The Golden Age of Basketball

Chapter 531 The Flowers Have All Withered

"Let's introduce the visiting players: Timberwolves guard, 6'2", from North Carolina State University; forward, 6'7", from Ohio State University; guard, 6'6", from DePaul University..."

Before the game between the Timberwolves and the Trail Blazers began, the DJ introduced the players for both teams.

When the starting lineup of the visiting Timberwolves was introduced, the fans in the arena were quite confused.

Who are these people? I don't recognize any of them. Are these NBA teams?

Before the NBA expanded, there were 23 teams, and even the weakest team usually had a well-known star player.

Players like Ward B. Flynn, Reggie Thurs, Eddie Johnson, and Bernard King are all well-known underdog stars and scoring specialists.

Although his record isn't great, he's still very capable individually, scoring points in the regular season and leaving a lasting impression on everyone.

However, with the expansion in 88 and 89, four new teams were added, making it extremely difficult for these new teams to acquire star players.

Let alone star players, it's very difficult to even secure a starting position.

Only the Miami Heat, through extensive preparation, poached Drexler and rose to prominence overnight.

The Timberwolves, Hornets, and Magic could only assemble a team by selecting some leftover players from each other.

In the current Timberwolves team, the player most familiar to Trail Blazers fans is probably their core forward Tony Campbell.

He entered the league in 1984, the same year as Gan Guoyang, and was selected 20th overall in the first round. He played for the Detroit Pistons, but was not given much playing time by Daly due to his defense and shot selection issues.

He was a member of the Pistons in the 1987 NBA Finals, but didn't get much playing time, and the Pistons were decisively defeated by the Trail Blazers 0-4.

He joined the Lakers in the 88 and 89 seasons, recruited by Jerry West as a backup on the bench.

Campbell didn't make much of a difference in 1988; he only played 13 games with a mediocre performance, and the Lakers were eliminated by the Trail Blazers in the Western Conference Finals.

However, in 1989, Campbell acted as a spy. In the Finals, when the Lakers faced the Pistons, Campbell leaked a lot of information about the Pistons to the Lakers, which led to a seven-game series between the two teams.

Ultimately, the Lakers lost the series due to exhaustion and a combination of other factors.

Overall, Campbell did make a difference; otherwise, the series wouldn't have reached Game 7.

Campbell was selected by the Timberwolves in the 89 expansion draft.

After joining the Timberwolves, this former benchwarmer from a strong team suddenly discovered that he was actually the strongest player on the team.
As the saying goes, "When the tiger is away, the monkey is king." The new team is a new territory without tigers, giving these players with certain abilities but who have not been given important roles a chance to perform.

When both teams' players stepped onto the court, Gan Guoyang glanced at the Timberwolves' roster and thought to himself that it wasn't easy to build a new team. They had to pick and choose from the old, weak, and disabled players that other teams didn't want, and finally put together a team. Now they were going to start playing 82 regular season games.

Of course, thinking about this, one has to admire Pat Riley and the Miami Heat for their meticulous and strategic approach in poaching players from Portland.

With the addition of Glen Rice in this year's draft, the Heat are already quite strong.

For the Trail Blazers, playing the Timberwolves at home is definitely more about training their players.

Try different tactics and lineups to find your own rhythm and style of play.

Berman set up a rotation schedule, substituting players at fixed times regardless of the situation on the field.

The goal was clear: to train the players. He had already spoken with them before the match, giving them opportunities to seize.

A competitive atmosphere quickly permeated the Trail Blazers team, with competition evident in every position: backcourt, forwards, and centers.

Currently, apart from Gan Guoyang, no other player on the team can claim to be irreplaceable or a guaranteed starter.

Porter and Hornacek will face challenges from Petrovic and Mike Sanders, while Korsey will be threatened by Cliff Robinson, and Mitchell Thompson's position in the paint is also under intense scrutiny.

Everyone is happy to participate in this kind of competition and maintains their fighting spirit.

The reason is simple: they lost the 1988-1989 season.

They lost their crown, and those who lose their crown must face challenges.

If it were 1987, it would be extremely difficult for players like Petrovic, Sabonis, and others to challenge for a starting position if they joined the Trail Blazers.

We're all veterans who just won the championship. You're a newcomer who wants to challenge me? Don't even think about it.

Of course, this is not the most important reason. Even if some championship teams lose the championship, their veteran players can still live off their past achievements for three to five years and suppress new players.

The most important reason lies in their leader. Gan Guoyang is an iron-fisted leader. Back then, when the second-in-command Drexler was throwing a tantrum, he would just take a shower and then obediently shut up and play well until his contract expired in the offseason before he dared to go solo.

With Drexler gone, apart from Mitchell Thompson, no player has more seniority than Gan Guoyang.

Mitchell Thompson is Gan Guoyang's closest inside partner, staunch supporter, and shadow warrior, so Gan Guoyang has the final say in the Trail Blazers.

At the same time, everyone knows that Bobby Bellman was Gan Guoyang's high school and college coach, and the only person on the team who dared to scold Gan Guoyang on the basketball court. Their relationship was extremely close.

In addition, owner Tang Jianguo is a die-hard Forrest Gump fan, so the power structure on the court is very stable. As long as they don't want to start their own business, everyone can play basketball in peace and won't have any other thoughts.

You can start your own business if you want, Drexler is an example. Gan Guoyang won't stop you, on the contrary, he will bless you, make things easy for you and let you go, and then beat you in the game.

The Trail Blazers quickly took the lead after the game against the Timberwolves began.

