The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 274 Do what you say
In the summer before the start of the 1985-1986 season, I signed a two-year contract, which gave me some security.

The team drafted Terry Porter, and in the future, it will prove to be one of the most successful drafts in the team's history, just like the draft of Jerome Kossie (excluding Forrest Gump; if Stepien were in charge, he would have drafted Forrest Gump as well).
Then we welcomed back Bill Walton, an exciting and touching signing; no one expected him to return after everything that had happened.

His arrival brought us a sense of history, glory, and tactical richness, but of course, it also put pressure on us. We all know that we need to succeed this season.

Stu Inman left his management position in the summer and was replaced by Buckwalt, reportedly due to Walton's return. Perhaps so, as Inman's relationship with the team remains good years later.

I suffered a stress fracture of my fibula while working out my legs at a gym in Houston during the summer, but thankfully the Trail Blazers' medical team gave me the right treatment advice.

I don't need surgery, I don't need a cast, and I can still run; I just need to stop weightlifting. The doctor gave me a machine to stimulate bone growth and healing, which I wore on my leg while sleeping all summer. It made a loud buzzing sound that made it hard for me to fall asleep.

However, I am a sleepy person, and I can fall asleep quickly. Sleep and the machine accelerated the recovery from my injury, allowing me to devote myself to the great 1985-1986 season.

Before the season started, I bought a 4000-square-foot, four-bedroom house in Oswick Lake Mountain Park for $16, and I thought it was time to settle down here.

Forrest Gump, Klay Thompson, and Jerome Koch all bought houses here. We lived close together, went to training together, ate together afterwards, and then went home together.

Kiki is the only one who insists on renting instead of buying a house here, living with his sister Tona Vandeweghe. Kiki says he is a bachelor and buying a house would make him think about marriage.

Since the start of the new season's training camp, I haven't been late again, and I've been arriving at training half an hour early every day. Of course, Forrest Gump must have been sweating profusely inside by then, making me wonder if he has 48 hours in a day, since he's always training.

The atmosphere at our training camp is fantastic, absolutely fantastic. Walton's return has brought so much – passion, energy. He has a witch doctor-shaman-like magic that immerses everyone in a frenzied atmosphere.

After the season started, we achieved a series of incredible victories. We were unmatched, especially in our two wins against the Los Angeles Lakers, who were once the dominant force in the West but are no longer a threat to us.

Forrest Gump has delivered an astonishing performance. He was already amazing last season, so amazing that you could fit an egg in your mouth, but this season he's become a dinosaur egg.

He became the league's scoring champion. Scoring was as easy for him as picking up girls was for me. His presence made our game easier. I successfully became a starter on the team, and I could do what I was good at: ball handling, stealing, fast breaks, blocking, and assisting.

Bill Walton's return is like flipping a switch on some kind of wonderful evolution in Dr. Jack. He has become more tolerant, peaceful, and willing to try many new things. I must point out that Jack is a tactical master, but he is limited to the frontcourt pairings and is not proficient in systems that are mainly based on the backcourt pairings.

So he boldly delegated authority to me, and I played a lot of well-rounded games. Against the Warriors, I scored 16 points, 10 rebounds, 9 assists, and 7 steals, close to a quadruple-double.

December 31, 1985, was the last game against the Bucks that brought me closest to a quadruple-double in my career. I had 21 points, 11 assists, 10 steals and 9 rebounds. I'm sure I would have gotten a quadruple-double if Forrest Gump hadn't played that game. That guy always complained that I took away his rebounds.

However, we lost this game, suffering a dramatic second-half comeback by the Bucks, which broke our winning streak and brought 1985 to a less than perfect end.

On January 2nd, we traveled to the away game against the Bulls. Forrest Gump went crazy and scored 60 points. It is said that because Jordan criticized the Bulls' management for two and a half hours before the game, Forrest Gump hated the Bulls and vented his anger during the game.

Forrest Gump is a really interesting guy. We went to Milwaukee back-to-back right after that. We had a series of false fire alarms at the hotel, and none of us got a good rest. I thought we were going to be swept by the Bucks this time.

As a result, Agan seemed to be on fire again, scoring 54 points with more than 30 low-post isolation plays, and finally winning the game with a fast break dunk.

This was his greatest regular season performance of the season. When the game ended, we ran back to the locker room together, while the referees were still at the scorer's table checking if there was any time left for the Bucks.

We didn't want to play anymore. We were exhausted and sleepy. During the game, I felt my eyelids drooping, so we went back to the locker room to change and shower. The referee couldn't possibly drag us back to the court to continue the game, so we won.

As a result, Forrest Gump caught a cold after taking a 15-minute cold shower. He had been scoring and shooting excessively for the past two days, which made him too tired. In addition, he sweated a lot and took a cold shower, which caused him to develop a fever of 39 degrees Celsius.

