The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 231 - 117 Running Too Fast

For NBA players, the end of a game around 9:30 to 10:00 pm doesn’t mean the day is over.

On the contrary, for some, the real excitement starts only after their day job is done.

Charles Barkley’s physical condition is indeed beyond question.

Yesterday he ate 37 hamburgers, this morning he nearly collapsed with diarrhea, and during the game he almost had an accident.

Yet he pushed through to achieve a double-double with 20 rebounds, ran back to the locker room for a shower, forgetting all about the loss and the near mishap on the court, and then in the late evening, he went to the visiting team’s locker room to invite Gan Guoyang out for a drink.

Gan Guoyang shook his head, saying he had to get up early the next day to catch the earliest flight back to Portland, as their road trip had ended.

Barkley exclaimed in surprise, "Early? You mean you’re going to sleep when you get back? My God, how can you sleep?"

"Sleep is the best recovery, and you, are you still up for going out after all this?"

"I just can’t sleep on the night after a game, Ah Gan. I need a drink and some late-night food to calm down. If I have to catch a plane early in the morning, I might as well not sleep at all, just stay up until the morning and then catch up on sleep on the plane. Or sleep when I get to the next city."

Most NBA players are like Barkley, especially the big men, these energetic guys just can’t fall asleep after two and a half hours of intense physical battling on the court.

In major basketball cities—except for places like Salt Lake City—there’s a rich nightlife, New York, Washington, Los Angeles, Chicago.

After games, it’s common for players to go for late-night food and a few beers together, the simplest of diversions. In cities with a vibrant nightlife, going to a club to party away the remaining energy is standard practice, not to mention spending the night with a few women.

Trail Blazers players like Drexler and Kenny-Carl often found places to hang out after games, even on the road; if there were friends on the home team, they’d get together and have fun.

Gan Guoyang was different. He needed to keep his body in peak condition, which meant getting a full night’s quality sleep.

"Forget it, Charles, I’m going back to sleep. But if you were inviting me to play basketball, I might consider it."

"Xie Te, haven’t you had enough tonight? 37 rebounds, you might not even get that in two games. You’re such a basketball junkie."

Barkley gave up on persuading Gan Guoyang to go for late-night food, and Gan Guoyang didn’t try to convince Barkley to go to bed early either.

True friends don’t necessarily have to share food, drink, and fun times together, but rather, they respect each other’s habits. Barkley didn’t have many friends in the league, but Gan Guoyang was one of them.

Of course, a true friend probably shouldn’t let another friend get diarrhea...

The Trail Blazers ended their road trip with a record of 2 wins and 2 losses, visibly exhausted. Back in Portland, Ramsay gave the players a day off to rest well.

Entering March meant that the NBA regular season was entering its final sprint, with the last regular-season game scheduled for mid-April.

In the standings, the Portland Trail Blazers were still on top of the Western Conference, closely followed by the Los Angeles Lakers, with just one game separating them.

The Lakers kept adjusting after a rough start to the season. Riley encouraged and motivated the players by changing his starting lineup and spurring them on.

The players’ trade market in the ’80s wasn’t as lively as it is today, with no buyout market for players; many issues teams faced during the season had to be resolved by internal development.

Lakers’ general manager Jerry West did his best to help the team, like signing the 7-foot-5 giant Chuck Nevitt to address the bench gap left by the injured Jamaal Wilkes.

As the season progressed, injuries became more and more prominent, and filling a full 12-man roster wasn’t an easy task for NBA teams in the ’80s.

NBA’s influence in America was still relatively modest, and although players’ average salaries had improved significantly from the ’60s (when many players had to work part-time as drivers, plumbers, or chefs), middle and lower-tier players still lacked security. Not yet a coveted occupation, many players chose to play in Europe instead.

Some teams, as a cost-saving measure, opted not to keep a full 12-man squad, running with 11 players. But West didn’t think that way.

Chuck Nevitt was picked by the Rockets in the third round of the 1982 draft, his towering height being his standout feature.

At 7-foot-5, he was like a Tree, but his weight upon entering the league was a mere 224 pounds, and after Bill Fitch’s notorious boot camp in 1983, dropped to as low as 207 pounds at one point.

Afterward, he was sent down by the Rockets to play AAU games with the Houston Flyers (akin to today’s developmental league).

With such proportions, it was hard for him to hold his ground in the physically demanding NBA, relying on his exceptional height to be the team’s "human victory cigar"—when he was on the court, it usually meant the team was on its way to a big win.

Of course, the possibility of a devastating loss also existed.

On March 6th, the Trail Blazers faced the Los Angeles Lakers at home for the third time.

Having learned from their last big loss to the Lakers, the Trail Blazers came prepared this time.

Vandeweghe and Valentine were back for this game and the Trail Blazers, at full strength, led the Lakers 39-29, a 10-point advantage at the end of the first quarter.

Gan Guoyang, through the clips pulled by Spoelstra, learned how the Lakers targeted him defensively. In the first quarter, he fully utilized his defensive presence to attract attention, allowing his teammates to fire away and disrupt the Lakers’ defensive arrangement.

