The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 156 - 54 The World Has Changed

Victory can bring a good atmosphere to the team’s locker room.

Professional basketball is a job with immense pressure, especially for coaches.

Seeing a smile on a basketball coach’s face is harder than finding loyalty in Ohio.

Ramsay found that when you put some of the pressure and anxiety of the game on Gan Guoyang’s shoulders, he could share the burden well, and you didn’t have to pay him a penny.

He was a quite mature basketball machine, born for victory, full of energy every night, doing his best to help the team win the game.

His surging yet stable emotions affected everyone on the team, including Ramsay. Recently, Dr. Ogilvy said that Ramsay’s mental state was much more normal—he had thought it would only improve after he retired.

But under Gan Guoyang’s vast emotional bubble was extreme calmness and rationality; everything he did was for winning, unsettling opponents, and leading his teammates.

The more Ramsay understood Gan Guoyang, the more he realized that this guy was nothing like Bill Walton. Walton was surrounded by an emotional bubble, often getting lost inside and needing others to guide him out, whereas Ah Gan needed none of that.

In terms of stature, giants are often children at heart. Jabbar, Chamberlain, Hayes—they were unbelievably naïve outside basketball.

Jabbar always needed someone to tell him why to play basketball, Chamberlain continuously needed reminding of how to play basketball, while Hayes always thought he didn’t even like basketball—then he became the NBA league’s history-making Iron Man, missing only nine games in his career.

The head coach is always faced with various dangers when working with these physically powerful but mentally fragile giants, like taming a tiger—it might fight for you, but you never know when it might bite back.

Ramsay had always tried to learn something from John Wooden, and the team’s general manager Stu Inman was even dubbed "Wooden’s number one observer", but recently, Ramsay was giving up on this idea. He realized that college basketball and professional basketball were naturally worlds apart, and the divide between college and professional basketball coaches was getting wider.

As the second half began, Ramsay became even more convinced of his judgment when he did not see Mark Aguirre in the Mavericks’ starting lineup.

The conflict between Aguirre and Motta had not been for just a day or two. Since Aguirre arrived in Dallas in 1981, the two had been in constant dispute over Aguirre’s weight problems.

Both Motta and Ramsay were championship coaches. Ramsay won the championship in ’77, Motta in ’78. Both were of a similar age, one had served in the navy, the other in the air force.

The problems they faced in the ’80s were similar too. Aguirre couldn’t control his eating, Drexler was clinging to bed unwilling to get up early to sleep—both were supremely talented but naturally lax players.

If it had been the ’60s or ’70s, such player-coach relationships would be hard to imagine, because NBA coaches were much like college coaches, with strong control over the team. Lax players would be kicked out of the team, even Chamberlain could be scolded, ridiculed, or told to bug off.

By the late ’70s, the first year of the ABA-NBA merger, it was the period of fierce competition between traditional college basketball and ABA-style commercial basketball. In 1977, Ramsay led the Trail Blazers, which bore the deep imprint of traditional basketball, to defeat the Philadelphia 76ers, dubbed the "basketball big top", causing elation amongst traditional basketball fans across America.

Ramsay still remembers the office receiving phone calls the day after winning the championship from college basketball coaches across the nation, and the flurry of letters flying in, all telling Ramsay they were the heroes of American basketball and had defended the creed of team basketball.

At that time, George McGinnis of the Philadelphia 76ers alone earned as much as the entire Trail Blazers’ team. Their accumulation of stars, individualism, and showy style of basketball earned the inexplicable dislike of many.

The Trail Blazers, Walton, and Ramsay were the heroes of traditional basketball in 1977.

But by 1978 and 1979, the Trail Blazers were thwarted by injuries, and for two years in a row the championship finals were between the rather lackluster Bullets and Supersonics. The attendance at the games, media attention, plummeted to a nadir, with some fans not even aware that the finals had started.

The fans all said that they wanted to see stars, to watch more exciting games.

It was Dick Motta, then coach of the Bullets, who complained to reporters, "Our basketball games are also very exciting," but such voices couldn’t change the fact that the Bullets and Supersonics were among the least-known champions in NBA history.

As the calendar turned to 1980, the NBA welcomed the three-point line, Magic and Bird. The Lakers defeated the Supersonics to enter the finals and win the championship, the Celtics won the championship, followed by Magic ousting champion coach Westhead, and Bird leading a player revolt against old coach Bill Fitch, with the team decisively changing coaches.

The coach’s authority and control over the team became worthless in an instant. In the face of stars, they could be nothing, just regular employees, and the basketball world was acknowledging this perspective.

It’s as if the calendar had flipped from December 31, 1979, to January 1, 1980, and in that moment, the world moved onto another track, even though only a second had passed.

In the third quarter without Aguirre, the Mavericks played well, regrouping and trying to catch up led by Blackman, Harper, and Sam Bowie.