The Timberwolves were unable to mount an effective defense to prevent the Trail Blazers' penetrating attacks in half-court offense.

They face the same dilemma as the Kings: their entire roster lacks a truly capable defensive big man.

After all, no team would let a defensively strong big man slip through the expansion draft.

Defending Gan Guoyang was Brad Lohouse, a 6-foot-11 white center who previously played for the Celtics and was drafted by the Timberwolves.

Gan Guoyang has never been afraid of these big, white centers since college. And the period when he entered the NBA coincided with the decline of this type of big, white center.

In the increasingly competitive NBA, their height and limited skills are simply not enough.

Gan Guoyang started the game by scoring three consecutive points in the low post, drawing two fouls from Lohouse and forcing him to leave the court for rest.

Timberwolves coach Bill Musselman couldn't help but ask Lohouse when he substituted him out, "Were you doing this on purpose? Why did you foul so early?"

The coach believes that Lohouse didn't want to be dominated by Agan and wanted to get fouled out of the game early to rest.

Lohouse shrugged and said, "I didn't want to either, but I couldn't defend against it."

Musselman had nothing to say. He looked at the bench and realized there wasn't even a single player who was 6 feet 9 inches tall.

In this situation, Musselman did not bring on a forward to guard Gan Guoyang, but instead brought on a young guard, Pu Richardson.

Thus, the Timberwolves fielded a small lineup with three guards and only Todd Murphy and a 6-foot-9 power forward in the paint.

Musselman was truly out of options, but he's not the kind of coach who resorts to desperate measures when all else fails.

He has extensive coaching experience in college, ABA, WBA and CBA, and has achieved success in all of them. He is a coach with many ideas and unconventional approaches.

He knew that no matter which inside player he brought in, it would be a waste against Gan Guoyang, so he decided to bring in a guard to increase the firepower.

In terms of tactics, Musselman fully followed the "Forrest Gump rule," using speed, mobility, and ball movement to avoid the Trail Blazers' strong interior defense and focus on attacking the Trail Blazers' relatively weak backcourt.

Compared to the Kings, who were poorly prepared during summer training camp, the Timberwolves were clearly better prepared tactically, and they made a lot of smooth passes.

This is quite an achievement for a newly formed team that has only played one regular season game.

In their first game against the Seattle SuperSonics, the Timberwolves were even leading at halftime.

They didn't lose the game until the final quarter when the Supersonics pulled away, because they simply didn't have any players.

The situation was similar in this game against the Trail Blazers; they managed to keep the score close in the first and second quarters with low-intensity play.

The Trail Blazers have been giving their players a lot of playing time, with Divac, Sabonis, Robinson, and Petrovic all getting more than 5 minutes of playing time.

When facing double teams, Gan Guoyang frequently passes the ball out, creating attacking opportunities for his teammates.

Compared to previous seasons, Gan Guoyang's passing and playmaking skills have improved significantly.

His high and low post passing, wide-range ball movement, and handoffs after pick-and-rolls are vastly different from his rookie season.

If Jack Ramsey were coaching Gan Guoyang now, he probably wouldn't have gotten into the red card so easily.

At halftime, the score was 41-51, with the Trail Blazers leading by 10 points. The Timberwolves played quite well.

In the third quarter, the Trail Blazers began to exert their strength, increasing the pace of their offense and the intensity of their defense.

Musselman's unorthodox methods were no longer effective, and Gan Guoyang was no longer going to be polite to you.

His continuous low-post attacks led the Trail Blazers on an 11-0 run, establishing a decisive advantage.

Ultimately, the Trail Blazers easily defeated the Timberwolves 83-103 at home, securing their second consecutive win with a 20-point advantage.

Gan Guoyang had another unremarkable game, scoring only 26 points, 11 rebounds, and 7 assists.

With the maturation of players like Porter, Hornacek, and Kessie, Gan Guoyang began to delegate offensive duties during the regular season.

During their first three-peat, these players were all greenhorns in their early twenties, and their performance was inconsistent. Giving the ball to Forrest Gump was the safest option.

As the 90s approached, they were all reaching their peak and taking on more and more responsibilities.

Of course, there is another important reason: with the addition of new teams, the implementation of the salary cap, and the improvement of the collective bargaining agreement and draft rules, the concentration of star players in the league is being diluted.

For the Timberwolves, Campbell scored 21 points, the highest on the team.

Such players would have been relegated to the back of the bench for the Lakers and Detroit teams in the 80s.

He can now become the leading scorer for a team, which speaks volumes about the strength of these top teams.

In the future, there will be fewer and fewer super teams like the Lakers, Celtics, 76ers, and Pistons.

There are more and more weak teams like the Kings, Timberwolves, and Hornets.

Previously, the Trail Blazers played the Lakers five times a year, but this season that number has been reduced to four.

In the short term, the intensity of competition in the NBA regular season decreases, allowing Gan Guoyang to conserve more physical strength and energy for crucial games and the playoffs.

Of course, in the East, Gan Guoyang's good friend Michael Jordan did not stop his crazy scoring spree.

In his first game of the new season against the Cavaliers, which was also Phil Jackson's first game in charge, Jordan once again gave his new coach a gift, scoring 54 points to win the game.

After the game, Jordan called Gan Guoyang and said, "I scored the same number of points in one game as you did in two!"

Gan Guoyang said, "Come call me again when you get to the Finals once. We're not from the same world anymore, Michael."

"This season, it's the season, Sonny, just wait and see," Jordan said confidently.

"I have been waiting for you for so many years, the flowers have all withered."

(End of this chapter)