The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 1755 - 46: Stepping onto Center Stage

A 48-point game has convinced people that Gan Guoyang is still at the peak of his career.

After the game against the Mavericks, the media’s praise made people believe that Ah Gan is still Ah Gan, and the Trail Blazers are still the Trail Blazers.

At the same time, the Nasdaq index in America reached a historical peak of 11,722 points, marking the peak of the internet financial bubble.

But a peak, in fact, signifies the turning point to downhill, although many people at the time thought this historical peak was just the foothill of a higher summit.

Gan Guoyang is no longer at his peak; scoring a lot is just superficial. He is trying every conceivable way to make his decline seem slower and less noticeable.

After finishing the game against the Mavericks, in the following games, the Trail Blazers fell into a cycle of winning one game, losing one game, winning one game, losing one game.

In the remaining games in January, they achieved a record of 4 wins and 4 losses, neither having a winning streak nor a losing streak, the team was in a state of unstable fluctuation.

And the reason is simple: when Gan Guoyang no longer goes all out on the defensive end and focuses his energy on offense, the Trail Blazers’ games become more susceptible to the influence of their shooting form.

Among basketball coaches, there’s a famous saying that defense never deceives you, the other side of that being "offense deceives you."

When everyone is on fire, the team can easily win as if slicing vegetables. But if their shooting is off in the next game, they can slip in a ditch just as easily.

For a team centered around veterans over 35 and young players under 25, instability is very normal.

As the All-Star break approaches, all teams more or less appear relaxed, making wins and losses unpredictable.

Like the Lakers, top of the Western Conference, they also experienced a mediocre record of 4 wins and 5 losses in late January, preventing them from widening the gap with teams behind them.

Gan Guoyang instead, due to his outstanding statistical performance, won the League’s Player of the Month for January 2000, while Phil Jackson won the Coach of the Month.

This indicates that in the latter half of the month, the entire league was in a win-lost-win-lost state generally, with no one particularly standing out, including the Eastern Boston Celtics who faced a period of instability—they experienced a three-game losing streak in mid-January.

Before the All-Star break and trade deadline, everyone was trying their hardest to adjust their state and lineup, awaiting the All-Star break for rest, and the full effort sprint afterward.

This is the chaos and calm before the storm, when teams and players settle their minds, solve problems, and think about the key stage of the back-end race.

In past seasons, at this stage, Gan Guoyang would always carefully adjust himself, plan the second half of the season and pre-season with the coaching staff, in preparation for the sprint.

Clearly, this season is not the same. After finishing the last game at the end of January, Gan Guoyang received summons again from the FBI and the New York area prosecutor’s office, to go to New York for questioning and hearings.

This time was different from before, the prosecution seemed to have obtained some key evidence. The FBI, on January 29th, raided Gan Guohui’s home in Pacific Heights in San Francisco for a comprehensive search.

Obviously, when the prosecution and FBI failed to achieve major breakthroughs on Gan Guoyang, they turned their sights on the people around him.

Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Denver, Michigan — wherever Gan Guoyang’s industry reaches, the FBI conducted meticulous probes.

They are determined to unearth some key evidence to achieve breakthroughs, even if there’s no evidence, digging up some dirt is also good.

However, what surprised the FBI and the prosecution was that, after nearly half a year of exhaustive investigation, they found that in financial and personal life, Gan Guoyang had no blemishes over the past twenty years.

No tax evasion, no insider trading, no gambling, no drunk driving, no soliciting, no mistresses. In the words of Prosecutor Conley Norton, "If we continue to investigate, I have no doubt that Ah Gan would be nominated as the President of America for his good character — he’s a saint."

In fact, no president is cleaner than Gan Guoyang.

Despite having immense wealth and fame, Gan Guoyang has devoted most of his energy to basketball.

The remaining part is focused on family, some career development, and he finds satisfaction in maintaining the happiness and prosperity of a small family circle.

In terms of investment choices, he avoided areas with intricate interests or frequent insider trading and focused on relatively simple funeral services, achieving notable success.

Given Gan Guoyang’s achievements in the basketball world, his wealth could have been much larger, but at a certain point, Gan Guoyang chose restraint.

He strives not to become a slave to capital and wealth but to be their master. Being too poor or too rich can lead to loss of control due to power imbalance.

Gan Guoyang’s inherent control freak nature certainly won’t allow such things to happen, so he controls everything well, most importantly his desires.

Thus, the FBI has continued to attempt breakthroughs through people around Gan Guoyang, investigating Wang Fuxi, Quentin, Gan Guohui, and various related persons, but still failed to obtain a breakthrough.

Gan Guoyang’s surroundings are extraordinarily loyal; they ignore all intimidation and temptation from the prosecution and investigation bureau, unwilling to give any confessions harmful to Gan Guoyang — in fact, they couldn’t say anything harmful.