The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 358 How's your body?

The 1986-1987 season was a tough year for me; for the first time in my long basketball career, I felt somewhat powerless.

Winning the championship in 1986 gave me a wonderful summer. I went to many places, saw many old friends, gave media interviews, and participated in the production of a program.

For a long time, I didn't have nightmares anymore. The icy seawater, the pitch-black night sky, the exhaustion and suffocation during the swim, and the instructor's shouts no longer appeared in my dreams.

I sleep soundly and deeply every night, but when I wake up, I feel a little empty. I always feel like something is missing from my life.

This became even more apparent after the new season started. I found that I was less sensitive to winning and losing than before. Everyone said that I had become more even-tempered, and Dr. Ogilvy also said that my mental state was much better.

Yes, I've become normal. I'm no longer as stubborn and sharp as I used to be. When I lose a game, I no longer remain silent and speechless, nor do I turn red in the face like a crab.

At that moment, I realized that those abnormal, paranoid, and sensitive aspects constituted the majority of my coaching life, and I used all of that as fuel during my championship run in 1986, almost exhausting myself completely.

People always criticize players for lacking the motivation to continue after winning a championship. Before 1986, no team had defended their title for more than a decade. We died from injuries rather than complacency in 1978, so I used to think I wouldn't become complacent. It wasn't until I actually experienced it that I realized how difficult it is to control that kind of fatigue and burnout. After all, there were nine years between 1977 and 1986, and we went through so much, waiting and suffering for so long.

Another unfortunate situation was that the 1986-1987 NBA season had undergone significant changes compared to the 1977-1978 season. Many things had changed, and the NBA was completely becoming a "players' league." The mainstream playing style was vastly different from the past, with more and more three-pointers, more and more isolation plays, and increasingly tight and meticulous defense.

From that time on, I realized that if you live long enough, you will see many strange things happen. Good virtues will be despised, things that are despised will be praised, beautiful things will become outdated, and outdated things will return to the forefront of fashion. Everything is like a huge cycle, all values ​​will be overturned, and everyone will take turns on stage, just like the NBA championship. No one will dominate the Larry O'Brien Trophy forever.

Perhaps realizing my burnout, the team added an assistant coach. We hired Bobby Bellman, Forrest Gump's high school and college coach. When I interviewed him, I felt he was a guy who could relieve my stress.

At the same time, I sensed a coach's ambition in him. He gave up the generous and stable treatment he received at university to dedicate himself to the NBA. He broke free from the previous gambling scandal and could have chosen a stable and prestigious life, but he didn't.

I know what sustained him: the desire for victory, fame, and great achievements. Back then, no coach could win both the NCAA championship and the NBA championship at the same time. People always thought there was an insurmountable gap between the NCAA and the NBA.

Behrman attempted to bridge this gap, with his ideas, his efforts, and with Forrest Gump's influence.

—Excerpt from "Dr. Jack's Leadership Lessons Learned From A Lifetime In Basketball" by Jack Ramsey, published in 2004.

On the plane back to Portland, Bobby Bellman explained his tactical philosophy to the coaching staff and players, emphasizing that it wasn't as simple as just giving the ball to Forrest Gump.

As he said before, "using the rules" means that while the defending side uses the rules to defend a zone, the attacking side can also use the rules to bypass these annoying illegal defenses.

The idea is actually very simple, even a bit ridiculous: clear one side completely, with everyone else standing above the free throw line or outside the three-point line, leaving the low post entirely to Agan to take on the defender one-on-one.

According to the rules, the defending team cannot double-team in advance or set up zone defense, which means that Gan Guoyang can get a full one-on-one opportunity in the low post.

If the opponent tries to double-team him after he gets the ball, the distance is too great, meaning one person will be completely left open, which is unacceptable for the defense.

Furthermore, because the distance is too great, the double-team will take a long time to move, and if the defender's double-team is not timely, it will give the player with the ball plenty of time to react.

Why do other teams rarely use such a simple strategy? The reason is simple: one-on-one is not an empty shot; the one-on-one player still has to face the defender.

If the success rate of one-on-one plays is lower than that of tactical runs, then naturally no team would keep letting the ball handler play one-on-one. Moreover, constantly playing one-on-one can be detrimental to the motivation of other players.

"However, Forrest Gump is the best one-on-one player in the league, only Michael Jordan can be compared to him. I studied the Bulls' first few games, and their strategy was to let Jordan take a lot of one-on-one shots, which worked very well. Jordan's one-on-one skills are outstanding. When facing a defender one-on-one, his success rate on open shots is about the same as some players. Forrest Gump can do that too, and because Forrest Gump is an inside player, he can do it even better."

