The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 599 - 10 Gap_3

Gan Guoyang didn’t say "guys," instead he used the term "comrades."

The four of them, plus Song Tao who had returned to China, were enough to establish a party branch within the Trail Blazers.

Song Tao nursed an injury for a season in Portland, spending the last season as the twelfth man on the bench, occasionally getting some playing time.

However, he indeed had difficulty reaching NBA-level in confrontational play. Although he had made significant progress, frequent injuries made it hard for him to secure a foothold.

After the contract for this season ended, he returned to China to shine and thrive where he was needed.

The three of them changed into their jerseys, did some basic stretching, and under Gan Guoyang’s lead, began their warm-up.

Gan Guoyang’s warm-up routine was straightforward—a half-hour full-court shooting exercise.

For half an hour, they would run back and forth between the two baskets, completing layups, short-range shots, catch-and-shoot, mid-range, three-pointers, and various offensive techniques you know, from inside to outside, from slow to fast.

Before starting, Gan Guoyang reminded the three guys, "If you feel that you can’t keep up with the stamina, stop and rest, don’t force it."

Afterward, Gan Guoyang took the lead with Petrović closely following; Sabonis and Divac also tagged along, starting to run from one end of the court to the other.

Adelman assisted from the side, passing the ball, instructing movements, with a smile on his face, thinking to himself that Ah Gan was trying to train these three European players to death.

There wasn’t a single player on the Trail Blazers who could easily follow Gan Guoyang through this half-hour full-court shooting warm-up before training.

Don’t be fooled by the slow start with leisurely layups and shots; the duration was the kicker, a whole half-hour.

The farther it went, the faster Gan Guoyang became, the intensity increased, and he continuously accelerated, changing speeds rapidly, consuming a tremendous amount of stamina.

This wasn’t just a warm-up; for some players with poor stamina, it counted as a day’s worth of training volume.

Guys like Hornacek and Kossie were doing well to last about 20 minutes.

About 15 minutes in, Divac was the first to give out; he raised his hand to signal Adelman and stepped off the court to rest.

It wasn’t that his stamina was too poor, but the unpredictable pace led by Gan at the front was too much for him to handle.

Sweat dripped continuously from Divac’s forehead as he sat on the sideline, gasping for breath. Was this motherfucker a warm-up? 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

Sabonis was the second one who couldn’t keep up, not because of his stamina, but because his ankles and knees couldn’t bear it and were starting to heat up.

For a heavy-weight player like him, running and jumping exercises should indeed be limited; his joints needed protection.

When he was 19 or 20 years old, Sabonis was a monster at 7 feet 3 inches, capable of running and jumping, full of energy.

He and Divac felt their legs go slightly weak after stepping off the court, obviously having expended a lot of energy.

Divac even joked with Sabonis, "Did you stop because you saw me raise my hand? You were too embarrassed to be the first one to stop, right? You should thank me."

"Let me teach you an English phrase, it means ’thank you.’ Fuck you."

Both men sat on the sideline, laughing and panting, while Adelman said, "This is just the beginning. The NBA season is very long, and you need to have good stamina reserves to prepare for the games."

By now, only Gan Guoyang and Petrović remained on the court, and more and more people were arriving in the arena, coming to report.

Last year’s rookies for the Trail Blazers only left Mark Bryant behind, the others did not renew their contracts and left the team.

This year, the draft was canceled in the later rounds, leaving only the first two rounds, so many players went undrafted.

Undrafted players had to play in the summer league, sign short ten-day contracts, then participate in rookie camps, preseason training camps, hoping to stay and fight for a job spot.

However, among all the rookie camps of the teams, the Trail Blazers was the most well-known because Ah Gan would participate.

Many marginal players with NBA dreams wanted to come to Portland to try their luck, to feel up close how the NBA’s number one player trained.

But after the training camp ended, they often had only one thought: I need a good rest, and I never want to stay in Portland to play basketball again.

Training with Gan Guoyang was too tough.

At this moment, Petrović was still persisting, trying to keep up with Gan Guoyang’s pace.

For the first 20 minutes, Petrović felt okay, even thought about overtaking Gan Guoyang.

After entering the 20-minute mark, the energy expenditure became huge, and his movements started to distort.

Some simple layups could go wrong, let alone long-range shots from the perimeter.

But after 20 minutes, Gan Guoyang began to speed up; his shuttle run speed, shot release speed, everything got faster.

Gan Guoyang started "looping"; he finalized under the basket with dunks, ran to the other side and scored three-pointers.

Shuttle run to the other side, dunk again, then run back and take a mid-distance shot—by this time, Petrović was still attempting threes, having just missed one.

Their balls collided in mid-air and bounced off, Gan Guoyang dashed to grab the ball, quickly turned around on the spot to shoot, a mid-range shot with a slight fadeaway, hitting the mark.

Grabbing the ball, he continued the shuttle; another dunk to finish on the other side.

Meanwhile, Petrović finally made a three-pointer after two attempts.

Gan Guoyang, like a tireless machine, kept attacking back and forth between the two baskets.

After 25 minutes, Divac and Sabonis could tell, Petrović was extremely tired.

Slowing down, his shots became unstable, he staggered a bit—he had not fully recovered from his injuries.