The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 433 - 51. Down-to-earth

Gan Guoyang never expected that Knight, this crooked-nosed big fellow, actually had a dream of owning a funeral home.

Calvin Natt said that, like most little boys, he loved cars when he was young.

However, while most boys liked fire engines, police cars, and ambulances, Natt was different—he liked hearses.

"Other kids would chase after police cars and fire engines, but I would chase hearses to see which family they were going to," Natt said.

Natt’s father was a Baptist minister, and he would often attend funerals at church with his father.

He liked to observe funerals, watching as the departed bid farewell to the living in a solemn and dignified atmosphere.

He always liked to sit on the outside where he could touch the coffin; he liked touching coffins.

After becoming a professional player, other players liked to go to bars, clubs, nightclubs, or golf courses after the game.

Natt was different. He liked to visit different funeral homes to observe funerals, admiring the sophisticated and skillful funeral rites that provided dignity for the deceased and an outlet for the living’s emotions, and he kept learning.

Natt could recite the various funeral procedures by heart; in his own words, "If I retire now, just like Karl, I could immediately conduct a funeral."

Gan Guoyang was very sure of one thing—if you gave Natt a corpse now, he would be incredibly competent.

Natt’s dream was not just to open a funeral home; he wanted his funeral business to reach major cities all over America, especially those with NBA teams.

"I want to offer one-stop funeral services for everyone who has played in the NBA or worked with an NBA team. I think this is a big industry. We can establish a funeral fund that connects all people who have worked for the NBA. Just imagine one day, one of your teammates, colleagues, might pass away, and we’ll get in touch with you to ensure their funeral is memorable and dignified," Natt said.

Calvin Natt spoke about his ideals, which he cherished even more than basketball itself, his lifelong passion.

In his words, the main reason he played basketball was to raise funds for his future funeral home business. Seeing Karl begin his beloved construction business had spurred him to consider taking action sooner to prepare for the future.

Gan Guoyang listened to Natt’s story, not quite understanding it, but was deeply impressed.

It seemed that on the NBA court, these opponents and teammates all had rich personal lives, not all solely focused on basketball.

Gan Guoyang, known as the player who was best at wrestling on the basketball court, received the nickname "The Undertaker" from the fans.

When he once took on the entire Pistons team at the Silverdome, he was jokingly referred to as the "Detroit funeral industry magnate," and it was just a joke.

He never would have expected that he now actually had the opportunity to enter the funeral business and embark on growing his industrial investments in America.

Gan Guoyang thought to himself, in the novels he had read about time travelers going back to the past, the investments they made were in real estate, computers, gaming, the internet—industries with explosive profits and emerging markets—or they invested in high-tech to contribute to the country’s scientific development.

Gan Guoyang, who had arrived in America of the 1980s, found out that things were not so simple because even if you knew which industries were profitable, you couldn’t get in if you weren’t part of those circles, and they wouldn’t let you in.

Gan Guohui was developing connections with the emergent tech tycoon circle in San Francisco, and it wasn’t something one could penetrate overnight. Often, even if you had the money, they would not accept it. They were doing well, so why should they let you join and make money together?

And what about those companies desperately needing cash, on the verge of bankruptcy or closure—would you dare invest in them blindly?

Gan Guoyang only knew the trends; he hadn’t brought a history book or an industry development report with him.

Now, Gan Guoyang realized that instead of always trying to catch the wave of the times and chasing after the elusive dragon meat, it was better to solidly manage his circle of friends.

Construction and funerary were mankind’s oldest industries—they came into existence with human society itself, enduring through the ages, perpetually irreplaceable.

Industries like computers, the internet, including real estate, could overnight revert back to nothing with the pop of a bubble.

Just like Karl and Natt, diligently building houses for the living and coffins for the dead, wasn’t that much more stable?

Thinking this way, Gan Guoyang became interested in Natt’s funeral industry ideals. Seeing Gan Guoyang’s interest, Natt became more enthusiastic, ceaselessly sharing his grand vision.

Just like Karl, he wasn’t daydreaming about the industry he loved; he was preoccupied with it day and night and had planned for a long time.

In his spare time, he took a multitude of courses in embalming, anatomy, physiology, and psychology, preparing for his future career.

Listening to Natt’s intentions to connect the funeral industry across Oregon, Idaho, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado and allow everyone to leave this world with dignity, Gan Guoyang felt his blood boil.

This was indeed a true undertaker, the future magnate of the funeral industry.

Karl joined the discussion, saying that the future construction of funeral homes could be left to him, linking the upstream and downstream of the industry chain in one go.

Three NBA players gathered not to talk about basketball but instead to discuss how to be contractors and morticians, and they were increasingly energized by the conversation.

