The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 161 - 59 Refund

While Fleisher was negotiating with Stern regarding Gan Guoyang’s suspension, Gan Guoyang and the Trail Blazers were trapped by a snowstorm in Michigan on their way to Cleveland.

The arrangement for away games generally follows the principle of proximity, such as the Trail Blazers playing both the Nets and the Knicks in the New York area, then heading to the Great Lakes region to play three closely located cities: Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago.

Due to the short distances, bad weather, and to save on expenses, the team’s mode of transport switched from planes to buses.

The team rented a coach and set off on the afternoon of the 27th, heading to Cleveland, planning to take the bus to Chicago after tomorrow’s game.

Unexpectedly, it began to snow on the way, and the snowfall grew heavier, marking the onset of winter in Michigan’s Great Lakes region.

The first snowfall is often heavy. The radio in the bus was on as the driver listened to the weather report, which was not optimistic.

The cold wind was piercing outside, and snowflakes filled the entire world, forcing the bus to take shelter at a Motel.

Adelman braved the snowstorm to head to the hotel, only to be told that there were no rooms available.

The players had no choice but to stay on the bus as the snow continued to fall heavily, completely blocking the roads.

Chances were, they wouldn’t be able to make it to Cleveland tonight, even though it was just a 270-kilometer distance from Detroit.

Now they had entered Toledo within Ohio, just an hour’s drive from Cleveland.

After some discussion, Ramsay decided not to risk traveling and agreed they would stay on the bus; they would set off again after the snow stopped and the roads were clear the next day.

Ramsay and Adelman went back to the hotel to rent some bedding and asked if they could provide some heating equipment.

When the owner found out they were players for the Portland Trail Blazers, he generously lent them all the spare bedding and refused to charge a fee.

The only request was to take a photo in the hotel lobby the next day, as a keepsake.

Ramsay and Adelman agreed, and then the hotel owner brought over a wood-burning heater to warm the bus.

The owner also provided the players with hot food; all of this was free because "Ah Gan’s takedown of Lan Bi’er was really satisfying."

Fortunately, the Trail Blazers team had driven into Ohio; being stuck in Michigan would have been awful.

At night, after a satisfying meal, the players wrapped in blankets lay in the coach, with the wood-fired heater burning outside. The whirling snow plunged the world into chaos, making them seem like the last beacon of humanity on an isolated island at the end of the world.

Nobody could really sleep; firstly because they were all too tall, having to lie down cramped and half-sitting, which was very uncomfortable.

Secondly, though they lost yesterday’s game, the memory of Gan Guoyang body-slamming Lan Bi’er was still fresh, and everyone became excited as they talked about it.

Lan Bi’er was a fairly normal player before 1983, playing for the Cavaliers with lackluster performances, grabbing some rebounds, making a few long-range shots, not seeming very promising.

But in 1982, he was traded to Detroit. During the 1982-1983 season, he became an All-Star, and then in the 1983-1984 season, when Chuck Daly took over the Pistons, Lan Bi’er’s style of play started to become less well-received.

On November 7th this year, just over a week ago, the Detroit Pistons played at home against the Chicago Bulls. Michael Jordan attempted a dunk during a breakaway and was knocked down by Bill Lambier, falling hard to the ground and taking a long time to recover.

These kinds of actions he’s been doing nearly every game for the past two years. As an interior defender, he would take down anyone trying to penetrate to the basket, intimidating them, making them afraid to accelerate, afraid to take flight—this was Bill’s routine.

This has caused Lan Bi’er’s reputation among fans to worsen, with his standing among players deteriorating as well. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

In the early years, everyone fought; in the world of basketball, if you didn’t fight, if you didn’t face confrontation, you were considered weak, lacking true respect.

Recently, the League has been cracking down harder, and since the incident with Tomjanovich, everyone knows even fighting has to have limits.

Lan Bi’er is one who doesn’t seem to have those limits. While most players have stopped fighting, he began to stand out with sneaky and nasty moves, and given his size, coupled with the Pistons’ increasingly fierce and aggressive demeanor, many people were angry but dared not speak out.

The players all hoped someone would step up and teach this sneaky big White guy a lesson, but if it were up to them, they’d have to weigh whether they could leave the Silverdome in one piece.

And Gan Guoyang managed to do it.

"Fuck, just thinking about Ah Gan’s takedown makes me too excited to sleep. I want to turn on the TV and rewatch that game’s tape a few more times."

Kenny-Carl was speaking, having been teammates with Bill Laimbeer on the Cavaliers before being traded together to the Detroit Pistons.

Laimbeer stayed with the Pistons, becoming the team’s star and an All-Star center, while Kenny-Carl left to wander between teams.