Because he was sick, we were convinced that this guy was a human being, not some Frankenstein created using East German technology.

His absence and the fatigue from back-to-back away games led to our loss to the Cavaliers, and George Karl's smug look made me want to kick his ass.

We only realized how important Forrest Gump was to us when he wasn't playing. The game suddenly became much more difficult, and Walton couldn't play for much time. Fortunately, Jones was able to step up and help out.

Forrest missed three games, and we lost two of them, one to the Cavaliers and one to the Spurs. He was so proud of himself that when he came back, he yelled at each of us, "You guys really needed me!"

Unfortunately, we lost to the Boston Celtics by one point that night at home, and we all responded to Forrest Gump with, "It doesn't seem like we need you that much!"

Haha, just kidding, of course. He hadn't found his form yet. A cold and two 50+ point games had drained him a lot, but he continued to play MVP-caliber football, and we beat the Lakers for the third time, right up until the All-Star break. This year, I was selected for the All-Star Game. Dr. Jack became the head coach of the Western Conference All-Star team, and he picked me, which meant a lot to me.

I went to Dallas with the mindset of broadening my horizons. I was very excited. It was my dream to stand on the All-Star stage. My friend Agan, who was with me, told me that he wanted to win the All-Star MVP.

Okay, he gets the award. He's always a man of his word.

—Excerpt from Clyde Drexler's autobiography, *Clyde The Glide*, published in 2004.

The 1986 All-Star Game was held in Dallas, at Reunion Arena.

To the disappointment of fans, two highly popular players from the Eastern Conference, Michael Jordan and Patrick Ewing, were both absent due to injuries, even though they were both selected to the roster by a large margin.

Ewing's poor knees were already scarred during his college years, forcing him to play with thick knee braces. This latest injury will cause him to miss the All-Star Game and the remainder of the season, making the Knicks' fate all the more unfortunate.

Compared to Ewing, Gan Guoyang's body was as strong as iron.

With an undeniably stunning performance, he surpassed Magic Johnson to become the All-Star Game's leading vote-getter.

David Stern decided to take the recording of this All-Star game to China and broadcast it to television stations for free.

Because this year marks the 40th anniversary of the NBA, the Dallas Morning News organized a panel of 60 people to select the NBA's "greatest player of all time".

This 60-person panel consists of current players, retired players, coaches, and managers, including All-Star candidates such as Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Bird, and Magic Johnson.

After the vote count, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was voted the greatest player of all time with 18 votes. Even though he only won four championships, his performance still won the recognition of industry professionals.

Of course, there was no fan voting channel at that time. If fans had been allowed to participate, the result would have been very different.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar didn't vote for himself; he voted for his former teammate Oscar Robertson. Most players who have faced Abdul-Jabbar acknowledge his strength.

Gan Guoyang, as a young player, is not yet qualified to participate in or be selected, but as the top vote-getter, he was inevitably asked by reporters how he would evaluate the result.

Gan Guoyang said, "Karim is an extremely strong and remarkable player. We have been chasing him all along. He is our biggest rival, an insurmountable peak. He has maintained his dominance and set a benchmark for the center position, the oldest position in basketball. I have had in-depth conversations with him. He is full of wisdom, calm yet courageous. The prerequisite for defeating him is to respect him first. He deserves to be the greatest of all time."

Despite saying he respected his seniors, Gan Guoyang still took away Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's starting center position in the Western Conference All-Star game.

In the dunk contest before the All-Star Game, Spud Webber made a stunning debut, defeating his teammate and defending champion Dominique Wilkins with his 170cm height, miraculously winning the championship of this year's dunk contest.

Webber became famous overnight and became a household name as a diminutive dunker.

However, the biggest winner of this All-Star game was Avia.

Following Gan Guoyang's advice, they reached a cooperation agreement with Webber before the dunk contest, providing Webber with Avia's shoes and stating that they would design new custom shoes for him.

Avia originally wanted to make a "mini skyscraper" version for Weber, but Gan Guoyang said it was completely unnecessary. Instead, respecting Weber's wishes, he designed the "Potato Spud" series for him, which had nothing to do with skyscrapers.

After the dunk contest, Gan Guoyang and Webber took a group photo. The two, one tall and one short, became a perfect promotional photo for Avia.

Later in the All-Star Game, Gan Guoyang surged ahead, suddenly scoring consecutive points despite the East leading the game.

Then, on defense, Drexler and Drexler blocked Thomas's layup and shot, helping the Western Conference team narrowly defeat the Eastern Conference All-Stars 136-138 by 2 points.

Thomas's 30 points and 10 assists performance would have secured him the All-Star MVP award, but the East lost, so the MVP naturally went to Gan Guoyang, who had 25 points and 11 rebounds.

Gan Guoyang thus won his first MVP award in his career—although it was only for the All-Star Game, he considered it a starting point.

(End of this chapter)