The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 128 - 29: Challenge with Jordan_2

Kossie stayed with the Trail Blazers and signed his rookie contract, first paying a down payment on a house in Clarksville, Virginia for his grandparents and then buying a townhouse in Lake Oswego, becoming neighbors with Gan Guoyang.

Other neighbors included Drexler, Mychal Thompson, and Vandeweghe—Vandeweghe didn’t buy a house here, he chose to rent, living with his sister Taona.

With the house being empty and no one around, after the school semester started, Wang Fuxi would stay in the dormitory during class to facilitate her studies and come to keep Guoyang company on weekends, spending their time together as a couple.

Wang Fuxi originally wanted to move in permanently, but Guoyang suggested she stay at school, believing that being too sticky too early on wasn’t good for their individual growth, and that they both needed some space.

After confirming that Guoyang wasn’t making excuses to bring other women home, Wang Fuxi decided to respect his thoughts.

Just as he switched on the lights and grabbed a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge, the phone in the house rang.

Guoyang thought it was probably Fuxi checking in on him; he picked up the wall phone, but a man’s voice came through.

"Hey Gan, is that you? Is it your phone?"

"This is Gan, who’s this?"

"You don’t recognize my voice? It’s Michael."

"Michael?"

To his surprise, it was Michael Jordan on the other end. Guoyang was taken aback since they hadn’t been in touch since the Olympics, where they had gone their separate ways.

But on second thought, in an era with telephones, it was relatively easy to get in touch. They had gotten along well in the training camp and had plenty more to talk about after not speaking for a while.

Guoyang started off by ranting about the Olympics on the phone, complaining about how Team USA had beaten China’s team so badly that he was too embarrassed to show his face, slipping away right after the game was over.

Jordan laughed on the other end of the line, saying, "That game was too exhilarating for us to win, and we were already ahead by a lot, but Coach Knight said during a timeout, ’Beat them mercilessly, don’t give Ah Gan any face’! In the end, we still went easy on you guys, not defending with our full strength, or else the gap could have been even bigger."

"Fuck, too bad I can’t go back and play for Knight in college anymore, or I would have definitely crushed his team."

Guoyang could just picture Bob Knight with a serious face and a slight mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

However, after venting about Knight, they both admitted that Bob Knight was a great coach who cared about each of his players, including those who didn’t make the cut.

Jordan told Guoyang that more than 70 players attended the training camp, and whenever a player was cut, Knight would explain to the reporters and scouts why those players were cut—not because they were not good enough, but because they didn’t fit with his team-building philosophy, and that was that.

Knight did this to avoid affecting the players’ futures, preventing the scouts from assuming they were rejects with insufficient abilities.

In fact, later on, those players had great developments in the NBA, and Knight played a part in their success.

Then, the two inquired about each other’s situations in their respective teams. Jordan mentioned that the Bulls were like a nobody in Chicago, unable to even compare with the popularity of the Chicago Cubs (MLB team).

Moreover, as the third-largest city in America, Chicago also has the NFL’s Chicago Bears and the NHL’s Chicago Blackhawks, both with histories dating back to the 1920s, much older than the Bulls.

The Chicago Cubs, with over a hundred years of history, had a legendary season in 1984, winning the Eastern Division regular season championship 40 years after 1945 and entering the playoffs for the first time since then (The MLB playoff qualification is much stricter than in the NBA; of 26 teams and four major divisions, only the regular season champions of each division enter the playoffs to compete for the league championship, with the National League and American League champions then playing in the World Series. It’s equivalent to the NBA playoffs going directly to the Eastern and Western Conference Finals before the Finals.)

This led to the Chicago Bulls being even more neglected, including upon Jordan’s arrival. Jordan said that when he came to Chicago, no one paid any attention to him. The Bulls didn’t have a single All-America live broadcast scheduled for the new season, not one.

Meanwhile, the situation was much better for the Trail Blazers in Portland. The Trail Blazers were the only professional team in all of Portland, even in the entire state of Oregon, beloved as the city’s one and only darling.

Although Gan Guoyang had some negative sentiment because of contract and medical staff issues, as the preseason progressed and the new season approached, the media and fans quickly put those petty issues behind them and threw their full support behind their number 11.

"Our training hall is both shabby and old, the floor is as hard as steel, and the basketball bounces ’dang dang’ on it. Plus, we have to wait for the elementary school kids to finish their classes before we can even use the court. This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever encountered," Jordan vented to Gan Guoyang over the phone.

"So what? You haven’t been training properly?" Gan Guoyang knew Jordan, and he knew this kid definitely wasn’t just venting to him.

"Of course not. I blew them away in training camp. I don’t care what kind of gym I train in, even a cement floor would do. As long as I’m on the team, I’m sure to win. You know, our coach, Lou Holtz, he put me on one team, we were leading 8:0, then he suddenly switched me to the second team. He was messing with me, so I just scored 9 points straight and led the second team to a comeback," Jordan boasted on the phone, actually quite proud. In truth, he rarely talked about these things with anyone else; he wasn’t one to show off. It was only in front of Ah Gan that he couldn’t help himself.

Because they were from the same world.

Seeing Jordan’s "fox tail," Gan Guoyang said, "Is that so? Now in the team, I don’t even play in the practice games anymore. They forbid me from participating, saying I disrupt the balance. On the first day, I led four rookies against Drexler, Thompson, and Vandeweghe and beat them. And it was a buzzer-beater, you should’ve seen Coach Ramsay’s face, as red as a volcano ready to erupt."

"Yo, yo, yo, who can vouch for your words?"

"Every player and staff member of the Trail Blazers. Mike, did you call me just to talk about this, or is there something more important you want to tell me?"

Over the phone, Jordan chuckled and said, "You get me, Gan. I wanted to share some good news with you. A sportswear brand from Portland signed a contract with me, Nike, five years and two and a half million US dollars, just a bit more than your contract."

Jordan specifically emphasized the Portland brand and "just a bit more than yours," and Gan Guoyang immediately felt his temper rise, that kid was definitely showing off!

After so much blathering, it all came down to bragging about his unprecedented super sneaker contract.

Of course, Gan Guoyang knew Jordan deserved it, even if you only looked at the present and not the future, Jordan’s popularity in the games was still unmatched.

In New York, in Indiana, at the Peoria Civic Center, Jordan’s games caused a sensation, giving fans a basketball performance completely different from the past.

In a game in Indiana, Jordan scored 40 points. Afterward, a huge crowd of fans followed him into the players’ tunnel. He was like The Piper, and the team had to use a human wall to isolate him for his protection.

However, Gan Guoyang didn’t tell Jordan that he had received similar treatment in Oregon. After a game against the Jazz, his jersey was ripped to shreds by the fans.

"The regular season is about to start. How about we see who scores more points in the first game?" Gan Guoyang challenged Jordan.

"Heh, I was thinking the same thing. Let’s just wait and see the post-game reports." Jordan loved these kinds of challenges.

They made a deal, and just then Gan Guoyang heard someone knocking at the door. He hung up the phone to open it, and it was Jerome Kossie.

"What’s up, Kossie?"

"Oh, your girlfriend called me, asking why your home phone line is always busy, wondering if you’re chatting with some woman."

Gan Guoyang sighed in frustration and said, "No, no, I was... I was talking to a friend. Fuck, I’ll give her a call."