The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 483 Meat Grinder

(The content of chapters 34 and 35 is incorrect; the titles cannot be changed, so I will revise the content. This chapter will require an extra point because the word count cannot be adjusted.)
Chapter Thirty-Four: The Fierce Tiger
For the past three seasons, Gan Guoyang has been warmly received by Charles Barkley every time he travels to Washington for a game.

They are best buddies and like-minded in many ways.

Now, two more of Gan Guoyang's acquaintances have arrived at Washington Bullets.

One is Bernard King, who joined the Bullets in the summer. He came to the capital with the mindset of proving himself and gradually regained his form after a mediocre start to the season.

He played only 29 minutes per game, yet he managed to score 18 points, grab 4 rebounds, and dish out 3 assists efficiently, gradually working his way up from the bench to the starting lineup.

Another one is Steve Colter, who was just traded from Atlanta to Washington before the All-Star Game.

After being kidnapped by drug dealers in Atlanta, Colter knew that this was not a place to stay for long.

The Hawks were also unhappy with Cort's performance. In their view, Cort was a skinny point guard who lacked discipline and talent, and that keeping him on the team would disrupt the locker room atmosphere, so they sent him to the Bullets.

The relationship between Colter and Gan Guoyang goes without saying. In Colter's heart, Gan Guoyang is his savior and the person who changed his destiny.

The three were old acquaintances and good friends, so Gan Guoyang should have received a warm welcome when he arrived in Washington.

However, Charles Barkley called Gan Guoyang and regretfully informed him: "Sorry, Gan, Coach Dick Motta did not allow us to have too much contact with you before the game and asked us to keep our distance from you."

"What? Dick is really a Dick, playing basketball is just a job, and he's interfering with your daily social life?"

"Theoretically, this shouldn't be the case, but it's the team's decision... I can't say too much to you. I'll make it up to you when the season ends and I win the championship."

"Oh, come on, come on, winning the championship? Don't kid me, the championship is mine."

"I'm not going to argue with you, Sonny. We'll see."

Barkley seems to have a lot of confidence in the current bullets.

Afterwards, both Bernard King and Steve Cortés called Gan Guoyang, giving the same explanation as Barkley: the coaching staff did not allow them to contact Gan Guoyang privately.

In the end, it was Colt and Gan Guoyang who revealed the truth: he had the shortest bullet time, and Gan Guoyang had saved his life, so he couldn't keep it a secret.

"Dick Motta implements military-style management in the team. Although Wes Unseld is the head coach, Motta is the strategist, and his words carry a lot of weight. The Bullets are aiming for the championship this year, and the whole team is in high spirits. The Portland Trail Blazers and you are our biggest hypothetical rivals. Motta made it clear that no one is allowed to meet with you privately during this visit by the Trail Blazers. We must defeat you on the court."

The two sides last met at the beginning of the season, when the Bullets were on a roll, but Gan Guoyang shattered them with a game of 61 points and 25 rebounds.

After that, the Bullets suffered a series of defeats, Raohri stepped down, Wes Unseld took over, and Dick Motta returned to the Capital Arena, and the Bullets began to set sail again.

At that time, Gan Guoyang was focused on the internal conflicts within the team and paid no attention to the subtle changes taking place in the Washington Bullets in the East.

"Didn't Dick and Barkley argue every day?" Gan Guoyang asked.

The conflict between Dick Motta and Aguirre during their time with the Mavericks was well-known.

For a time, Mavericks fans even bought tickets to the arena just to watch Aguirre and Motta argue on the sidelines, to see how Motta berated Aguirre, how Aguirre talked back to Motta, and whether they would fight.

In the 87 season, the Mavericks finally got back on track, securing second place in the Western Conference. The relationship between Motta and Aguirre also improved significantly, and they moved towards higher goals.

As fate would have it, they were upset by the SuperSonics in the first round.

Motta resigned, leaving the Mavericks after years of hard work and endless arguments, only to continue arguing elsewhere—he returned to Washington at the invitation of his protégé.

Charles Barkley is undoubtedly a more talented and temperamental player than Aguirre. Many people, like Gan Guoyang, doubt whether these two can get along well.

“No, not during the time I was there. And you know, Dick was the strategist, he gave advice, and the head coach was Unseld, which eased the tension between Dick and the players. Besides, there was Moses in the locker room, Charles was pretty well-behaved, and he always said, ‘I’m going to kill Forrest Gump.’”

