The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 387 Steadfast and Down-to-Earth
Gan Guoyang never expected that Knight, this big man with a crooked nose, would have a dream of opening a funeral home.

Calvin Knight said that when he was very young, he loved cars, just like any other little boy.

While other boys typically prefer fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances, Knight is different; he prefers hearses.

“Other kids chase police cars and fire trucks, but I would chase after a hearse to see which house it was going to,” Knight said.

Knight's father was a Baptist minister, and he often accompanied his father to church to officiate at funerals.

He enjoys watching funerals, seeing the deceased bid farewell to the living in a solemn and respectful atmosphere.

He always liked to sit in a spot on the outside, where he could touch the coffin; he liked touching the coffin.

After becoming professional players, other players like to go to bars, clubs, nightclubs, or golf courses after matches.

Knight was different. He enjoyed visiting different funeral homes to observe funerals, and he was full of admiration for the superb and skillful funeral rites that allowed the deceased to have dignity and the living to express their emotions. He continued to learn from them.

Knight is intimately familiar with all funeral rites and procedures. In his words, "If I were to retire right now like Carl, I could officiate a funeral immediately."

Gan Guoyang was absolutely certain of this; if Knight were given a dead man now, he would be terrifyingly strong.

Knight's dream is not just to open a funeral home; he wants to expand his funeral business to major cities across the United States, especially those with NBA teams.

"I want to provide a comprehensive funeral service for everyone who has ever played in the NBA or worked for an NBA team. I think this is a huge industry. We can establish a funeral fund to connect everyone who has worked in the NBA. You can imagine that one day, your teammate or colleague passes away, and we will contact you to ensure their funeral is meaningful and dignified."

Calvin Knight spoke about his dream, his lifelong passion besides basketball, and even more so than basketball.

In his words, he played basketball mainly to accumulate funds for opening a funeral home in the future. He saw that Carl had started to pursue his beloved construction career, and he was also somewhat tempted, feeling that it was time to take action as soon as possible and prepare for the future.

Gan Guoyang listened to Knight's narration, not quite understanding it, but deeply shocked.

It seems that in the NBA, these opponents and teammates all have rich personal lives; not everyone is only about basketball.

Gan Guoyang, known as the best wrestler on the basketball court, earned the nickname "The Undertaker" from fans.

He played against an entire Detroit Pistons team at the Silver Top Center and was jokingly called the "Detroit funeral industry tycoon," which was originally just a joke.

Unexpectedly, he now has the opportunity to enter the funeral industry and embark on and expand his business investment path in the United States.

Gan Guoyang thought to himself that the time travelers he had read in novels who went back to the past all invested in highly profitable and emerging industries such as real estate, computers, games, and the internet, or invested in high technology to contribute to the development of the country's science and technology.

When Gan Guoyang arrived in the United States in the 80s, he discovered that things were not so simple. Even if you knew which industries could make money, if you were not in that circle, people wouldn't let you in.

Gan Guohui cultivates a circle of emerging tech billionaires in San Francisco. It's not something you can infiltrate overnight. Often, even if you have money, they won't accept you. They're doing so well, why would they bring you in to make money together?
As for those companies that urgently need money and are on the verge of bankruptcy or closure, would you dare to invest in them casually?

Gan Guoyang only knew the trend; he didn't bring a history book or an industry development report with him.

Now Gan Guoyang has realized that instead of always trying to ride the wave of the times and trying to get his hands on something unattainable, it's better to focus on building a solid network of friends.

Construction and funeral services are among the oldest industries in human history. They have existed since the dawn of human society and have endured for centuries, never to be eliminated.

Those things like computers, the internet, and even real estate—who knows, one day a bubble might burst and we'd be back to square one.

Wouldn't it be much more stable to build houses for the living and make boxes for the dead, like Carl and Knight did?

With this in mind, Gan Guoyang became interested in Knight's vision for the funeral industry. Seeing Gan Guoyang's interest, Knight also got excited and kept talking about his grand ideas.

Like Carl, he didn't just dream about his favorite industry; he had longed for it and planned for it for a long time.

In his spare time, he took many courses in embalming, anatomy, physiology, and psychology to prepare for his new career.

When Gan Guoyang heard Knight say that he wanted to connect the funeral industry to cover Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah and Colorado, so that everyone could leave this world with dignity, he felt his blood boil.

These are the true funeral directors, the future giants of the funeral industry.

Carl joined the discussion, saying that he could be entrusted with the construction of funeral homes in the future, thus completing the connection between the upstream and downstream of the industry chain.

Three NBA players got together but didn't talk about basketball. Instead, they started talking about how to be a construction foreman and a mortician, and they got more and more excited as they talked.