Vandeweghe and Parkson had a particularly good shooting touch tonight, and Drexler, coming off the bench, also had a hot hand.

In the first half, Guoyang focused solely on defense, only scoring 5 points and grabbing 9 rebounds, as the Trail Blazers led the Lakers by 14 points with a score of 51:65.

The Lakers’ offense was dead in the water in the first half and still out of sorts in the third quarter. That’s when Guoyang started to exert his power, hitting consecutive shots from the perimeter.

Riley clearly panicked. In this predicament, he broke the "Ah Gan rule," allowing Rambis and Larry Spriggs to confront Guoyang physically.

The intense confrontations led to an altercation, which angered Guoyang. He began to fiercely attack the Lakers’ inside line, and during a scramble for an offensive rebound, he elbowed Rambis so hard that his glasses shattered.

Rambis fell to the floor, disoriented, and was taken back to the changing room, while Guoyang led the Trail Blazers to extend the lead to 20 points in the third quarter.

By the fourth quarter, the Lakers had lost any semblance of a struggle and put in their human victory cigar, Chuck Nevitt.

Once the giant stepped onto the court, the fans at the Memorial Coliseum became excited. Bill Schonely even exclaimed, "The kite flyer appears, the Lakers have given up the game!"

The 12th men on the teams are basically all tall guys, especially those that are giant spectacles. Part of the reason is to satisfy the curiosity of the audience.

It’s much like the early days of the circus, where giants, freaks, and two-headed people were brought in to sell tickets and attract spectators. Often, the ineffective giants on the basketball court are no different from the freaks at the circus.

At home, the Trail Blazers crushed the Lakers with a 29-point advantage, 110:139, continuing to hold the lead for the first spot in the Western Conference.

However, the situation changed a week later, during the sixth encounter of the season between the Lakers and the Trail Blazers, which was also the last regular-season matchup between them.

At the Great Western Forum, the Lakers were fighting for the first spot in the Western Conference right from the pre-game, forbidding Guoyang from entering that morning and not allowing him to warm up.

Riley gave strict orders that evening to win the game at all costs, entering with a fierce competitive mindset. The Lakers started playing rough right from the first quarter, in a postseason-like state.

They unleashed a whirlwind of fast breaks, using speed and coordination to throw off the Trail Blazers’ defense.

Rambis was no longer tasked with guarding Guoyang alone; it was too cruel for him.

And Jabbar, no longer annoyed by the confrontations with Guoyang in the paint, for the first time this season managed to keep Guoyang in check on both ends of the court.

After all, he was one of the most legendary centers in NBA history. Although he was already 38 years old and had been repeatedly battered by Moses Malone in recent years, in reality, he performed better than Malone in his slightly younger years, in 1981, and Malone could not defend against Jabbar one-on-one.

Today, like an old steam locomotive, he needed a long time to heat up the water and fire up the boiler before he could slowly get going.

The seasoned player, who had been battling in the NBA for over a dozen seasons, knew exactly when it was time to truly roar.

That night, he scored 31 points against Guoyang’s defense, draining most of Guoyang’s defensive energy, leaving him unable to pay attention to anything else.

Of course, Guoyang did not falter. The stronger the opponent, the more he was able to extract the best out of himself. That night, he also put up 33 points and 18 rebounds.

However, aside from Guoyang, the other Trail Blazers players were completely off, with only Vandeweghe scoring 14 points. They were the only two players on the team to score in double figures.

The Lakers, at home, seized the first position in the Western Conference with a 32-point triumph, 101:133.

In the last quarter’s garbage time, Chuck Nevitt took the court, and the Los Angeles fans cheered as if witnessing a spectacle, with the human victory cigar shining brightly.

At this moment, Jack Ramsey substituted Guoyang out of the game, and Guoyang looked somewhat dejected.

When teammates couldn’t make their shots, it was indeed frustrating for an inside player. He couldn’t grab every offensive rebound. Tonight, the Lakers were perfect in all aspects, leaving no gaps.

Ramsay pulled Guoyang aside and asked, "Sonny, do you feel disappointed? Your excellent performance didn’t inspire the whole team."

Guoyang shook his head, saying, "I never get disappointed in my teammates. I only think that I didn’t do enough or well enough, especially in the details."

Although he had done a lot, Guoyang still felt it wasn’t enough, as there was room for improvement in many details during the game.

Guoyang clearly felt that the Lakers at the start of the season and the Lakers now were two different teams. The current Lakers were very strong, executing the details quite perfectly.

Whether it was post positioning, defensive interference, cautious passing, or controlling the tempo, this was the result of a season of adjustments and preparations for the playoffs.

Meanwhile, the Trail Blazers had their ups and downs, and toward the end of the season, their form was actually deteriorating, mainly because they hadn’t perfected those details.

Ramsay patted Guoyang, saying, "It’s not that you’re not doing well enough, it’s that you’re running too fast, and your teammates can’t keep up. Give them some time, and give me some time as well; I’m falling behind too."

Gazing at Ramsay, Guoyang thought to himself that Dr. Jack had changed more during the season than the entire Trail Blazers team had.