Bowie knew he couldn’t handle Gan Guoyang; when defending, he would call for help from his teammates while trying to protect the basket area, letting him shoot if he wanted, with made shots left to fate.

The Mavericks once again narrowed the gap to within ten points.

Then, during one defensive play, Bowie took a chance on a double team with his teammate against Ah Gan, but Gan Guoyang seized the opportunity to dribble through the gap. Gan Guoyang drove to the basket, took a step, jumped with both feet, stretched his arms behind his head in mid-air, then slammed the ball into the hoop with force.

The powerful dunk cracked the connecting part of the hoop and the backboard, and cracks began appearing on the tempered glass.

The referee immediately stopped the game upon seeing this and called over the staff to inspect the hoop, deciding to replace the backboard, which brought the game to a halt.

The fans at the scene were as excited as if they were at a circus watching lions and tigers fight, enthusiastically discussing Gan Guoyang’s recent slam dunk, with young fans occasionally shouting at Guoyang to show their love.

Replacing the backboard took some time, and the players on both teams had nothing to do, some went off the court to rest, while others stood talking on the court.

Ramsay and Dick Motta leaned on the scorer’s table making small talk, unable to comprehend how tonight’s game had taken such a turn.

"It’s a farce," Motta said, wiping his glasses. He and Ramsay, having known each other for many years with a good off-court relationship, commented, "This is the NBA now, the basketball games of today. Everyone watches like it’s a circus, the players are the circus’s lions and elephants, and we’re fucking animal tamers and clowns!"

"Lighten up, Dick. The audience loves this stuff. They like the elephants and the lions. The young people are into TV, pop stars, Terminator, robots, and E.T. the extraterrestrial. This is the trend."

"Oh fuck, trend? Trendy? Since when did you start using these words to make excuses for them? I know, you guys got Ah Gan, and he is indeed a genius. But you used to hate Dawkins the most, didn’t you?"

Darryl Dawkins, formerly of the Philadelphia 76ers circus crew, was known as "Chocolate Thunder" for breaking the less sturdy NBA backboards of the time with his bomb-like explosive dunks.

Because of him, NBA hoops were reinforced, yet tonight they were still wrecked by the beast, Guoyang.

Ramsay gave Motta a glare and said, "Ah Gan is not Dawkins. If Philadelphia had Ah Gan in 1977, we would not have won the finals."

Motta was surprised at Ramsay’s words and said, "I feel like you’ve changed, Jack."

Ramsay shook his head, "No, the world has changed."

Dick Motta, looking at the broken backboard, thought about the endless tugging between him and Aguirre and felt exhausted.

On the court, Guoyang and Sam Bowie stood near the key, watching the staff change the hoop and chatting.

With a cautious tone, Bowie said to Guoyang, "Ah Gan, can you not play so hard against me in the game? You’re breaking the hoops."

Seeing the high-strength tempered glass cracked by Guoyang’s dunk, Bowie thought about his own fragile legs - a hit could easily end his career.

Guoyang said, "Sam, it’s my way of showing respect for you."

"Well, don’t respect me so much."

"Why didn’t Aguirre play the second half? Did he have a fight with the coach during halftime?"

"Yes, he stormed out, slamming the door. They argue often, like a married couple, and will make up soon, only to fight again next time."

"I’ve seen Aguirre play, and he’s not bad."

"That’s how Coach Motta is. The better you play, the more he criticizes you because he craves perfection."

Dick Motta, a Mormon, carried an air of strict discipline about him and was extremely stern with his players, the better they were, the tougher he was.

"Well, it’s a good thing he’s not my coach. Otherwise, he’d be the strictest person in the world... But such a coach is unreasonable. He should change, encourage the players more, like Dr. Jack."

New coaches in the League were starting to realize the positive impact of encouragement, and experts in the American education field also advocated for encouraging and joyous education to break free from the past disciplines of religious-based school learning.

The new backboard was installed, and the players returned to the court to resume the fragmented game filled with various small interruptions.

The Mavericks were disrupted again in their third-quarter comeback attempts, their good offensive rhythm and touch vanishing without a trace. At such a time, the team leader should step up to score and keep the game alive, but Aguirre had already returned to the hotel and wasn’t coming back.

In the end, the Trail Blazers secured a victory at home with a score of 108:95, a 13-point margin, achieving a two-game winning streak and continuing to rank second in the Western Conference.

At the post-game press conference, Dick Motta was asked what happened with Aguirre and the details of the situation. Motta said, "Aguirre wasn’t feeling very well during the game. He left early for treatment. There’s nothing between us; we’re focused on the next game."

Afterward, the Mavericks didn’t punish Aguirre for leaving the game early.

However, when the same thing happened again three months later, the Mavericks fined Aguirre a sum of money and suspended him for two games.