The older superstars of the NBA

"Zhao, I don't understand, why should we give up and continue playing in the warm-up match now? This is a good training opportunity for us!"

Coach Denzel asked.

"It's not that we give up playing warm-up matches. We can invite some teams to play in private! But there is no need to play in the open... I roughly calculated that among the opponents in the Asian and African Championships, there are those who can hinder the Chinese men's basketball team. There are only a few teams, and we have just finished special training. If we continue to play in the open competition, it is very likely that they will be studied by the opponent..."

"This is the strength of the team! Once the weaknesses are discovered, I'm afraid we may actually suffer the consequences... Anyway, the game against the Philippines has already been played, and the fans have explained it, so why not take advantage of it? Hiding our strength and not giving those teams the opportunity to study us in advance..."

Zhao Feiyang’s words made Coach Denzel deep in thought.

Although the initial meeting between the two seemed not so pleasant, Coach Denzel and Zhao Feiyang are not narrow-minded people, so they get along pretty well on weekdays.

Coach Denzel will discuss things with Zhao Feiyang and never puts on the head coach's airs.

The same is true for Zhao Feiyang.

"What you said makes sense! But will the national team agree?"

"Just leave it to me!"

"Anyway, we just don't play in the open competition. We still need to continue to find opponents for actual combat in private... This will not affect the team's running-in..."

"Okay! Then go and communicate with Wang and the others about this matter!"

"no problem!"

Zhao Feiyang still has a strong voice. After he communicated with Wang Jianwei, the other party also said hello to Yao Ming. The plan was passed smoothly with almost no effort.

In this way, after the game against the Philippine men's basketball team, the Chinese fans had no time to be happy. The official announced the news soon.

Of course, the official did not promote it with any fanfare, but only posted a seemingly inconspicuous announcement on the official website.

Also after this game, the Huaxia Men's Basketball Team invited three teams to China to play warm-up matches.

These three teams are all American teams. Although they are not super strong teams, the players are all very good, especially in various aspects of physical confrontation.

In order to prevent any possible leaks of information, the national team also moved the competition venue to the training base.

On game days, people who go in to watch the game are even strictly ordered to bring their mobile phones.

Amid a period of cover-up, the Huaxia Men’s Basketball Team finished three warm-up games.

Lost all three games without exception. However, there was one game that was just a narrow defeat. The players worked very hard throughout the game, but they were defeated by the opponent in the end.

Such a failure is nothing in the eyes of Zhao Feiyang and others. Losing can only find the real problem, which is actually a good thing.

The performance of the Chinese men's basketball team in the other two games was not good enough, and the problems of the young people after training were also highlighted. Fortunately, the problems were not major, and the overall performance of the team was relatively stable.

After the game, the national team also officially decided to lay off players.

The roster was previously expanded to 16. After a period of training and actual practice, 5 players were eliminated.

Three of them are players who were selected later, and the other two were people who were previously selected by the national team.

"Huh? How come 5 people were eliminated?"

"Wouldn't there be one less person in this case?"

Zhao Feiyang was a little surprised when he saw the list.

He didn't think too much about it at first, but when coach Denzel handed him the list of participants from the national team, Zhao Feiyang was surprised to find that he was also on the official 12-man roster.

"wtf?"

"what's the situation?"

Zhao Feiyang was confused.

I didn’t say that I wanted him to participate in the competition in person!

Coach Denzel shook his head and expressed his ignorance. Zhao Feiyang had no choice but to go to Yao Ming's office to ask in person.

"Sit down and rest first! Don't worry!"

Of course Yao Ming understood what was going on when he saw the aggressive Zhao Feiyang! After briefly appeasing Zhao Feiyang, he also hurriedly explained the reason to Zhao Feiyang, "This is the result of unanimous discussion among the senior management!"

"The players are still young! We need stars like you to lead... Of course, it is up to you to decide whether to play! If you want to go up and play, go up and play, and if you don't want to play, don't play... .”

"Everything is up to you! We all support you..."

Yao Ming's open-minded attitude was something Zhao Feiyang couldn't handle! He originally thought that the national team wanted to force him to take action, but now it seems that the national team just wants to provide an insurance policy for the team!

Everyone knows that these young people have changed, but no one can guarantee that these young people will perform as well as they did in training!

Therefore, leaving a trump card is not only a guarantee for the team's victory, but also a threat to other teams!

The national team with Zhao Feiyang is not the same as the national team without Zhao Feiyang!

"Fine!"

Zhao Feiyang agreed!

Unexpectedly, Yao Ming looked at him with joy on his face, as if everything was expected.

"Feiyang, do your best! When you retire, you will take over my position... Originally, the national team considered letting Ah Lian join the team! But his personality is too shy and he is not flexible enough in doing things. .....”

