One Year Left to Play-Chapter 188 - 61: Putting My Life on the Line

When it comes to the turnaround fadeaway at Jordan’s level, basically as long as it’s a humanly possible shot, he can casually execute it as if it’s second nature.

Is this a demonstration of his fundamental skills?

Or does he want to show this rookie a trick? Zhang Hao didn’t care that much, he just focused on remembering every detail of Jordan’s movements.

For a full half hour, Jordan practiced this one technical move, boring to the extreme, but every turnaround, every shot, was meticulous and precise.

With talent far beyond most geniuses, he also had effort and perseverance far beyond most players!

Zhang Hao watched for a few minutes, would go practice it himself, and when he returned, Jordan was still practicing the fundamentals.

He realized that Jordan really wanted to teach him a trick, just was unwilling to say it outright.

If he ignored it because of the other party’s disregard, he would miss this learning opportunity.

But this kind of guidance really depends on the learner’s talent; not every player can learn by watching technical moves. On the contrary, most players need someone to teach them hand by hand, otherwise they can’t learn some complex technical moves.

The turnaround fadeaway doesn’t look hard, but to practice it to an excellent level is really difficult!

Fortunately, Zhang Hao had a decent talent in this aspect, and he spent the entire half-hour completely focused on learning it.

After practicing the fundamental skills of the turnaround fadeaway for half an hour, Jordan ignored Zhang Hao, left the visiting team’s training court, and went back to the home team’s side for individual training.

It’s not because he was afraid Zhang Hao would learn more, but because he felt that Zhang Hao practicing other things would instead interfere with him.

This move doesn’t particularly demand high dribbling skills, precisely because of this, Jordan saw Zhang Hao wanted to learn, so he taught him a trick. Whether he could learn it or not depended on Zhang Hao himself.

Jordan didn’t consider himself a good person, but neither did he consider himself a bad person. In life, he felt he was just an ordinary rich person.

From the perspective of a senior basketball player, he seemed like a bad guy in this aspect, doing things a villain would do, loved to bully the young players the most.

But did this impact the constant emergence of talents in the NBA?

No, he thought of himself simply as an executor for filtering talent, and there are many such people in the NBA.

Perhaps, when a rookie enters the NBA, encountering a veteran who has been around for years but hasn’t achieved much and loves to bully rookies, is also one of those people who filter talents.

In the evening game, Zhang Hao had already proven that he wouldn’t be easily defeated, and won Jordan’s admiration or appreciation in this regard. Jordan casually demonstrated it to Zhang Hao.

After Jordan left, Zhang Hao immediately began practicing the basic moves.

He still couldn’t break these moves down, nor did he know how to select among these moves to better suit the situation during the game, but that wasn’t important now. Right now, he should practice the full set of moves; he was still far from reaching the point where his body forms muscle memory and natural responses like Jordan does in games.

Practicing is all that matters!

He originally planned to practice a bit more, but at 10:30, after training for two hours, the staff informed him that the gym was closing, and a car was ready to take him back to the hotel.

Midway through an exciting session, being ’chased’ out, Zhang Hao asked the staff, "Is Mr. Jordan still practicing?"

The staff replied, "Michael might sleep in the gym again tonight, he has his own key."

With that, Zhang Hao had nothing more to say.

Coming back to the hotel, Kenny Anderson had gotten himself a room again, coming to this big city of Chicago, the nightlife was much richer than Charlotte and Rutherford Town... Though he was supposed to sleep back at the hotel at night, he could get a room for packing or order take-out, that money wasn’t a concern to him.

After taking a shower, at 11 o’clock, Zhang Hao laid down on the bed.

Actually, two hours ago, when Jordan came to the United Center visiting team’s training court, Zhang Hao had already felt a bit discouraged.

He was nearly starting from scratch learning the turnaround fadeaway. Even though he had talent in mid-range shots, he might have a talent for the turnaround fadeaway as well, but learning technique has never been a matter of overnight success.

Perhaps his learning speed and comprehension ability were stronger than most, could learn quicker, but for him, it was still too slow. He thought that even hiring a private coach wouldn’t speed things up that much.

Fundamental skills surely require time to polish.

Listening, watching, and learning... all needed a process.

Jordan demonstrated for half an hour, Zhang Hao learned a lot of things, but watching Jordan train meticulously for half an hour, he understood that Jordan’s skills weren’t innate, but were honed through relentless practice day after day, because Jordan could go half an hour without rest, without stopping, and the technical movements didn’t deform... consistently practicing the same technique.

This absolutely took a tremendous amount of time training.

Yet what he lacked the most was time!

In others’ eyes, he was just a rookie, still an 18-year-old high school rookie. In his rookie season, being able to effectively apply what he’s good at—mid-range shots, athletic ability, basketball IQ—to games would be enough to establish a footing in the NBA.

But after going up against stars like Larry Johnson, Glenn Rice, Jordan, Pippen... he had a strong desire to become stronger.

He really wished he could borrow another five hundred years from the heavens.

A year isn’t enough!

Training was intense and invigorating, and now, relaxing and lying in bed, Zhang Hao quickly felt the onset of sleepiness.