The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 488 Turmoil
The trade between the Bullets and the Bucks is stuck on the trade deadline. In 12 hours, the door to the trade will be completely closed.

This last-minute trade shocked the league, showing that the Washington Bullets were going all out to win the championship.

Jeff Malone is 26 years old and averages 19.5 points, 2 rebounds and 3 assists per game. He is a very strong scorer in the backcourt and is still young, not yet at his peak.

Moncrief is 30 years old this year. He has been suffering from plantar fasciitis since the 1986 season, and his performance has declined sharply.

从场均20+5+5的全明星后卫，一下子滑落为11+3+3的普通后卫，上场时间从37、38分钟掉落到25分钟，从雄鹿队的绝对核心，逐渐让位成为重要的角色球员。

Trading Jeff Malone, who was in his prime and still on the rise, for Moncrief, who was past his prime and rapidly declining, seems like the Bullets had a problem with their brains.

But a team is a whole; simply putting more scorers together doesn't necessarily make a team stronger.

The Bullets play a slow, defensive style and already have too many scorers.

Moses Malone, Bernard King, and Barkley all have strong scoring abilities.

At this point, Jeff Malone's score became less important.

What the team lacks most at this point is defensive ability in the backcourt, especially defensive backs who can effectively defend the opponent's key players and provide help in the defensive rotation.

At his peak, Moncrief certainly wouldn't have been able to exchange bullets.

During his decline, Moncrief, who still retained 60-70% of his former strength, became a target for the Bullets.

The Bucks were crushed by the Washington Bullets in the first round of the Eastern Conference last season. The presence of Barkley and Moses Malone in the paint completely ruined the Bucks' trade for Jack Sikma.

In the summer, Don Nelson left for the Los Angeles Lakers, and Del Harris became the head coach. The Bucks did not tank, but instead maintained their competitiveness with Terry Cummings, Plessy, Pierce, and Hickma as their core players.

Moncrief, once a core player, gradually became marginalized, while Pierce missed the first half of the season due to injury, returning after the All-Star Game.

The Bucks are looking to acquire a strong, scoring guard to compensate for the team's lack of firepower.

The Bucks made a bold trade in the past, exchanging Marquez Johnson for Terry Cummings. This time, they went even further, setting their sights on Jeff Malone, who dominated the Bucks' perimeter defense in last year's playoffs, and proposing to trade Moncrief for him.

Both parties quickly reached an agreement, each getting what they needed, and the deal was successfully completed.

The swap of teams between Malone and Moncrief has further complicated the situation in the Eastern Conference.

Since 80, the competition in the east has been more brutal and intense than in the west, after all, the east is a developed region.

In the early years, the 76ers, Celtics, and Bucks were the three dominant forces, but the 76ers gradually fell behind and the Celtics took over.

In recent years, the 76ers have completely fallen out of favor, the Bucks have gradually declined, the Celtics have shown signs of decline, and Detroit, Chicago, Washington, and Atlanta have begun to rise.

It's fair to say that the East is a back-and-forth battle, while the West is much simpler: the Lakers and their challengers.

In the past two years, the Western Conference has gradually become a two-horse race between the Lakers and the Trail Blazers.

For Gan Guoyang and the Trail Blazers, the Eastern Conference is certainly exciting, but in the end only one team will stand on the stage of the Finals, and you don't know which one it will be.

In the West, they only have one real enemy: the Lakers.

You can't expect another Houston Rockets to emerge and beat the Lakers early.

The Rockets' twin towers have fallen apart this season, with Ralph Sampson hampered by injuries and unable to return to his pre-86 form.

The Rockets have lost patience and decided to trade him before the trade deadline.

When Gan Guoyang arrived in Los Angeles by plane and came out of the airport, Bellman came over to Gan Guoyang and said, "Sampson has been traded to Golden State in exchange for Joe Barry Carroll and Lloyd."

What? The Rockets traded Sampson away?

"Yes, they've lost patience. The Warriors have lost patience too. How many times has Carroll been scored 50 points by you now?"

Gan Guoyang effectively facilitated the deal.

The Warriors are disappointed that Joe Barry Carroll has been repeatedly outscored by Gan Guoyang's 50 points.

They and the equally disappointed Rockets hit it off and completed a top draft swap.

The Rockets have acquired a new twin towers, while the Warriors have gotten rid of Carroll, who treated playing basketball like a daily routine—and added Lloyd to their roster.

This shows that the Warriors still have high expectations for Sampson, after all, he is only 27 years old and he was once so successful.

The Rockets not only acquired a tower but also a guard who averages 20 points per game, which the management considers a huge win.

That's how transactions work; both parties get what they want and think they've made a profit.

But looking back, it's possible that they didn't make any money, or even lost money.

"There seemed to be a lot of activity before the trade deadline this year, with everyone making moves around," Gan Guoyang remarked with some emotion.

This season has been turbulent for the Trail Blazers, the NBA, and the entire world.

