The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 387 - 7 Balance

After the failure in the Western Conference Finals, Hakeem Olajuwon ended his ’86 season and, after a brief rest and adjustment period, headed to the University of Houston’s Hofheinz Pavilion for training.

The offseason is very long, and for an NBA player, how to allocate this lengthy summer is crucial for their performance in the next season.

The fringe players in the league’s first task is to find their next job.

Stars in their prime need to maintain their condition during the offseason and ideally improve.

Veterans should focus on rest and recovery, manage injuries, and build up their physical reserves for the new season.

New stars like Olajuwon, after tasting the pain of significant defeat, seek to break through their own limits during the offseason.

Merely training hard at a university is not enough, what’s more, Moses Malone didn’t come to Houston this time, as he was nursing an injury back in Philadelphia.

Thus, Olajuwon signed up for Pete Newell’s big man camp to further hone his skills, hoping to take revenge on Ah Gan in the next season.

But who knew that Ah Gan would show up too! Even as accomplished as he was, why attend a training camp?

"What are you doing here? Acting as a coach? If you’re coaching, I want my money back," Olajuwon said without any politeness.

"Oh no," Gan Guoyang replied with pride, "I can’t teach you post moves, but I can teach you how to get a championship."

"..."

"You’re already this good, why come to a training camp?" Olajuwon complained, as he felt that Gan Guoyang’s skills were already very refined.

"There’s an ancient Chinese saying, ’A martial artist’s fists do not leave his hands, and a musician’s music does not leave his mouth.’ Basketball skills are like a knife—they will dull if not sharpened. Besides, didn’t the fact that it took seven games to defeat you guys in the Western Conference Finals prove that I need more practice?"

Olajuwon was already considering asking for a refund, but he thought better of it and decided to endure.

Training together was not a bad thing after all; he could take this chance to see how this youngster trained.

Olajuwon was from Nigeria, and he did not participate in the 1984 Olympic Training Camp.

Therefore, he did not know what Gan Guoyang was like during training; he had only heard about it from Drexler.

Drexler mentioned that Gan Guoyang trained extremely hard, to an intensity most people could not keep up with.

At the opening ceremony of the camp, Gan Guoyang saw several familiar faces, Joe Barry Carroll, and the Cavaliers’ recent first overall pick, Brad Daugherty.

Apart from the NBA players, there were also quite a few college newcomers, all hoping to improve themselves in preparation for a future in the NBA.

The presence of Gan Guoyang made these tall players somewhat nervous, given his fierce reputation, exceptional talent, and the fact that he was the ’86 NBA champion, covered in glory.

However, once the camp started, everyone found that Gan Guoyang was very approachable off the court.

He was affable, naturally humorous in his speech and behavior, able to chat comfortably with anyone and devoid of any star attitude.

In contrast, Olajuwon was always scowling, giving off a ’do not approach’ vibe that made others keep their distance.

Of course, being approachable off the court was one thing; how one played on the court was another. From the very first training session, Gan Guoyang demonstrated intense aggression.

Pete Newell’s training was progressive. He believed that all tactics for centers have to start with physical confrontation.

Without confrontation, everything else is for naught, insubstantial.

And the key to confrontation is balance.

"If you can’t maintain balance in physical confrontations, you will lose control over your body, and if you can’t control your own body, you can’t control your movements or the basketball, and thus you can’t control the space you occupy, the opponent, or the game itself," he explained.

Newell emphasized balance because for smaller players, the ability to maintain it seems almost innate.

But it’s different for big men; many tall players struggle to maintain their balance during confrontations or find it hard to lower their centers of gravity, leading to issues executing some offensive and defensive moves.

Newell specifically mentioned George Mikan, arguably the earliest superstar center in NBA history, who out of high school was not sought after by any college basketball teams.

The reason was that Mikan couldn’t maintain his balance during physical confrontations. His back was too straight, his knees wouldn’t bend much, which made it hard for him to lower his center of gravity and keep up with the speed of guards.

Later, Ray Meyer, coach of DePaul University, recruited Mikan and the first thing he did was to train Mikan’s balance ability in confrontations, laying the foundation for a series of subsequent improvements.

Coach Meyer’s proud disciples included George Mikan, as well as the current star of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Aguirre, and the Bucks’ forward Terry Cummings.

