The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 602 - 11 The 13th Person_2

Buckwalter evaluated these newcomers.

After West arrived, he put great effort into player selection.

The Trail Blazers’ roster was not built merely for chasing a championship.

"European players are a good breakthrough. They are talented and have strong willpower, decent immediate combat capabilities, but they need proper coaching, or it will be difficult for them to adapt to NBA games," West said.

West watched most of the training sessions and was quite satisfied with Sabonis, Divac, and Petrović.

Of course, what shocked West even more was Gan Guoyang’s intensely rigorous training and the formidable combativeness, competitiveness, and desire for competition he displayed during practice.

West began to understand what Buckwalter meant, and the "Foxbat" analogy he made.

Ah Gan indeed played a decisive role, a very decisive one.

In other aspects, the Portland Trail Blazers had nothing special compared to the Los Angeles Lakers.

Though their team atmosphere was good, and they were very popular in the Oregon region, this to some extent made the Trail Blazers’ management too conservative, lacking the spirit of enterprise.

They were comfortable managing their own turf, lacking cunning tactics and strategic vision.

Their nationwide promotions and marketing were even more mediocre.

Even if the Trail Blazers achieved a legendary three-peat, before Tang Jianguo bought the team, they never established a real national influence—their influence mainly depended on Ah Gan.

Without Ah Gan, West believed, the Trail Blazers might quickly be forgotten.

After Tang Jianguo’s arrival, even though the Trail Blazers were eliminated in the Western Conference Finals during the 1988-1989 season, the team visibly gained greater influence.

The team’s marketing and promotion level improved, with numerous interviews, books, documentaries, advertisements, and very solid community engagement activities, gradually making the Trail Blazers a powerhouse professional team nationally.

Tang Jianguo’s intention to turn the Trail Blazers into the NBA’s New York Yankees was not just talk.

However, aside from marketing and promotion, the Trail Blazers’ roster building was at an A- level.

Without Ah Gan, they might reach the finals, winning a championship was possible but difficult.

With Ah Gan, he directly led the team to become a dynasty, and was progressing towards the next dynasty.

Jerry West’s arrival provided the Trail Blazers with the potential to move from A- to A or even A+.

He particularly appreciated Petrović, the European guard known as "the Mozart of Basketball," whose style of play greatly resembled West in his youth.

He shot accurately and attacked ferociously, possessing a dominating presence on the court, the only one who could keep up with Ah Gan’s pace.

His main issue was defense, a consistent weakness among white perimeter players, slow lateral movement, and insufficient physical confrontation capability.

In Europe, relying on zone defense, these deficiencies could be compensated by teammates’ help.

In the NBA, which mainly prohibits zone defense and focuses on man-to-man, he inevitably would face targeting by the super-skilled black perimeter players.

During West’s era, the league didn’t have as many black perimeter players, and traveling was called very strictly.

Now, with Jordan representing the exploding capabilities of black perimeter players, who were increasingly numerous and with looser dribbling rules, Petrović needed to improve his defense to make a mark.

Fortunately, West had already considered this and thus secured Mike Sanders as a patch.

As for the centers, Divac and Sabonis, Jerry West was more interested in hearing Beelman and Gan Guoyang’s opinions.

He asked Beelman, "How is Divac, isn’t it a pity not to trade him for Edwards?"

Beelman nodded and then shook his head, saying, "From the look of the new season, Edwards is undoubtedly more useful. If he could come, next season’s tactics and rotation would be more stable, more certain. Vlade has potential, but he’s too young. He hasn’t been tested in the playoffs yet, so it’s hard to know what level he can reach."

West then asked, "Does he clash with Sabonis on function?"

Beelman said, "No, that’s a misconception many people have, including me, Ah Gan, and many critics. We misunderstood because we never properly watched Divac and Sabonis play together; we just simply thought they were tall, versatile European centers who can pass. But actually, they are as different as Moses and Karim."

West’s expression remained typically calm, but his body involuntarily leaned forward.

Beelman was the second treasure West found in the Trail Blazers; this coach was indeed different.

As Jack Ramsey said, at a time when most basketball operatives still clung to impression-based and experience-based judgments as if in an agrarian society, Bobby Beelman had already begun to use data to guide a basketball industrial revolution.

Of course, the failure of the 1988-1989 season brought a lot of criticism to Beelman.

Following the spectacular three-peat achieved by Jack Ramsey, Beelman, who took over the Trail Blazers, let the championship slip away in the Western Conference Finals.

Many thought Beelman’s command during games was far inferior to Ramsay, and tactically he was no match for Ramsay, just someone hanging onto Gan Guoyang’s coattails.

But as a rival, West knew, Bobby Beelman managed to keep the previous season’s Trail Blazers stable throughout the regular season and into the Western Conference Finals amidst internal and external troubles, definitely first-class in managing his resources.