It can only be said that birds of a feather flock together. Other players would have been indulging in womanizing, drug use, and gambling by getting together, but these three had a special hobby.

Back in Portland, Gan Guoyang told Wang Fuxi about it. Wang Fuxi thought it was a good idea and suggested that they consider cooperating with Knight to invest in a funeral home first and see how things went.

Knight was familiar with funeral homes and pastors in Portland, Denver, and other places, and they agreed to cooperate in the summer and join the funeral industry! Time flew by and it was February, and Kenny Carr's lumbar spine injury had not improved at all. The doctor even advised him not to travel with the team to away games, because long-term air travel is not good for lumbar recovery.

The good news is that the Trail Blazers have finally welcomed back Bill Walton.

Walton's ankle has been repeatedly operated on and is in a bad state, with even some bones dislocated.

However, because the treatment was timely in the summer and the Trail Blazers' medical team provided meticulous care, his recovery is progressing well.

When Walton returned to the training ground, the whole team held a small welcome ceremony for him. Walton was a little embarrassed and apologized for his absence.

Ramsey, however, said, "It's okay, your absence created a scoring champion."

Everyone burst into laughter, noting that Walton deserved some credit for Gan Guoyang's top scorer ranking.

Just like his rebounding championship has Vandeweghe's medal of honor.

Walton's return has greatly relieved the pressure on the Trail Blazers' interior defense.

Actually, the pressure isn't that great; Gan Guoyang has just been playing a few extra minutes in each game recently.

However, Gan Guoyang should play less in the latter half of the regular season to conserve his energy for the playoffs.

Walton's greater role is to enrich the Trail Blazers' tactical options on both offense and defense.

With Walton on the team, the offensive options become more diverse, and on the defensive end, Gan Guoyang can extend the attack more aggressively.

In Walton's first game back, the Trail Blazers won a resounding victory over the visiting Dallas Mavericks at home.

The Mavericks have such a strong momentum this year, but they just can't do anything against the Trail Blazers.

The score was 110-133, and the Trail Blazers unleashed their offensive power, blasting the Mavericks to smithereens at home.

Vandeweghe scored 40 points on 18-of-24 shooting, becoming one of the few players on the team to surpass Gan Guoyang's single-game scoring record.

His high number of points was inseparable from Walton's excellent ball distribution. With Gan Guoyang drawing the defense, Vandeweghe got a lot of shooting opportunities, which he seized.

This season is different from the previous two seasons. In the previous two seasons, he started strong but declined as the season progressed, and his performance deteriorated further, especially in the playoffs.

This year, however, it started slowly but improved significantly. At the beginning, the team was not used to the new system, but in the middle and later stages of the season, the team played better and better on the offensive end and also made progress on the defensive end.

This propelled him past Drexler to become the team's number two player, and he and Gan Guoyang were selected by fans for the 1987 Seattle All-Star Game.

Returning to the All-Star Game after two years, Vandeweghe was quite emotional. Gan Guoyang's guidance was indeed very correct, improving his defense, three-point shooting, and physical confrontation, which helped Vandeweghe rediscover his peak form.

In the high-stakes matchup against the Los Angeles Lakers on February 5th, Vandeweghe delivered a crucial three-pointer at a critical moment, helping the Trail Blazers defeat the Lakers by 3 points at home.

Just one day earlier, on February 4th, the Los Angeles Lakers had just defeated the Sacramento Kings at home, scoring a stunning 36-point margin of 40-4 in the first quarter, demonstrating the vast difference in strength and form between the two teams.

In the first nine minutes of the first quarter, the Kings failed to score a single point, while the Lakers went on a 29-0 run, completely demoralizing the Kings.

With only 4 points in the quarter, the lowest single-quarter score in NBA history, Sacramento Kings head coach Phil Johnson resigned after the game, ending his three-season career as a caretaker for the Kings.

After another season as an assistant coach for the Kings, he is about to return to Utah to assist the Jazz's new coach.

This game clearly demonstrates the Lakers' dominance this season, but they still suffered a major setback when they traveled to Portland for a back-to-back game.

They may have been too relaxed after winning the game against the Kings and hadn't adapted to the intensity of the Portlanders, which led to Pat Riley's furious outburst.

But there was nothing they could do; they lost. After the game on the 5th, the NBA entered the All-Star Weekend break.

Riley has once again become the head coach of the Western Conference All-Star team, coaching Western Conference All-Star starting center Gan Guoyang.

Gan Guoyang unsurprisingly won the All-Star vote this year, surpassing Jordan and Magic Johnson to become the most popular star in the NBA.

In an interview, Gan Guoyang described himself as a down-to-earth player who makes progress step by step.

However, he took a rather large step.

(End of this chapter)