"The difference is that Forrest Gump was an inside player; he needed more support from his teammates, making passing and ball movement on the perimeter more important. Also, because Forrest was an inside player, when he wasn't isolation play, he could do more on offense than Jordan; he could set screens and grab offensive rebounds. Our perimeter players are very talented—Clyde, Porter, Kiki, Paxson—they can complement Forrest very well." "When Forrest was isolation playing, they would create opportunities on the perimeter; when Forrest wasn't isolation playing, they could use screens to initiate the offense. The league's defensive strategies are becoming increasingly complex, based on data efficiency..."

When he mentioned "data efficiency," Bellman paused for a moment, glancing at Jack Ramsey, knowing that Ramsey wasn't interested in data statistics.

At the time, many NBA coaches were not interested in data analysis, believing that focusing on data results in playing for data instead of playing for victory.

In the eyes of traditional coaches, basketball coaching is an art, and art cannot be abstracted with concrete data. Experience, inspiration, and artistic genius are the true charm of basketball.

Once you try to describe basketball with data, it becomes as rigid as baseball.

Among the professional sports leagues in the United States, baseball has the longest history and the best data processing capabilities, which is related to the turn-based nature of baseball.

Basketball data analysis began in the late 70s and early 80s. Bellman had been paying close attention to data since his college days because he liked to buy lottery tickets and gamble on sports.

Of course, this behavior led to his later involvement in a match-fixing scandal. Although he had never personally participated in match-fixing as an assistant coach, his previous experience with match-fixing and buying lottery tickets resulted in him being dismissed.

Now, Berman has completely given up his gambling addiction, but he has retained his habit of data analysis. At Gonzaga University, he specialized in basketball data analysis and hung out with Gus, who was doing financial analysis, using Gus's data models to analyze teams and games.

Gus successfully predicted the Philadelphia 76ers' championship win in 1983, and also predicted that the Portland Trail Blazers would likely be no match for the Los Angeles Lakers in 1985.

In the new season, while doing odd jobs as an assistant coach, Berman also took advantage of opportunities to edit videos and collect data from various teams to analyze teams and players using models.

None of these tasks were assigned to him by Ramsey.

Ramsey said to Bellman, "Go ahead and say what you think. I don't have the authority to fire you right now."

Berman continued, "Looking at the data efficiency, in Weeks 1 and 2, the most efficient scorer was Michael Jordan. Although his shooting percentage wasn't high in some games, his assist rate was very low, meaning he attacked the basket directly a lot without any plays initiated. Furthermore, his contribution to the team's victories far exceeded anyone else's; the Bulls outscored their opponents by 11 points when he was on the court. His usage rate was extremely high, and even with such a high usage rate, his efficiency didn't decrease, which means..."

As Bellman was speaking, he noticed that everyone was silent and staring at him blankly.

He felt a little embarrassed and waved his hand, saying, "This...this uses some uncommon data models, which I developed with a friend. I think these can be used to evaluate a player's role on the field more intuitively. Of course, this evaluation method is not perfect, so we developed many data analysis methods to comprehensively evaluate players from multiple perspectives."

Adelman raised his doubts, saying, "People are not machines. A player's performance is affected by emotions, health, and many other factors. Every game is a completely new situation, and the past is just the past."

"That's right, theoretically that's true, but the better the player, the more consistent they are in all aspects, especially those at the top of the pyramid. Through a lot of repeated training, they have developed a set of playing patterns, which is exactly what the data is meant to analyze and process," said Bielman.

Adelman then asked, "So you mean our tactics should become like the Bulls', with Forrest Gump doing a lot of isolation plays? How is that different from Gene Shu's approach back then?"

Gene Shuh, during his time with the Bullets, preferred to have his players take turns playing one-on-one, allowing them to focus more on defense by having four players take turns on offense. At the same time, Gene Shuh had a strained relationship with Ramsey.

Berman admitted, "Yes, Forrest Gump's isolation plays are the most crucial element of this system. I know this doesn't align with traditional, excellent basketball principles, but that's how the NBA rules are, and we play within those rules. Besides Forrest's isolation plays, Clyde's ball-handling and initiating offense, and Kiki's outside catch-and-shoot, are equally important. Clyde must have the ball in his hands, while Kiki's off-ball movement is even better..."

The second half of Berman's statement was more subtle; he didn't say that, according to his data analysis, Clyde's off-ball attack efficiency was mediocre, while Vandeweghe's turnovers were disastrous.

Everyone looked at Ramsey. Dr. Jack remained silent for a while before finally asking Gan Guoyang, "Gan, how have you been feeling lately?"

(End of this chapter)