One Year Left to Play-Chapter 56 - 18: Maybe They’re Not That Strong After All?

This society is very realistic; once you graduate from high school, you’ve practically half stepped into it.

During the lunch break, Zhang Hao and Bibi went together to the training camp on the court, where they would gather shortly.

Kobe and Hamilton went to training immediately after lunch, not fearing any stomach issues. Both were spurred on by Zhang Hao this morning, especially Kobe, who was twice motivated and now had a single thought—train! Train like crazy!

On the other hand, Bibi had already given up on surpassing Zhang Hao’s mid-range shot—this basketball genius with just two and a half years of training already had such incredible shot skills that Bibi felt he was no match for Zhang Hao.

This actually gave Bibi a sense of peace.

Upon arriving at the court, they saw the test scores posted by the staff for the 108 high school students participating in the training camp.

Each perfect score of 10 was highlighted with a different color.

Zhang Hao found his name, No. 99, fourth from the bottom, fairly easy to find.

"Passing/Handling 5 points... I also have 5 points for passing/handling? Oh, right, this is a high school-level evaluation, Shooting 10 points, Athletic Ability 10 points, Static Physical Qualities 9 points, Technique 4 points..."

This basically matched Zhang Hao’s expectations; his shooting and jumping abilities were top-notch, and his physique was decent enough to stand out in the forward position during high school.

However, Zhang Hao noticed that his grades weren’t particularly striking; almost every player had one or two aspects which were considered top-level in high school basketball. After all, these 108 players were selected from over a hundred of the most talented high school basketball players in the nation.

Among all the names, one stood out the most—Kevin Garnett!

"Pentagon player?"

Looking at Garnett’s exaggerated test scores, this term popped into Zhang Hao’s mind, and he knew Garnett’s defense was super strong. It’s just that this test didn’t evaluate defense; otherwise, Garnett would’ve definitely been a hexagon player.

But... "Garnett’s shooting is 10 points?"

Zhang Hao recalled seeing Garnett’s mid-range shot during the tests; he felt Garnett’s mid-range shot was just about the same as his own before using the Growth Card! As for his three-point shooting, Garnett wasn’t good.

Seeing his own perfect score for shooting... Zhang Hao realized that three-pointers were not valued these days, yet he still felt a bit disoriented inside.

Besides Garnett, a few other players had standout test scores. Kobe, aside from his technique being 9, had four 10s. Jamison, apart from athletic ability at 9 and static physical conditions at 7, had other three categories all at 10. Then, there’s Odom with shooting at 6 and the other four aspects at 10...

Most high school prodigies had an extraordinary athletic ability; talents like Garnett, Kobe, Odom, Raheem... and many others had 10 for athletic ability, while Jamison had a 9. There’s an exception, though: Bibi’s athletic ability was 5, static physical qualities 7, but his technique, shooting, and passing/handling were all 10.

By reviewing the publicized test scores, Zhang Hao gained some understanding of the talented high school players participating in this camp. There were many with good athletic ability, but as for good shooting, aside from those he noted, most players were only as good as Odom.

At 2 p.m., a trainer came to announce the latest grouping arrangements.

This time it wasn’t based on ranking, but rather the players’ test scores to allocate training groups.

Zhang Hao was placed in the shooting group, which didn’t have many members; just as he observed in the publicized test results, there were many groups focusing on strengthening techniques and utilizing physical condition, especially the latter.

Zhang Hao’s group had only 9 people. Bibi, Kobe, Garnett, and others were not in this group; the only familiar faces to him were Hamilton and Corey Benjamin. Some he knew, some he talked to, but none were truly close.

Kobe was assigned to the technique group, which was the only aspect he didn’t score a perfect 10 on. Similar to Jamison, in high school, they practiced everything but weren’t as proficient as Jamison; the basics still needed strengthening.

Garnett was placed in the inside group, while Bibi practiced screen passing/handling.

At four in the afternoon, the first training class began, treating everyone equally; nobody received any special treatment, and the training intensity was far greater than what these high school students experienced at school.

That afternoon, three players were advised to leave.

Even among the top 100 talented African-American high school athletes in the nation, there was still a portion who maintained bad habits from childhood—why work hard when you could relax? Why sit when you could lie down? Why work when you could get free food?

Zhang Hao had previously learned from Pierce about last year’s training camp, but since Pierce made it to the final list, he only talked about how professional the camp was, how perfect the facilities were, and how strong the opponents were... never mentioning the camp’s harshest aspect—everything depended on your ability. Right off the bat, test scores were publicized, and failing to complete designated training resulted in being advised to leave.

Because this was not a paid training camp; it was akin to a "draft" where 90 people were eliminated to select the final 18 for an elite competition training camp!

Suddenly faced with the elimination system, Zhang Hao felt caught off guard and nervous...

However, by the next day, he noticed his treatment seemed somewhat different.