Relying on Nate Thurmond's relationship, Gan Guoyang became familiar with the Warriors.
In early November, the Warriors' games were mainly played at home in Oakland and surrounding cities, giving them plenty of time to train.
If the time happens to be Saturday or Sunday, Gan Guoyang will get up early and help Gan Youwei with some chores in the store.
Then, in the morning, Gan Youwei would make more than a dozen exquisite Chinese lunch boxes, let Gan Guoyang put them in large lunch boxes, and take them to the Warriors' training center by bus as a lunch lunch for the Warriors players.
The bento ingredients are fresh and exquisite, and the dishes are all carefully prepared by Gan Youwei. Everyone who has tasted the lunch box has been full of praise.
These lunch boxes are equivalent to Gan Guoyang's "tuition" for training with the Warriors, allowing him to absorb nutrients from professional-level training.
For Gan's Restaurant, in the future they will become more famous because of basketball and become a holy place for many fans and tourists.
It seems that playing basketball is more effective in promoting restaurant business than being a chef, which Gan Youwei and Gan Bingguang never expected.
Because of his reputation in San Francisco and his frequent appearances at Warriors training camps, Gan Guoyang met Warriors owner Frank Mioli.
This boss is a maverick among many sports businessmen. He has an eccentric personality and is unique in dressing. He is tall and never wears formal clothes. He often wears a jacket, leather coat or striped floral shirt, plus an eternal hat. The plaid deerstalker hat and the big beard on his face made him look like an Italian director in Hollywood.
Mioli is a sports enthusiast. He used to be a beer sales manager. Because of his work relationship with the 49ers, he began to be responsible for the production of sports programs on the radio.
This opened up connections in the San Francisco sports community, and he later became a minority owner of the 49ers.
In 1962, he teamed up with more than 30 partners and bought the Warriors for only $860,000.
Later, due to poor management of the team, Chamberlain's departure caused a sharp decline in attendance. Other minority shareholders of the partnership withdrew one after another. He bought all the shares and became the majority owner of the Warriors.
Under his management, the Warriors experienced a relatively successful 1970s and won an NBA championship trophy. Now the team has entered the rebuilding stage.
After watching Gan Guoyang's several training sessions, Mioli really became very interested in Gan Guoyang. He privately approached Gan Guoyang and asked him if he wanted to directly enter the league and play in the NBA.
If the Golden State Warriors can recruit such a talented player, their popularity in San Francisco will definitely skyrocket, which will help solve the current attendance and ratings crisis that the Warriors and even the entire NBA are experiencing.
However, Gan Guoyang very rationally rejected Mioli's temptation. He said that he was still too young and he wanted to go to college instead of diving into the turbid professional sports circle.
During the Warriors' training period, Gan Guoyang personally felt that under the flashy robe of the NBA league, there were all kinds of lice crawling.
Bernard Jin told Gan Guoyang without hesitation that he had been troubled by alcoholism and scandals, and now he has come out of it, but he did not recommend that Gan Guoyang enter the league prematurely.
He also said that more than half of the players in the league may have the experience of using illegal drugs, more than two-thirds of them drink and gamble, and more than 90% of them are involved in promiscuity and debauchery.
"If you haven't laid a strong foundation for yourself, it's better not to get into this big dye vat. There are a lot of things to wash off, and it's not that easy."
Bernard King taught Gan Guoyang earnestly and sincerely. After coming to the Bay Area, he had changed his face and started a new life.
However, Gan Guoyang is not in a hurry to join the league not because he is afraid of being spoiled by the league's atmosphere. He has confidence in his own willpower.
His worries still come from his basketball skills and experience. He knows that after joining a professional team, there will be fewer opportunities to increase the number of goals.
It is impossible for coaches of professional teams to carefully guide you in basic skills and teach you various tactics to lay the foundation for you like high school and college coaches.
Everyone is in a professional team for work, and coaches are under great pressure to achieve results. It is not for learning and improvement. Playing is for winning, so whoever performs better will succeed.
After facing each other head-on with the Warriors' professional players, Gan Guoyang's confidence in himself has increased. He believes that it is no problem for him to be an inside deputy attacker and an excellent defender in a professional team.
But his goal is definitely more than that, so how could he rush into the professional arena just for the petty profits and temporary fame in front of him.
Moreover, there is simply no room for him in the Warriors' current lineup, and he will not think about playing as a substitute for Joe Barry Carroll - this guy's average training time in the Warriors training hall may not be as long as Gan Guoyang.
Gan Guoyang's strength continues to improve steadily, and the gap between him and his teammates is also getting wider and wider.
However, he didn't tell anyone about his training with the Warriors, so no one on the Water Bell team knew that his boss's level had improved again.
Gan Guohui only knew that Gan Guoyang disappeared as soon as he got up at noon on weekends these past few weeks, thinking that he was also on a date.
Even Bellman didn't know that the team's training madman didn't take a rest on rest days, but went to the professional team to play small games.
Mainly at that time, the sports media was not developed enough, and the NBA was at a stage where no one cared about it. If you didn’t pay special attention to the relevant news, it would be difficult for anyone to notice that in the corner of the sports section of a certain newspaper, a reporter mentioned "the Chinese of the Water Bell Team" Center Gan trained with the players at the Warriors training facility" was recorded as an anecdote.
On November 13th, the men’s regular season of the CIF San Francisco League High School Basketball Tournament officially started at Kezar Stadium.
Starting from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., there are two games in the morning and afternoon in sequence.
It was obviously wise for Beiqiao Middle School to rent Kezar for a warm-up match with Lihua in August.
Because starting from October, sports competitions from various leagues are coming one after another, and Kezar's schedule is fully booked.
In addition to men's and women's basketball games of all ages, the CIF league also has volleyball, badminton, boxing, and indoor track and field events, all of which are held in this old hall, and everyone has to line up.
The Water Bell team's game was scheduled from 2 to 3:30 in the afternoon, and their opponent was the mediocre Balboa High School.
Balboa High School is a historic public school in San Francisco. However, the school's sports strengths are football and volleyball, and the basketball team is average.
As the first touchstone on the road ahead for the Water Bell team, Gan Guoyang did not spare any effort in the game and dominated the game on both offense and defense from the first minute of the game.
In high school basketball games, if the difference in strength is large, the score difference will be quite outrageous. After all, student teams will be very weak.
The men are slightly better, but the women are even more terrible. The point difference sometimes reaches 60, 70, or even exceeds 100 points.
Balboa's high school level is slightly better than Lihua's, but in Gan Guoyang's eyes, they are both too short and too slow.
When he guards the basket, it becomes very difficult for opponents to score.
But what surprised Behrman was Gan Guoyang's offense.
In a low post attack, he faced a defender who was a head shorter than him and made a quick turnaround jumper after receiving the ball to score two points.
Bellman had never seen this technical move before in competition or training.
Originally, Gan Guoyang's offense of catching the ball in the low post mainly involved rolling into the basket and then releasing the ball and dunking.
It was the first time for Bellman and his teammates to see this kind of deft and fast turnaround jump shot.
The score difference was widened to 20 points in the first half, and Bellman called a timeout to replace Gan Guoyang.
He asked: "Did you just use a turn-over jump shot? When did you learn it?"
Gan Guoyang said: "Just recently."
"Lately? Why the hell didn't I see you practicing?"
"I used the technique of Visualization."
"Visual...what? What the hell are you talking about?"
"That's a way pros use to improve their skills. Well... just imagine it in your head."
Behrman had a question mark on his face and cursed: "Gan, if you keep fooling me with your fucking nonsense, I will hang myself in front of your hotel."
