One Year Left to Play-Chapter 117 - 38: Da Zhi Arrives in America
The improvement in strength is similar; originally, it should involve weight gain, increased training volume, and accepting conditions such as decreased speed and flexibility before it can reach a top level.
Goodness, now the speed and flexibility are still top-notch, and the strength has already reached a top level. Not only does it become difficult to further increase strength, but if one wants to increase strength, the increase in muscle and weight could potentially affect athletic ability more than imagined!
For Zhang Hao, the increase in strength is absolutely a great thing, but people are such contradictory creatures that even a definite good thing can lead to thoughts of adverse situations.
It feels like he’s overthinking it. Zhang Hao decided not to worry about it for now; the increase in strength is definitely a good thing. Otherwise, who knows how many years it would take to reach this level without the special effects of the Growth Card.
In the past month or so, besides strength training, he maintained his shooting practice and practiced catch-and-shoot, along with tactical running position training. 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚
He made progress in tactical running positions, but the progress wasn’t in the proficiency of running the position, just that his mind knew where to go.
The tactical manual he obtained on off-ball movement almost covered all famous tactical routes and concepts for off-ball players in the current league. As long as he learned them all, he believed he could position himself well under any coach in today’s league, provided that the tactics were executed properly.
However, he only memorized the running positions and hadn’t practiced running positions actually in training with others.
Zhang Hao realized that this must be trained with the team, or progress would be hard to measure. He often "viewed" this book repeatedly in his "dreams" over the past month, memorizing it well. Because of a strong learning purpose, it didn’t feel boring. Studying how to run positions was quite interesting, and he could even expand his ideas based on the existing running position diagrams, thinking about how to apply some classic future tactical running positions...
However, no matter if he finds a few junior students to practice running positions, it’s of no use because these juniors haven’t reached the point where they’re learning this aspect, without any foundation.
But as an off-ball shooter, one must practice with teammates who will play in the game together to be effective.
Moreover, having a deep understanding of the game, he knows that in real matches, the actual execution of tactics and the pre-set tactics can have significant differences. Actual combat is needed to truly build good team coordination, and the chemistry reaction is the most important. Teammates need to understand each other, and off-ball players can genuinely create chemistry or determine incompatibility with teammates.
Currently, this issue can’t be resolved, but Zhang Hao isn’t discouraged, nor has he given up learning. He chooses to enter learning mode before going to sleep every night, studying how to run positions in his sleep.
For now, his brain has only learned the off-ball running position diagrams, but Zhang Hao is quite happy with the "tactical learning mode"; it’s a great tool!
This was his shortcoming as a high school player. Unlike most rookies who have at least played in the NCAA or overseas leagues, regardless, in terms of tactics, both theoretical knowledge and practical experience are more sufficient than his.
Now, at least in the area he excels in—off-ball running positions—his theoretical knowledge is incredibly rich.
This will definitely be a huge advantage for him when entering the NBA.
...
"Remaining lifespan: 316 days, usable lifespan: 315 days."
On the morning of August 14th, upon waking up, Zhang Hao saw this reminder again...
He couldn’t become numb to it because this was the time he still had to live.
Getting out of bed, after washing up and dressing in relatively formal attire, a casual suit, Zhang Hao headed to Aprile Clark’s room. The tennis beauty, now a budding theater actress Aprile Clark, initially surprised Zhang Hao with her quite decent cooking skills. Today, as usual, she had prepared breakfast waiting for him.
The breakfast was quite sumptuous, and Zhang Hao didn’t hold back, sitting down to eat. Since Aprile Clark’s holiday began, she has been frequently preparing breakfast. Today, they were going to the airport together, so Aprile Clark prepared breakfast.
"Paul arrives this afternoon. In the morning, we are going to pick up your country’s genius center... Is he really that good?" Aprile Clark asked.
"He should be the best inside player in our country in a couple of years. He was the best center at this year’s World Youth Championship. He will definitely make it to the NBA." Zhang Hao had a lot of confidence in Wang Zhizhi’s talent. In the original timeline, even after struggling in the Chinese Jia-A League for three years, he was still drafted by the Mavericks. In the NCAA, as long as Wang Zhizhi can find his footing, Zhang Hao doesn’t see any problem with Wang Zhizhi entering the NBA.
Tomorrow is the registration day for most universities in the United States. Wang Zhizhi had already boarded a flight from Shanghai last night in US Time. Xu Jicheng arranged with Zhang Hao to pick up Wang Zhizhi today, and tomorrow Wang Zhizhi would register at Georgetown University in Washington D.C.
Pierce is also registering at the University of Kansas tomorrow and is going home today.
"I really envy you gifted people; I can only become a theater actor. I don’t even know if I can make it. Do you think Paul will have lost another pound this time when he returns?"
Aprile Clark once also aimed to become a professional tennis player and knows the difficulty of becoming an NBA player. Hearing Zhang Hao speak so highly of Wang Zhizhi, she thought he must be quite impressive, though she didn’t continue the topic, as she didn’t even know who Wang Zhizhi was.
