One Year Left to Play-Chapter 150 - 47: Zero Sense of Gameplay

Zhang Hao’s mind played a BGM—Braces Girl, Alas, Beauty...

Seeing Zhang Hao’s confusion, Butch Baird continued: "I don’t mean that your hard training is wrong, but you need to learn to adjust. Playing in the NBA, a month of games can be more exhausting than an entire high school or college season. You should be mentally prepared for this, and also start physical preparation.

Since you just joined the team, we actually don’t know much about your physical state. How to allocate your stamina, you’ll need to manage it yourself at first, because everyone’s situation is different. I can’t give advice before observing your game condition.

You know about the rookie wall, right? Many talented rookies play long hours in college, and they can keep up that time in the NBA too, but they often hit a rookie wall due to fatigue or injury because NBA games are so much more frequent than college games. You played high school leagues before, which have an even greater intensity gap..."

From this, Zhang Hao understood easily. Because of "learning mode," his body could get good rest after each day of training. He was always the first to the gym to train. If there was a downside, it was that he ate more than before... Compared to his teammates, he was indeed much more diligent. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

Butch Baird saw the enlightened expression on Zhang Hao’s face and felt it was easy to talk to smart people.

Things like this are simple to say and not hard to accept, but in a predominantly African American NBA, there are indeed many rookies with great basketball talent who don’t understand what others are saying.

Zhang Hao felt he learned something new, and after Butch Baird left, he started analyzing.

"The coach said I should explore on my own at first so that the team has samples to analyze... How should I go about this?"

Zhang Hao really didn’t have experience in this area. It’s not something that reading random stuff on forums can solve. Don’t future stars go online? Clearly impossible.

The gap between professional and amateur is huge.

"Since I don’t understand, I’ll just wait until the preseason to see how things look after games..."

Deciding this, after lunch, Zhang Hao continued training on weaving through cones.

In the evening, after finishing cone weaving training, Kenny Anderson sidled up to Zhang Hao: "Aix, are there a lot of you Chinese people? You alone brought so many reporters."

During the training camp, reporters from China came in droves, with almost every player getting interviewed daily. This was something the Brooklyn Nets players had never encountered, not even Kenny Anderson, a former All-Star starter, had experienced such attention.

Zhang Hao thought for a moment and replied: "North America... plus South America, all the people together might be about the same as our country’s population."

"That’s terrifying!"

Kenny Anderson gasped. Even though he didn’t know the total population of North and South America, he knew there were about 20 countries in North America and at least 40 in South America. Yet they still didn’t have as many people as China did.

Kenny Anderson used his clever mind to solve this math problem—"Aix, if we Americans were to get into a brawl with you Chinese, we’d be beaten to death!"

Zhang Hao was speechless—who said anything about brawling with America?

Struggling to find words, Kenny Anderson, somewhat accustomed to Zhang Hao’s reactions, continued: "Aix, let’s have a shooting contest?"

Zhang Hao gave Kenny Anderson a puzzled look: "Are you serious, Boss Kenny?"

Feeling the look from this rookie, Kenny Anderson thought this guy could be quite infuriating at times...

Thinking about the talent Zhang Hao showed over the past three days, Kenny Anderson held back!

Taking a deep breath and with a Pickley-style mentality, Kenny Anderson said: "You give me a bit of pressure, help boost my training motivation..."

These words were said somewhat helplessly.

Zhang Hao nodded and agreed.

Since it’s a one-on-one, knowing yourself and your opponent is key to success, he decisively opened the player scouting system.

"Kenny Anderson, 25 years old, height 183 cm, weight 84 kg, ability rating 84, offense 85, defense 70, passing 94, three-point shooting 79, mid-range shot 81, layup 87, speed 92, strength 79..."

He hadn’t checked for several days. Compared to a week ago, Kenny Anderson had lost 4 kg. His strength rating dropped below 80, but his speed didn’t improve as much as Zhang Hao expected. Instead, his shooting and other areas even declined... Clearly, drastic weight changes in a short time impacted Kenny Anderson’s physical condition and technical state.

This is an issue to resolve in training camp and preseason.

However, at 183 cm and 84 kg, he was still somewhat overweight.

But recently, Zhang Hao noticed Kenny Anderson’s weight loss training seemed less serious.

In a proper one-on-one, the probability of losing was high. The opponent could steal the ball. After some thought, Zhang Hao said to Kenny Anderson: "Boss Kenny, I’ll definitely take the mid-range shot contest with you seriously."

"Yes, taking it seriously... A mid-range shot contest? What’s that mean?"

A few minutes later, Kenny Anderson left the training ground cursing under his breath.

The mid-range shot contest really was just a mid-range shot contest. Only mid-range shots, no shots from other areas were allowed.

At 183 cm, he couldn’t even touch the ball when the rookie on the other side held it up to shoot!

This was a beatdown with zero game experience!