"You are different! You have seen the world and have enough strength and connections! Moreover, you just don't want to do it, it's not that you can't do it...including every compromise you made to the national team before! In fact, we all Clearly, it’s not that you can’t live without the national team, it’s that the national team cannot live without you…”

"You don't owe the national team! You just can't let go of Chinese basketball..."

Yao Ming's compliment made Zhao Feiyang a little embarrassed.

"Brother Yao! Stop talking!"

"I can't do things like taking over. I'm not suitable for doing things within the system..."

After Zhao Feiyang said this, he quickly made an excuse and ran away!

As time passed, the Asian-African Championship finally arrived as scheduled. The opening ceremony was held in Jincheng City in southwest China.

As the leading big city in the southwest region, Jincheng City did not spend any money to create a first-class cityscape in order to successfully host this championship.

After the opening ceremony, the 12 participating teams entered the draw ceremony. The two sides are divided into two groups, A-B. The Huaxia Men's Basketball Team is assigned to Group A. There are five other teams entering Group A with them.

The five teams are Angola, Nigeria, Egypt, the island nation and Chinese Taipei.

The first three teams are all strong teams in Africa, and the last two are from Asia. Especially the last Chinese Taipei team has always played as a provincial team.

After the draw ceremony, the Chinese men's basketball players watching the live broadcast in the hotel breathed a sigh of relief.

The team's head coach Denzel was very happy and discussed the results of the grouping with Zhao Feiyang.

"The Egyptian team and the Angola team are not a problem! These two teams have strength, but they cannot pose a threat to us..."

"That's right! The real threat is the Nigerian team! Antetokounmpo belongs to this team...but he did not participate this time! There are only two NBA players in their team, and it doesn't seem to be a big problem. ....."

"The worst we can do is lose one game! Anyway, only two teams were eliminated in the first round of the group stage..."

"The island nation team has planned players this time! But judging from their various performances in the warm-up match, I don't think they can pose a threat to us... There is no need to consider the Taipei team! It's just a provincial team! After all, It was very rare to lose to the provincial team in the past. This time with me here, even if the provincial team wins by 30 points in the first three games, I can get it back..."

Soon game day comes.

The first game of the national men's basketball team started at the Jinzhou City Gymnasium. Their opponent was the Chinese Taipei team in the group stage.

The strength gap between the two teams is there. Therefore, it is generally believed that the Chinese Taipei team cannot pose any threat to the Chinese Men's Basketball Team.

Before the game started, the national team was relaxed from top to bottom, and no one took it seriously.

call out.

The referee's whistle sounded and the main players from both sides walked onto the court.

There were more than 8,000 fans at the scene, and the venue was very lively. Although everyone knows that the difficulty of this game is not high, the fans still take the initiative to cheer for the home team.

The host in charge of the broadcast also introduced the situation of both sides in the live TV program, "Okay, viewers, what we see now is the starting lineup of the China Men's Basketball Team! It is no different from before!"

"Lu Yunlei at position 1, Cao Yue at position 2, Li Yuhang at position 3, Tang Yijie and Zhou Xinpeng at position 4 and 5... It is said that the Huaxia Men's Basketball Team has been privately looking for opponents for actual combat, and it is not I don’t know if their running-in has any effect..."

"But judging from the previous game against the Philippines, the players' special training has indeed improved..."

"Now what we see is the Taipei team's lineup. Three of their five players are from CBA clubs, there is also an Asian foreign player, and a local player playing in a low-level European league..."

"Judging from the financial strength, Asian foreign players and European players are not very good! The one who really has certain abilities should be Chen Zheng who plays for the Guangzhou team... This player is the main force of the Guangzhou team , has played in CBA for two seasons, and is also a new player that the team focuses on training..."

Snapped.

When his eyes returned to the court, the referee threw the basketball. Zhou Xinpeng jumped high and slapped the ball away.

The ball fell to shooting guard Cao Yue, who passed the ball to point guard Lu Yunlei.

After getting the ball, Lu Yunlei observed the situation at the top of the arc after halftime. Perhaps because he felt that the opponent's strength was average, Lu Yunlei started to dribble the basketball again.

When Zhao Feiyang saw this scene, he stood up and shouted to Lu Yunlei from the sidelines, "What are you doing?"

"Who told you to hold the ball and dribble it all the time?"

Zhao Feiyang's shout shocked Lu Yunlei.

He had been reprimanded frequently when playing solo before.

The problem is not that he can't play in singles, but that Lu Yunlei's excessive dribbling is too inefficient and completely unnecessary.

boom.

Lu Yunlei hurriedly passed the ball, and the basketball was passed to Li Yuhang on the side. At this time, he was standing on the three-point line in the right corner after receiving the basketball and raised his hand decisively.