In Carl’s words, Laimbeer was a complete asshole, a spoiled rich kid who looked down on the NBA, and even as a teammate, he wanted to punch him.

Carl’s comments once again ignited everyone’s enthusiasm for discussion, as they began to describe their feelings when they saw Gan Guoyang body-slam Laimbeer.

"I thought it was all over, Laimbeer was going to die, Ah Gan was going to prison."

"I felt the same, I thought Ah Gan was too reckless, but I also felt he did the right thing. I didn’t dare drive to the basket with that guy there."

"My chest still hurts, it was from Laimbeer hitting me, he had too many dirty tricks, and the referees were as if blind."

"You’re lucky the refs didn’t call you for an offensive foul, his acting could win an Oscar."

"Ah Gan said back in New Jersey that he would knock all those guys out, didn’t think he’d really fucking do it."

"He achieved half of it, Bill is still alive and well... Right, Gan, Gan! Why aren’t you speaking, tell us your feelings at the time again."

Everyone discussed passionately for a while, only to realize that Gan Guoyang’s voice was absent.

Drexler, seated closest to Gan Guoyang, stood up to take a look and found him already asleep, even lightly snoring.

"Jesus, this guy can actually sleep?"

"Alright, everyone stop discussing this, let’s go to sleep. We’re a basketball team, not a fighting club, sleep."

Jack Ramsey spoke up, and the inside of the bus quieted down again, leaving only the sound of the wind blowing outside and the crackling of burning wood to be heard.

The next morning the snow had stopped and the snowplows were working early. The Trail Blazers Team had breakfast at the hotel, left a group photo for the owner, and then hit the road for Cleveland.

By noon, they had arrived at the designated hotel, and then Ramsey received a call from the League, informing him that Gan Guoyang would be suspended for one game and would not be able to play in the night’s game against the Cavaliers.

After receiving the notice, Ramsey was actually relieved; a one-game suspension wasn’t bad, it would give Ah Gan a chance to rest and adjust, he had been playing too fiercely recently.

Ramsey was worried that if he kept playing like this, it would provoke the players’ anger, and they would become targets for injury in the games.

Now that they had played a few games, fans would see him as tough, and even opponents were praising him, especially for taking out Bill Laimbeer, which was seen as a public service.

Taking a break was a way of protecting Gan Guoyang.

But with Gan Guoyang suspended, the Cleveland fans didn’t agree, as many had bought tickets specifically to see him.

This year the Cavaliers had already hit rock bottom, with a season opening of 9 consecutive losses, their current record was 2 wins and 12 losses, bottom of the Eastern conference.

The attendance rate was less than twenty percent, but because of tonight’s game against the Trail Blazers, eighty percent of the tickets had been sold.

And now, right before the game, you tell me Ah Gan isn’t playing? Refunds!

In the end, the Cavaliers official promised that fans who bought tickets for this game could watch the next home game against the Celtics, which appeased the fans’ anger.

Without Gan Guoyang, the Trail Blazers still managed a 115:107 victory, an 8-point advantage over the Cavaliers on the road, ending their two-game losing streak.

[In 1984, I was the youngest coach in the League, 33 years old, perhaps one of the youngest head coaches in history. I became the head coach of the Cavaliers, a terrible team, with terrible marketing, terrible team building, and a terrible stadium. Our home court was like a giant concrete barn, located 30 miles south of downtown in a cornfield at the intersection of two interstate highways. They called it the Richfield Coliseum, but we called it the "Submarine," because the damned thing had no windows!]

The Richfield Submarine could seat 20,000 people, our average attendance was 3,900, but fewer actually showed up, which is why one of our coaches would say, "Tonight a lot of people came disguised as seats." Coming out of the home locker room three minutes before game time, I would feel incredulous, like I was having an out-of-body experience. It was so big, so empty, and so quiet, I felt like I was in a church. But during the games, I could clearly hear someone shouting "You suck," and I could see blue smoke drifting at the top of the seats—someone was smoking up there, and I knew I wasn’t in a church.

At the start of the 1984 season, we were in a bad way, losing series of games, with almost no one coming to see our games at home, but on November 28th against the Trail Blazers, it was a different story. Two days prior, Ah Gan had made headlines with a body slam that sent Laimbeer to his proverbial grave, and his appearance with the Trail Blazers was anticipated, selling tickets to eighty percent capacity. I felt like I was back in North Carolina, San Antonio. At that moment, I truly felt like I was in a church because the yellow Jesus had arrived.]

Of course, he didn’t play as he was banned by Stern, and the whole audience chanted "Refund." This was the most united moment for Cleveland fans that season.

————Published in 2017, an excerpt from George Karl’s autobiography "Furious George".