The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 264 - 6 The Bottom of the Chest

Bernard King didn’t intentionally keep secrets from Gan Guoyang; it was just that the subtle techniques involved in a turnaround jump shot were not knee-friendly.

Originally, to speed up his turnaround jump shot, King not only pivoted on his heel and shot without using the backboard while only looking at the rim, but he also had a clever trick of turning as he jumped.

He used the twisting force of his knees to propel himself towards the baseline, turning mid-air as he jumped, thus merging the "turnaround" and "jump" into one swift motion as much as possible.

Such a move put great stress on the knee ligaments. During his time with the Nets and Warriors, King employed this type of turnaround movement quite frequently.

Later on, when he was in New York, he practically stopped using this technique and began to rely more on experience and other details to evade defense.

Even so, he still suffered a serious knee injury, which was not unrelated to the excessive use of his knees in his youth.

Bernard King was not a player known for forceful drives; his game was characterized by grace, speed, and succinctness, without any superfluous movement.

He never expected to suffer a major injury like an ACL tear. Seeing Gan Guoyang, a center, employing such a turnaround shooting technique, he shook his head repeatedly, "Ah Gan, don’t use this move. Striving for those few tenths of a second is meaningless for you, your knees can’t handle it."

Gan Guoyang said, "This year, I plan to lose a bit of weight. I think my knees will be under less stress, and besides, I’m still young."

Bernard King said, "Youth is fleeting, and time flies. I didn’t pay enough attention to these things in the past. Let’s do this, Gan, I’ll teach you better techniques and methods. You should stop using these risky techniques."

Gan Guoyang said, "Bernard, you really are still holding back! How many little tricks do you have up your sleeve? I want to dig them all out!"

"Sonny, what I want to give you is not techniques, but experience. There are only so many techniques, and you’ve already mastered them. With your talent and skill level, you could grasp my experiences in just another couple of years."

As he spoke, Bernard King took out a tactical board and used a marker to dot many points on it.

"Ah Gan, I can’t teach you much near the three-point line, but inside the three-point line, near the paint, I have carefully studied every offensive spot. On these spots, I have thoughtfully considered which technical movements are most efficient in attacking the basket, and which positioning choices can best break through the defense, and then I’ve practiced them in games. Once you master these experiences, you won’t need overly demanding techniques to score more effortlessly."

What Bernard King handed over were his most valued insights, not just simple movements and techniques, but a wealth of experience and choices.

Some players seek out veterans during the off-season to practice technical movements, training perfectly, but come game time, they can’t play a lick, and end up just as they were before.

Because in high-speed, competitive games, just having technical skills is not enough. How to apply them and make the right choices is key.

Players often have only a brief moment to make decisions: left or right, pass or shoot, requiring an accumulation of experience and thoughtful practice.

As Bernard King said, with Gan Guoyang’s talent and volume of training, he would eventually be able to devise his own half-court offensive positioning chart.

But if a veteran is willing to share their experiences and reveal the secrets they have accumulated, it can greatly enhance a player’s development.

Before his injury, Bernard King was the scoring champion of the season in the NBA, averaging 32.5 points per game, considered a pinnacle figure in offense.

After seven years of ups and downs, he reached his peak at 28 years old, but fate has a way of playing cruel jokes, and a severe injury made him plummet from his heights.

Although Gan Guoyang could average 27 points per game, the gap between an average of 27 points and 32 points is not merely 5 points.

In the long regular season, averaging 30 points requires a player to perform exceedingly consistently.

If you play well in a game but only score 22 points, to reach an average of 30, you need a 38-point game to boost your average.

The requirement for an average of 32 points is even higher, needing a 42-point game to suffice.

This season, Bernard King was the only player averaging 30 points per game, although there were suspicions of stat padding against weaker teams.

Ranked second was Michael Jordan with an average of 29.1 points, 0.9 points shy of 30, and in third place was Bird with 28.7 points.

Even on teams like the Nuggets, known for their frenetic offense, their leading scorer English only averaged 27 points.

For inside players, due to ball rights and defensive pressure, averaging over 30 points is even more challenging.

The last post player to average 30 points a game was Moses Malone, who relied on his absolute offensive dominance with the Rockets and a large number of shot opportunities from offensive rebounds.