It could only be said that birds of a feather flock together—other players would have been busy chasing women, doing drugs, and gambling, while these three had their unique hobbies.

After returning to Portland, Guoyang informed Wang Fuxi about the matter. Wang Fuxi, upon hearing it, felt that it was a reliable proposition and considered cooperating with Knight. They decided to start by investing in a funeral home to get a feel for the local market first.

Knight was well-acquainted with funeral homes and pastors in places like Portland and Denver. They agreed to collaborate in the summer and venture into the funeral business!

February arrived in the blink of an eye, and Kenny-Carl’s lumbar injury showed no signs of improvement. The doctors even advised him to stop traveling with the team for away games, as sitting on a plane for extended periods was detrimental to his back’s recovery.

But the good news was that the Trail Blazers finally welcomed Bill Walton back on the court.

After undergoing repeated surgeries on his ankle, which had become severely damaged and even misaligned, Walton’s condition was rather pitiful.

However, due to the timely treatment over the summer and the meticulous care from the Trail Blazers’ medical team, his recovery was quite promising.

Upon Walton’s return to the practice court, the team held a small welcome ceremony for him. Walton felt somewhat embarrassed, apologizing for his prolonged absence.

Ramsay, however, said, "No problem, your absence helped create a scoring champion."

Everyone burst into laughter; Walton had contributed to Guoyang’s achievement of becoming a scoring champion.

Just as Vandeweghe’s medal of honor was included in his rebounding champion title.

Walton’s comeback greatly relieved the pressure on the Trail Blazers’ interior line.

In reality, the pressure wasn’t all that high – it just required Guoyang to play a few more minutes per game recently.

But for the second half of the regular season, it was preferable for Guoyang to play less and conserve energy for the playoffs.

Walton’s larger contribution was enriching the Trail Blazers’ strategic depth on both offense and defense.

With Walton on the team, their offensive tactics became more varied, and defensively, Guoyang could extend even more freely.

In Walton’s first game back, the Trail Blazers scored a major home victory against the visiting Dallas Mavericks.

The Mavericks had been on a roll this year, but they seemed to have no answer when facing the Trail Blazers.

The final score was 110:133, with the Trail Blazers unleashing their firepower and demolishing the Mavericks on their home court.

In this game, Vandeweghe shot 24 for 18, racking up 40 points and becoming one of the few players on the team to outscore Guoyang in a single game.

His hefty point tally couldn’t have been achieved without Walton’s excellent ball distribution. With Guoyang drawing the defense, Vandeweghe got numerous opportunities to shoot, and he seized them all.

This season, Vandeweghe was different from the previous two. In those, he had started strong but faded as the season progressed, floundering by the playoffs.

This year, however, he showed a remarkable turnaround, starting slowly but growing stronger as the season went on. His offense improved, and so did his defense.

That helped him surpass Drexler as the team’s number two, and alongside Guoyang, he was voted into the 1987 Seattle All-Star game.

Returning to the All-Star game after two years, Vandeweghe was quite moved. Guoyang’s advice had been spot on – focusing on defense, extending his range to the three-point line, and enhancing physical confrontation had allowed Vandeweghe to rediscover his peak form.

In the February 5 showdown with the Los Angeles Lakers, Vandeweghe contributed a critical three-pointer in the final moments, helping the Trail Blazers secure a home victory over the Lakers by a 3-point margin.

Just the day before, on February 4, the Los Angeles Lakers had decisively beaten the Sacramento Kings at home. They opened the first quarter with an astonishing 40:4 lead, illustrating the vast difference in both teams’ strength and form.

In the first 9 minutes of the opening quarter, the Kings failed to score a single point, with the Lakers running up a 29:0 stretch, effectively causing the Kings to shut down completely.

The Kings set a regrettable NBA record for the lowest points in a quarter, scoring just 4. Following this game, Kings head coach Phil Johnson resigned, ending his three-season tenure as the team’s firefighter-coach.

After spending another season as an assistant coach for the Kings, he was set to return to Utah to work under the new head coach of the Jazz.

This game gave a clear indication of the Lakers’ dominance this season, but back-to-back games in Portland saw them take a beating.

Perhaps they were too relaxed after their easy win against the Kings and weren’t prepared for the intensity of Portland players. Pat Riley was furious over this.

But there was nothing to be done; a loss was still a loss. After the game on the 5th, the NBA entered the All-Star weekend break.

Riley once again became the head coach of the Western All-Stars, coaching Guoyang, the starting center for the Western Conference.

This year, Guoyang unsurprisingly won the All-Star voting title, surpassing Michael Jordan and Magic Johnson to become the most popular player in the NBA.

During an interview with reporters, Guoyang described himself as a player who moved forward steadily, taking one step at a time.

It’s just that his strides were exceptionally large.