold the naming rights for this visit to Kaliber beer, hence the men's basketball team's visit to the United States was called the "Kaliber Tour".

In this regard, Stern fully demonstrated his shrewdness, never letting go of any opportunity to make money.

The welcome party lasted for more than two hours. In addition to a sumptuous buffet, Stern invited a famous New York band to perform for the Chinese team.

The young men's basketball team got a good look at what the "sugar-coated bullets" of imperialism and the "decadent music" of capitalism are.

The next morning, the men's basketball team gathered at the Knicks' training facility for warm-up exercises. Still jet-lagged, they had already begun preparing for the game.

They were wearing red athletic shorts and white T-shirts, with the logo designed by the US side for this visit printed on the front and "China-US Friendship Tour Group 1985" printed on the back.

The morning practice was not very intense, consisting of simple basic drills. Knicks staff were on site to provide guidance to the men's basketball players.

The two coaches of the men's basketball team felt that the training was too relaxed and that they should increase the intensity and play some scrimmages to prepare for tomorrow's game.

"Hello, Coach Qian, hello, Coach Lü." Gan Guoyang suddenly appeared in the training hall, covered in sweat, looking like he had been training for a while.

During this period, he and Bernard King used the Knicks' training facility for practice. After finishing his shooting practice in the morning, he went to the gym for some strength training.

When I came out, I saw that the men's national basketball team was already training.

"Hello, Comrade Guoyang. Perfect timing. How about playing a practice match with my players and teaching them a lesson? Let them experience firsthand the gap between themselves and the highest level."

Qian Chenghai's eyes would light up every time he saw Gan Guoyang. When Gan Guoyang was in China, he didn't have the opportunity to let him play against the national team because professional players' visit schedules had to be strictly in accordance with the contract, and they couldn't just play randomly.

Gan Guoyang smiled and said, "Of course I'm interested. But I'm afraid they'll lose interest in basketball after playing with me."

(End of this chapter)