The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 261 - 3 Loss of Interest

Qian Chenghai had a face-to-face chat with Gan Guoyang before he was to leave China, deeply cherishing the extraordinary basketball skills that Gan Guoyang exhibited.

As he lamented that Gan Guoyang had become a professional player and could no longer serve the national team, Gan Guoyang spoke words of comfort to Coach Qian:

"Coach Qian, although I alone can bring good results to the national team, the true development of Chinese basketball still relies on a group after group of basketball enthusiasts to form the country’s basketball soil. It’s from this soil that we can nurture excellent new talent. Just like the Americans have Bird, and without Bird, they have Johnson, without Johnson, there’s Jordan, there’s Ewing, and before them, there were Jabbar and Russell. Generation after generation of outstanding players come forth to build a true basketball powerhouse."

"Even if my personal strength is great, it is limited. If you ask what real impact I can have, I hope that I can become an example, a small spark, for the future of Chinese basketball to learn from, to chase, to guide them, to light the flame of ideals and passion in their hearts. That is the role I can play."

Gan Guoyang spoke with genuine emotion, though he knew that in 1992 professional players would be allowed to join the national team, that was, after all, a thing of the future.

The national team’s achievements are just one result of basketball’s strength, trying to change the outcome without addressing the causes to enrich basketball is like when a strong player leaves the national team, the cover-up is unraveled.

Qian Chenghai nodded repeatedly, saying, "Comrade Gan, what you say is right, makes sense. Still, our gap with the world’s advanced basketball level is indeed huge. I hope there will be a group of people who can truly experience the world’s best basketball environment. Only then will they realize their shortcomings and be motivated to improve."

Gan Guoyang replied, "Rest assured, the NBA won’t miss the chance to have a good exchange with China. This time it was us visiting China; wait a while, and it’ll be your turn to visit America!"

And sure enough, a month after Gan Guoyang and Jordan and others returned to America, in August, midsummer, the Chinese Men’s Basketball Team received an invitation from the NBA side, initiating a ten-day basketball exchange program.

The Chinese basketball team was not visiting America for the first time. As early as before formal diplomatic relations were established between China and America in 1979, the Chinese men’s and women’s basketball teams had visited America.

Previously, ping pong served as a means of diplomatic engagement in small-ball pushes large-ball, while basketball, as a major sport, became an indicator on the eve of a historic shift in relations between the two great countries.

The national men’s basketball team, represented by Zhang Weiping, visited cities such as New York, Los Angeles, Greensboro, Washington, and New York again, playing several friendly matches against American college basketball teams such as the famous UCLA and Wake Forest, and also took a commemorative photo with the famous NBA star Wilt Chamberlain. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

By January 1979, when China and America formally established diplomatic relations, there had already been several visits to China by American teams in 1979 and 1982.

Unlike the politically charged visits of 1978, the 1985 men’s basketball visit to America under Stern’s calculations had a much stronger commercial flavor.

This was also another declaration by Stern—Following Larry Fleisher’s grand tour of China, I certainly can’t fall behind Fleisher.

This time the men’s basketball visitation group was an expanded team, which, besides the national team members, staff, and coaches, also included some elite players from various local teams. They all had the chance to be selected for the new national team to participate in the 1986 Men’s Basketball World Championships.

The first stop for the national team was New York.

"Lulei, see that? That’s what an American taxi looks like, way better than Beijing’s Xiali, though the color is ugly, just a bunch of yellow ones."

Wearing glasses, Song Tao said to the young Beijing lad Min Lulei on the bus heading to their hotel destination.

"So many cars in America, I wonder when Beijing will become like this," Min Lulei remarked while gazing at the locust-like flow of New York traffic.

He didn’t know that in a few decades, Beijing would be plagued with cars, even more overwhelming than New York.

Both were among the expanded picks for this men’s basketball team, not having participated in the 1984 Olympics.

Min Lulei was a local team elite; Song Tao was too young at the moment and stepped down just before the Olympics, letting the older players compete while he focused on upcoming games.

The group arrived at the Intercontinental Hotel on East 48th Street in New York, which was officially arranged by the NBA for the men’s basketball team, and in the evening, a small auditorium at the hotel hosted a grand reception ceremony for the Chinese Men’s Basketball visitation group by the NBA officials.

At the reception, Gan Guoyang attended along with Stern and a host of other high-level NBA officials.

Recently, Gan Guoyang was in New York attending a training camp, helping his good friend Bernard King with his rehabilitation training while also surreptitiously learning some offensive skills from him.

When the Chinese players entered the hall, the band struck up some gentle blues music, and the whole hall instantly livened up.

After shaking hands and exchanging greetings with Stern, Qian Chenghai immediately came over and tightly grasped Gan Guoyang’s hand, "Comrade Guoyang, just as you said, we meet again!"

Coach Qian’s appellation for Gan Guoyang had evolved from Comrade Gan to the more intimate Comrade Guoyang.

Afterward, other members of the Chinese National Team came up one by one to shake hands with Gan Guoyang, each with a different mentality.

For example, the young and energetic Min Lulei thought, "He doesn’t seem so different from us; he’s not that extraordinary."

Having watched the Trail Blazers and Lakers’ game in Beijing, Min Lulei’s feeling after watching was, "I can do it if I get on the court," that’s how confident he was.

Then, everyone took their seats as Stern stepped up to the stage to welcome the men’s basketball team, introducing the visiting Chinese team to the guests present and expressing hope that this visit would promote basketball exchanges between China and America.

Of course, the NBA is a commercial league; on the surface, it promotes basketball exchanges, but the key is to further business development and explore the basketball market.

For instance, the naming rights for this visit were sold by Stern to Kaliber beer, hence the men’s basketball visit to America was termed the "Kaliber Tour."

In this respect, Stern fully demonstrated his shrewdness, never missing an opportunity to make money.

The welcome party lasted over two hours, and it concluded with not only a sumptuous buffet but also a performance by a famous New York band invited by Stern especially for the Chinese team.

The young men of the basketball team got a good taste of what "sugar-coated bullets" of imperialism are and what the "degenerate music" of capitalism sounds like.

The next morning, the men’s basketball team gathered at the Knicks’ practice hall to do some warm-up exercises. Despite not having fully adjusted to the time difference, they were already getting ready for the upcoming game.

They wore red sports shorts and white T-shirts, the fronts of which bore the logo designed by the American side for their visit, and the backs printed with "China-US Friendship Travel Group 1985."

The intensity of the morning’s practice wasn’t high—it was mostly simple, basic training, with some Knicks staff offering guidance to the men’s basketball players.

The two coaches of the men’s basketball team felt this practice was too relaxed and called for a scrimmage to increase the intensity and wind up the players for tomorrow’s game.

"Hello, Coach Qian, hello, Coach Lu," Gan Guoyang suddenly appeared in the training hall, drenched in sweat, clearly having been practicing for a while.

He had been practicing with Bernard King at the Knicks’ training hall during this time, and after finishing his shooting drills in the morning, he went to the gym for some strength training.

When he came out, he saw the Chinese National Team already at practice.

"Hello there, Comrade Guoyang. Perfect timing, would you be interested in playing a practice game with my players, to give them a lesson! Let them firsthand experience the gap with the highest level," Qian Chenghai said.

Every time Qian Chenghai saw Gan Guoyang, his eyes lit up. Back in China, he never had the chance to have Gan Guoyang spar with the national team because professional players’ visit schedules had to strictly adhere to contracts, and they couldn’t just play random games.

Gan Guoyang smiled and said, "Of course, I’m interested. But I’m afraid they might lose interest in basketball after playing against me."