Michael Jackson's album "Bad," released in the late summer of 1987, seemed to foreshadow things getting worse.

Beginning in February 1988, the Iran-Iraq War in the Middle East had entered a brutal phase of siege warfare.

The two countries are exchanging bombardments with high-tech surface-to-surface ballistic missiles, like monkeys hitting each other with the butts of AKs.

In Europe, the Soviet Union and Eastern European countries were mired in economic difficulties, rampant corruption, and high crime rates. The Soviet Union attempted to change this situation through reforms, but the outlook was not optimistic. Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) gradually eroded the Soviet Union's resources through an arms race, and Europe was on the eve of instability.

China, across the ocean, also has its own troubles. During the reform and transformation period, a large number of social problems have emerged, and the abolition of the dual-track pricing system has led to soaring prices and inflation.

In 1988, a wave of panic buying began in China, with people using their money to buy anything they could get their hands on and hoard it to prevent currency devaluation.

In Japan, the economic bubble is being inflated to an ever-growing size, and it's already on the verge of exploding.

The side effects of the Plaza Accord are gradually becoming apparent, and the Japanese economy is entering a doomsday frenzy.

In the United States, Ronald Reagan was entering the final year of his term.

From 1980 to 1988, Gan Guoyang was about to complete the Reagan era in the United States.

This year's playoffs will also determine whether the period from 1984 to 1988 can be considered the Gan Guoyang era, and whether it will be written into NBA history.

On the evening of February 26, the Trail Blazers faced their biggest rival, the Lakers, at the Great Western Forum.

Although Pat Riley left the Lakers, the Great Western Forum still strictly adhered to the rules in the morning, prohibiting Gan Guoyang from warming up at the arena before noon.

The Lakers' coaching staff has been changed to the Nelson father and son – Don Nelson and his son Donnie Nelson, also known as Nelson Jr.

Their team configuration and tactics are not significantly different from the past.

When Nelson joined the Lakers, he didn't make any major reforms because the Lakers had a very strong foundation and there wasn't much to change.

They just couldn't beat the Trail Blazers in the series, or rather, they couldn't handle Forrest Gump.

Nelson organically combined artillery bombardment tactics with showtime.

He significantly increased Byron Scott's role and the number of three-point attempts, making the Lakers' offense faster and more efficient than last season.

But the arrival of a new coach will definitely bring changes to the team.

Nelson brought two things to the Lakers: first, a unique defense.

Nelson relied on his guards to weave a cunning defensive network when he was with the Bucks.

After joining the Lakers, the Lakers' backcourt resources are in no way inferior to those of the Bucks.

Nelson brought over the Bucks' strategy of using a pseudo-zone defense that skirts the perimeter, with only one goal—to double-team Agan early.

The Lakers were utterly thrashed by Gan Guoyang in 87.

The loss of both home games put them in a completely passive position in the series, disrupting their rhythm and rendering a year's worth of hard work futile.

Ultimately, this led to Riley's resignation and departure, and Johnson not only lost the regular season MVP but also the championship.

Magic Johnson later recalled that the 1987 loss was even more painful than the 1984 Finals defeat.

Because they were so outstanding that year, and so full of the desire for the championship and revenge, the whole team was incredibly confident, and the championship seemed like it was already in their grasp.

The fuller the bubble, the more devastating the explosion when it's burst, just like Japan's real estate bubble.

Like a guillotine, the sudden end and death made the Lakers players experience the worst summer ever.

"That kind of shock still makes people uneasy and feel extremely regretful many years later."

The second thing Nelson brought was a mental break for the Lakers players.

The Lakers players had been under pressure from Riley for too long, especially after losing to the Trail Blazers, and were on the verge of a mental breakdown.

Riley has lost the players' trust, and his departure was inevitable.

After Nelson arrived, he rebuilt the trust between the coaches and players. His open style of play and passionate but not rough coaching style won the support of everyone in the Lakers.

These two factors, combined with the Lakers' original foundation, allowed them to once again unleash a yellow whirlwind, sweeping through the league and the Trail Blazers.

Contrary to many people's expectations, Nelson did not abandon Kareem Abdul-Jabbar or further reduce his screen time after his arrival.

Conversely, Nelson, who had never coached a superstar center before and had only used Lanier and Hickma in their later years, could finally experience what it was like to have a superstar center—even though Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was so old that he had lost all his hair.

But Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and he can't be compared to any other center.

In every game, Nelson would still arrange isolation plays for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and ask Johnson to slow down the pace and give the old man some space.

Nelson knew that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was still the best weapon against Forrest Gump.

The Portland Trail Blazers' locker room before the game.

Gan Guoyang gave a rare pre-game speech, demanding a victory, otherwise the psychological disadvantage of losing four regular-season games to the Lakers would be too great.

Before going on stage, he specifically told Gilmore, "We promised to kill Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. We don't have many chances left. We'll keep our word."

Gilmore clenched his fists, ready for battle.

(End of this chapter)