These players were characterized by their very solid low-post techniques, especially Aguirre. Although he was not a big man inside, as a small forward, Aguirre had excellent offensive details in the low post. He had strong control over his robust body.

All of this was inseparable from Coach Meyer’s careful cultivation and his emphasis on balance abilities.

After completing the theoretical instruction, Newell started with the most basic non-confrontational balance training, which is the balance footwork that coaches teach everyone in high school and college.

Newell observed the movement details of each player, occasionally stopping to give pointers. After making a round, he found that Ah Gan and Olajuwon’s footwork was the most standard and fluid.

The others were more or less clumsy like interior players—either their knees weren’t bent enough, or their hand-foot coordination was average, and they became somewhat disorganized when speeding up.

Only Olajuwon and Ah Gan had footwork and center of gravity control akin to some of the perimeter players.

As an improvement training camp, it was certainly not enough to practice only these basics, and the training soon entered the enhancement phase.

"The contradiction in developing body balance is that you have to lose your balance first, then you can learn to balance. In a basketball game, you constantly sprint forward, backward, to the left, to the right, stop abruptly, and then push against each other in the paint, get bumped off, and then you have to get back to your position. Interior players should be like Weebles, constantly being knocked down, then quickly returning to the normal state."

"Thus, real balance training needs to be completed in the midst of strong physical confrontation."

Pete Newell prepared to have the players go up against each other and the person responsible for confronting them was the camp’s assistant, Kermit Washington.

The same player who with one punch knocked Tomjanovich’s brain out, making him the league’s number one tough guy. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

After that infamous punch, Washington had a hard time in the league; he was traded to Boston, later went to the Clippers, and then as a part of a trade for Walton, went to Portland, staying with the Trail Blazers for three seasons.

When he left the league in 1982, he was only 30 years old, the prime age for an interior player, but due to injury problems, he had to retire.

He tried coaching at the college level but found no university willing to accept him, so Pete Newell invited him to be an assistant at the "big man" camp to help train the young big men.

Back when he was with the Lakers, Newell had helped Washington, who at the time was affected by patellar tendinitis, taking painkillers, and in terrible physical shape, including muscle atrophy.

Newell took him to the training camp, forced him through grueling rehabilitation training, and helped him regain his health and achieve good form, leading to the best performance of his career in the new season.

At that time, Kermit Washington seemed to have a bright future until that incident happened and changed everything.

For the young players at the training camp, Washington’s presence was an intimidation. This enforcer-type player was strong and powerful, and he was feared because of that terrifying punch.

In fact, since that incident, Kermit Washington’s temperament had changed drastically. He was pointed out by thousands, and on the court, he could no longer be domineering.

He became afraid of fighting. He feared that his fists would hurt others, and even more so, that he would hurt himself.

Pete Newell asked everyone to go against Washington, to maintain and recover balance as much as possible while being constantly pushed by him.

Washington’s actions were not limited by rules—he could push however he wanted. The younger players who were less skilled at confrontation couldn’t withstand his vigour and were pushed around awkwardly.

When Olajuwon took the court, he withstood Washington’s shoving, quickly recovering his balance after losing it and firmly occupying his position in the paint.

Pete Newell nodded, Olajuwon’s drills every summer in Houston with Moses Malone were not for nothing.

Then Gan Guoyang took the stage, and Kermit Washington took a deep breath. He had heard that this new MVP was a tough customer, tougher than Washington himself.

Bodyslamming Lan Bi’er, bodyslamming Gilmore, the bloodbath at the Silverdome, yet he came out unscathed and even won the MVP, becoming the league’s number one star.

Compared to himself, just an ordinary punch had led to disaster, and now he couldn’t find a proper coaching job and was frequently used as a bad example.

They both fought, yet why was the outcome so different?

Standing under the basket, Ah Gan watched as Kermit Washington, holding a large pad, approached him with a hint of resentment and attacked.

Unmovable, not a hair out of place.

Even with force, still unmovable.

Kermit Washington, using all his strength, pushed frantically, only to find Ah Gan as immovable as a pole set in concrete.

After a few futile pushes, Ah Gan turned to the Washington behind him and said, "Hey, did you skip lunch?"