The spy, Cort, revealed all the information he knew to Gan Guoyang.

Gan Guoyang muttered curses under his breath, "That dog Barkley."

During the All-Star Game, he followed behind Gan Guoyang, calling him "Agan" this and "Agan" that.

Behind my back, they were plotting to kill me. But that's how NBA players are; we're friends off the court but competitors on it.

The bigger the star, the fiercer the competition.

Whether it's Jordan or Barkley, as they get older, they both experience increasing anxiety about honors and want to win championships to prove themselves.

At this point, Gan Guoyang became their biggest obstacle.

After obtaining useful information from Cort, Gan Guoyang knew that the Washington Bullet team had ambitious goals this year. Judging from their lineup, the Bullet team was indeed quite formidable.

Center Moses Malone, power forward Charles Barkley. Although Malone's peak has passed, he is still an excellent center averaging 20+10 per game.

Barkley entered his prime, becoming a top power forward with 25 points and 13 rebounds.

His partnership with Barkley was incredibly powerful; most teams simply couldn't withstand their relentless offensive rebounding.

Small forward Bernard King and shooting guard Jeff Malone are two top scorers who focus solely on scoring and have little playmaking ability.

The Bullets have always lacked a good point guard.

Now that they've acquired Cortés, although Cortés isn't outstanding and his performance with the Jazz and Hawks has been less than satisfactory.

But in the few games after joining the Bullets, he has secured a starting position.

His mindset changed drastically after the kidnapping.

He started playing basketball seriously and fully integrated himself into the Bullets team.

His year-long championship experience with the Trail Blazers will be a great benefit to the Bullets.

As he told Gan Guoyang on the phone, "Gan, we will do our best to see you in the finals."

This is the same statement Jim Paxson made, but only one of Paxson and Colter can appear on the Finals stage.

On the evening of February 9th, the Portland Trail Blazers arrived at the Capital Indoor Stadium to face the Washington Bullets.

Besides the starting five, the Bullets also have a number of talented players on the bench, including Manute Bol, Rick Mahon, Tini Bogues, Mark Allari, and Terry Carterridge.

Among them, Bol and Muggsy Bogues are the tallest and shortest players in NBA history, respectively. The Bullets brought them together on one team, which was partly for publicity.

This is indeed a very interesting combination. The two players performed quite well on the court; they weren't the kind of benchwarmers who could only appear during garbage time.

They each have about 15-20 minutes of playing time per game, and when they appear on the field together, they always attract a lot of attention from fans.

Mark Allari was a forward for Duke University and faced Gan Guoyang head-to-head in the NCAA playoffs, completely unable to stop Gan Guoyang's sharp offense.

During the warm-up before the game, Gan Guoyang looked at the group of familiar people and thought to himself that Zidan was quite capable, gathering a group of oddballs of all ages and builds them into a team with decent fighting power. It was no easy feat.

A coach who can mold them into a cohesive unit must be quite an oddball.

Gan Guoyang was right; Dick Motta is indeed a freak.

Although he is now only an assistant coach for the Bullets, the Bullets now have Motta's blood flowing through them, because Unseld was also trained by Motta.

Motta did a lot of bizarre and outrageous things when he was the head coach. He was a typical outrageous mother opening the door for outrageous things. He was outrageous to the extreme.

For example, in order to watch the boxing match between Muhammad Ali and Leon Spinks, he deliberately cursed at the referee halfway through his basketball game, resulting in his ejection, and then went to watch the boxing match.

For example, during a game, he suddenly had the idea to have his center (Wayne Cooper) block the opponent's free throws because he felt that the referee's manual did not stipulate that this was a foul.

He was still not satisfied with the referee's call of foul and demanded that the referee show him the rulebook.

The results were indeed in the handbook; the ball counted as a goal.

The most outrageous thing he did was that in a game against the Warriors, he thought the team was playing without any passion in the first half and that the players needed some excitement.

So during halftime, he borrowed a tiger from the circus animal trainer who was putting on a show, and led it into the locker room to scare the players.

The players were terrified, and it ultimately did little to boost morale.

Now Dick Motta understands that real tigers off the field can only scare players, not inspire them.

Only a fierce tiger on the field can inspire the team members' morale and motivate them to fight bravely.

Bernard King once said, "Forrest Gump is a tiger, the fiercest one."

Dick Motta strongly agrees.

(End of this chapter)