Throughout the ’70s, only Jabbar and Bob McAdoo had managed to average over 30 points per game as post players (and both of them are still with the Lakers now).

Bernard King was ready to teach all of these things to Gan Guoyang, and he asked, "Sonny, are you planning to average 30 points next season?"

Gan Guoyang said, "I play for victories, not stats. There’s no fundamental difference between 30 points and 29 points. If humans had only eight fingers and we used octal, then 30 points would be a lot easier to achieve, and then we’d raise the bar to 35 points."

Bernard King shook his head and said, "I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but if you can’t average 30 points next season, it would be a shame after I teach you everything."

Gan Guoyang retorted, "You haven’t taught me yet. I don’t even know if it’s any good, what if you’re deceiving me?"

"Fuck off, these are the summation of my years of experience. But Sonny, you really are a piece of work, you’re clearly a center yet you always follow the small forwards to learn techniques. Honestly, I was stunned when I saw you use the KiKi-move in the playoffs—I couldn’t believe you actually learned Vandeweghe’s step-back!"

Earlier, when they had a phone call, Bernard King jokingly told Gan Guoyang to learn Vandeweghe’s move. To everyone’s surprise, Gan Guoyang had actually mastered it and even used it at a crucial moment to win a playoff game.

Learning a new offensive technique isn’t hard for a professional player.

Some role players, when you have them demonstrate their technical moves without any defense, you’d be amazed by their offensive repertoire—they seem capable of everything.

But in an actual game, most of their techniques don’t see the light of day. Everyone falls back on muscle memory to go with their most practiced moves on the attack.

This is why some players can only play in certain ways even after they have been studied and targeted by opponents—because it’s the only way they can be effective; changing their style of play would only lead to worse results.

Gan Guoyang is one of the few in the League who can adapt and play with various offensive moves—at ease—another notable example is Larry Bird.

If he could use the KiKi-move in a do-or-die playoff moment, it meant that he had that technique down to his very nerve cells.

Gan Guoyang said, "I just practiced a lot more, that’s all. Besides, it’s not a difficult technique, it’s simply this way, that way, then that way."

King didn’t want to hear more nonsense and asked Gan Guoyang whether he really wanted to train or not. Gan Guoyang nodded emphatically, of course, he wanted to train.

He wanted to enhance his scoring, particularly by learning scoring techniques from small forwards, mainly because his teammates weren’t strong enough.

Vandeweghe was quite effective during the regular season, and his scoring ability wasn’t bad in the playoffs either. However, compared to the Lakers’ guards and forwards, he just didn’t measure up.

And Vandeweghe tended to fade during critical moments, unable to serve as the primary option to break through the opponent’s defense, only adding the finishing touch as a secondary option.

Since the team lacked a principal scoring option, it was natural for Gan Guoyang to forge his own primary attacking ability; he couldn’t always think about trading for someone to come and help him.

Although the hook shot is a useful technique and inherently health-preserving, Jabbar’s lengthy career has shown that without a strong perimeter player, it’s hard to succeed, and it has to be someone of Oscar Robertson’s or Magic Johnson’s caliber.

Even with a perimeter scorer like Dantley, Jabbar couldn’t work well with him to make a playoff breakthrough.

This might just be the flaw of the health-preserving playing style.

Gan Guoyang’s signature Moon hook was a clever move that worked wonders in key moments, but it was hard to make it a stable, high-yield scoring method.

And across the entire League, who was more steady and productive than the scoring champion Bernard King?

Gan Guoyang stayed in New York for more than a week, until September, when he decided to return to Spokane, back to Gonzaga to join up with Stockton.

When leaving, Gan Guoyang hugged King tightly and told him, "You will definitely return to your peak—I’m absolutely certain of it. I’ll be waiting for you on the NBA courts; we’d better meet in the Finals."

Bernard King felt more confident about his recovery, and after getting back home, his wife Taylor told him that Gan Guoyang had paid off the expensive, huge CPM machine’s treatment costs, and King didn’t have to spend a dime extra.

For Bernard King, who was uncertain about returning to play and securing a new contract, every penny mattered.

One September morning, as King was on the balcony, he saw Aldo and Florence again, the two wild ducks pecking at the balcony door glass and quacking loudly.