The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 399 - 18 Demon King

In 1929, America entered the Great Depression, with around 50% of housing loans in default and unemployment rates nearing 25%, leading to a collapse of the real estate industry.

Wealthy people began fleeing city centers, once-prosperous districts became flooded with sewage, houses fell into disrepair due to age, and the lack of clean water sources and infrastructure made living conditions extremely poor.

Against this backdrop, housing authorities were established all over the country, enacting relevant acts and undertaking the improvement of urban residential environments in hopes of eliminating slums in the cities.

After World War II, America experienced a trend of suburbanization, with the white middle class who once lived in city centers moving en masse to safer, cleaner, and more accessible suburban satellite towns, leaving the city centers to be increasingly occupied by Black people, as slums reemerged.

This time, the housing authorities took action again, and the government issued the "Housing Act." Local governments began borrowing heavily to overhaul urban communities on a large scale, constructing standardized and regulated massive residential complexes leased or sold to the blue-collar working class.

In Columbia City, South Carolina, the massive worker community of Hendley Homes was born against this background. Built in the 1950s, it had over three hundred units inhabited entirely by white industrial workers from Columbia City.

However, by the 1960s, as racial segregation was abolished, Black people began entering Hendley Homes in increasing numbers, and this once well-planned, fully equipped massive community inevitably began to decline.

Blue-collar workers followed the 1929 wealthy and the 1949 middle class in fleeing the city center, yielding their places to an increasing number of Black people.

The crime rate in Hendley Homes skyrocketed, living conditions worsened, and it once again became a slum.

Xavier McDaniel was born and raised here; the eldest in the family, he was born in 1963, when Hendley Homes had already become a massive quagmire of chaos, with violence and crime everywhere, making everyone tread carefully on the streets—it was best to travel in groups, or danger could strike at any time.

From a young age, McDaniel learned to be cautious. After all, his father wasn’t some formidable gang leader but a security guard at the University of South Carolina.

In high school, he revealed his basketball talent, but on the court, he never dared to stand out too much because Olympia High School’s basketball court was as dangerous as the streets.

Many of the students here had been to juvenile detention or reform school, and the basketball court wasn’t a place to be reckless—a careless move might result in someone pulling out a knife.

Facing taller opponents, McDaniel learned the fadeaway jump shot. He didn’t want to rush under the basket and create physical contact, inviting trouble for himself.

By the time he reached high school, his talent began to emerge. He grew taller and caught the attention of many NCAA schools, and he went to Wichita State University in Kansas.

His personality started to change in college; he became tougher and more assertive. Before a game against the Tulsa Team (Paul Pressey’s school) during his sophomore year, McDaniel shaved his head, causing quite a stir.

Back then, it was unusual for Black people to have shaved heads, as it symbolized violence and discrimination, but McDaniel did it and has maintained the look ever since.

From the moment he shaved his head, McDaniel seemed to have cut ties and said goodbye to his past self—timid and overly cautious. He became the most prominent player on the court.

No matter where he was, no matter who the opponent, he was fearless, always trying to prove himself. The 14-year-old version of him, who only dared to take fadeaway jump shots on the court, was buried deep.

But in the moment when darkness fell, McDaniel felt himself transported back to the age of 14, back to the 1970s at Hendley Homes.

He remembered the tire swing there, a place for the kids to play; the bigger kids played happily while he stood aside, longing to join but afraid of getting beaten up.

Like on the basketball court, he would turn, dodge, jump back, and shoot the ball into the basket, keeping far away from those dangerous guys—as long as he got the ball in, that was what mattered.

When did he start to change? Was it the first time he held his ground after a play, or was it after one summer when he noticed that no one on the court was as tall as him?

McDaniel couldn’t remember. He thought of the Converse shoes his father bought him that had worn out, requiring hard cardboard to be stuffed inside to cover his toes, and he thought of how he was all alone in college with no friends, having to make long-distance calls home to his mother every day—these were all vulnerable memories.

So he once had been so vulnerable, timid, weak, and lonely... Waves of severe pain and dizziness came and went, and McDaniel gradually regained consciousness.

He could hear someone calling him; it was the team doctor. He tried to open his eyes, and everything around him became bright and full. The black and white memories of Hendley Homes from the darkness quickly receded.

"Xavier, Xavier? Are you awake? Lie down, lie down, look at this, what number is this, what number is this?"

McDaniel looked at the fingers waving in front of his eyes, saw two, and blurted out, "Two."

"Xie Te, you might have a concussion, you’re still dizzy. Don’t move Xavier, there’ll be an ambulance coming soon to take you to the hospital for a check-up."

"What happened, why am I... here?"

"You were trash-talking with Sonny, and he suddenly hit you, and you passed out."

"Sonny? Which Sonny?"

"Sonny Gan! Ah Gan, the Demon King from Portland. Just lie still, you’ll be fine."

Because of the strong impact to his head, McDaniel experienced a brief period of amnesia.

Afterwards, he was taken to the hospital by ambulance for further examination. On the way to the hospital, McDaniel lay very quietly on the stretcher, showing no agitation.

Meanwhile, on the court, Gan Guoyang complained to the night’s referees, claiming McDaniel had broken his eyebrow bone.

"Look, I’m bleeding! He hit my face with his bald head, my face is my bread and butter, how am I supposed to play basketball after this?"

"Just give me a technical foul, it’ll be enough, I promise I won’t hold McDaniel responsible!"

At the time, the referees were communicating with the scorer’s table about McDaniel’s foul and didn’t see how the conflict between the two began.

In the 80s, the NBA didn’t have instant replay, and referees’ calls depended solely on their own eyesight and memory of the moment.

Because it was in Portland’s home court, the referees only gave Gan Guoyang a technical foul in the end. Supersonics’ coach Bickerstaff loudly complained, but it was to no avail.

After Calvin stopped the bleeding for Gan Guoyang, he returned to the court, but left five minutes into the fourth quarter.

He realized his injury wasn’t a mere cut, but a possible fracture of the fragile eyebrow bone and needed treatment back in the locker room.

Before Gan Guoyang left the court, he had given the Trail Blazers a 12-point lead, but without Ah Gan, the Supersonics launched a counterattack.

Dale Ellis, who averaged single-digit points with the Mavericks, performed brilliantly in his first battle with the Supersonics, scoring 24 points.

He even hit a crucial three-pointer at a key moment, closing the gap to just 1 point.

In the end, the Trail Blazers clinched the game with Vandeweghe’s shooting and Thompson’s critical defense under the basket, with a tight 123:126, 3-point victory.

Vandeweghe led the game with a high of 36 points, and Gan Guoyang scored 31 points with 14 rebounds, giving the Trail Blazers a winning start, though the process was full of twists and turns, and the victory was not pretty.

After the game, Gan Guoyang was examined and indeed had fractured his eyebrow bone. The doctor advised that he should wear a mask in the next game.

McDaniel, after being examined, had a minor concussion but was otherwise fine.

The League, after reviewing the game’s footage, imposed a fine of 5,000 US dollars on Gan Guoyang but did not suspend him.

Stern had given up on making a big deal out of it; it was just a headbutt, not a wrestling fight, nothing too serious.

Due to the fracture of his eyebrow bone, Gan Guoyang started wearing a ventilated celluloid mask from the second game onwards to protect his injured face.

After he started wearing that Curtis Perry model mask, even fewer people dared to mess with him.

He seemed to have truly become the Demon King.