The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 273 - 15 Changes

Overtraining can sometimes be detrimental to a player’s growth.

Just like in the gym when building muscles, diet, rest, and training are all equally important.

The key is to find a balance, as overtraining leads to fatigue while too much rest brings complacency.

As an old-school coach, Jack Ramsey was known for his intense training regimens.

Even at 60, he still had the energy to tangle with players on and off the court.

But during the 1985-1986 training camp, Ramsey began to emphasize rest and started to treat different players distinctively.

In the past, Ramsey ran his team with impartiality, a common philosophy among traditional coaches. Off the court, you could be a star, but once on the court, everyone was equal under the coach’s orders.

This time was different, as veterans received better care, rookies got more supervision, and star players were given diverse requirements, paired with more personalized training methods.

Ramsey spent the summer learning and communicating new ideas, which was noteworthy since others were usually learning from him as he taught the coaches.

This year he lowered his stance, not preaching as a doctor, but learning with the mindset of a student, seeking new ways of thinking and tactics.

With only Rick Adelman as his assistant coach on the Trail Blazers, Ramsey, with his extraordinary energy, created many new training methods and plans by himself.

He took the advice of Gan Guoyang, focusing on strength training, and he specifically sought out Coach Delong from Gonzaga University to rectify the outdated notion that strength training could interfere with shooting touch.

Back then, NBA players only engaged in moderate strength exercises during the off-season to enhance muscle mass and combat ability.

Some post players would do heavy strength training, while perimeter players did very little, and everyone stopped strength exercises once the season was underway.

Coach Delong broke this convention, as Gan Guoyang’s strength training remained constant, even finding gyms for a few sets when playing away games.

Stockton’s performance proved the necessity of strength training for perimeter players—solid muscles can effectively prevent injuries, which was very important for the Trail Blazers.

Therefore, Ramsay groundbreakingly suggested that Vandeweghe and Parkson undertake strength training, guided by Gan Guoyang.

Vandeweghe’s back injury originated from a game during his time with the Nuggets, when he was hit from behind by Darryl Dawkins during a game against the Nets, leaving a lingering injury.

At UCLA, Vandeweghe was known for aggressive rebounding and defense, but at the Nuggets, whether due to Doug Moe’s laissez-faire attitude or persistent back pain, he hardly ever boxed out.

Gan Guoyang and Avia’s professional strength trainers developed a back recovery exercise plan for Vandeweghe, hoping to alleviate the injury to some degree.

When Drexler saw Vandeweghe doing back muscle training in the gym, he couldn’t believe his eyes. Seeing Gan Guoyang guiding next to him, he asked Vandeweghe if he was forced to do it, suggesting he should blink if he was being coerced.

Vandeweghe smiled and said, "I really should do some strength training to improve my physical confrontations. But... my back will hardly recover. It would be good if it doesn’t get any worse."

The back constitutes a major group of muscles in the body, crucial for athletic performance. Once injured, treatment and recovery are both very troublesome—Vandeweghe was well aware of his body’s condition.

He couldn’t possibly train as intensely as Gan Guoyang to become a muscle freak. What was key for him was to appropriately bolster his physicality to stabilize his offense.

Gan Guoyang said, "Cheche, I don’t expect you to fight for rebounds, just handle the fast breaks. With you on board, I’m sure about getting the rebounding title."

As the Trail Blazers’ top non-boxing-out assistant rebounder, Gan Guoyang could attribute one third of his rebounding honors to Vandeweghe.

Gan Guoyang proved through practice how vital strength training was, and the second thing Ramsay learned from Guoyang was diet.

In the ’60s and ’70s, or even earlier, playing in the NBA was not considered a very serious occupation.

To many players, playing on hardwood floors was nearly the same as laboring on construction sites or driving taxis—it was mostly about choosing the job that paid more.

You couldn’t expect a construction worker or a cab driver to maintain a healthy, scientific diet, much less abstain from smoking and drinking, all for the sake of performing better at their jobs.

Therefore, even though they were high-intensity athletes, NBA players had diets similar to average people, eating what they wanted and smoking if they wished.

Celtics’ Tom Heinsohn, for example, was a heavy smoker, which caused him to have poor stamina. This forced Auerbach to create a sixth man role to substitute for him.

Bob Cousy even did advertisements for cigarettes, during times when there was a big debate over whether smoking was harmful to health.

This led to the longevity of only a handful of highly disciplined stars with high incomes, while most players only went through the motions.

As player salaries increased and the NBA’s influence grew, playing in the League became a sought-after job, with many talents competing for a spot on the court.

Competition became more nuanced and professional. Video tapes appeared, assistant coaches emerged, team physicians, trainers, and rehabilitation therapists—more specialized roles would be created to serve the players.

Though the Trail Blazers had few staff members, they still had plenty of work to do. Ramsay began to consider the players’ dietary health.

After one practice, he asked Gan Guoyang, "Ah Gan, do you cook your own meals?"

Gan Guoyang subconsciously responded, "Yeah."

Suddenly, he felt a bit uneasy. What was the old man up to?

Ramsay looked at Gan Guoyang and asked, "Would you like to take on an extra job with the team?"

Gan Guoyang thought to himself that he was practically dying from playing, occasionally acting as a defensive coach, strength trainer, and even taking on the role of a general manager.

What else do you want me to do, cook for everyone?

Cooking is just a hobby of mine; it can’t become work.

"I am a Chinese Master Chef; the team can’t afford me!"

"I’m not asking you to cook, I hope you can offer a suggested diet plan for everyone, so they can control their eating according to it. Of course, whether the players stick to it depends on their own will."

It turned out that the extra job was as a nutritionist, offering some advice. Gan Guoyang could accept that.

So he compiled a dietary suggestion and distributed it to the entire team, and it later became a tradition for the Trail Blazers to issue a set every season.

Every so often, Gan Guoyang would update the recipes. Many years later, this collection of recipes was compiled and published under the name "Ah Gan’s Basketball Cookbook," and it sold very well in the Oregon area.

The entire Trail Blazers, from top to bottom, felt the change. Veterans like Walton and Thompson marveled at Ramsay’s ability to learn new things at the stubborn age of 60.

However, this wasn’t the biggest change. The most significant change came from the training content—the emphasis on defensive drills had greatly increased.

Previously, the Trail Blazers’ training routine was about a 7:3 offense to defense ratio, with three offensive training sessions each week, accompanied by a defensive session and a defensive video training.

But this season, during the preseason training camp, the offense to defense ratio in the training content had shifted to 1:1, with two offensive training sessions and two defensive training sessions.

Moreover, the defensive video training wasn’t reduced, meaning defense now took precedence over offense in Ramsay’s training content.

This was the first time in Ramsay’s coaching career; from Saint Joseph’s University to the Philadelphia 76ers and then to the Portland Trail Blazers, offense had always been the main theme of Ramsay’s teams.

Of course, Ramsay wasn’t without a defensive foundation. On the contrary, his research on defense was quite remarkable. During his college days, he created the "Saint Joseph’s Zone Press Strategy."

This was an NCAA area defensive strategy characterized by pressing and guiding the opponent into defensive traps set by the team.

It can be said that even if Ramsay wasn’t the first to come up with the concept of defensive traps, he had the merit of refining and promoting it, making a significant contribution to the NBA’s illegal defense regulations.

This set of ideas was later brought to the Lakers by McKinney and inherited by Pat Riley, becoming an essential part of the "Ah Gan Rule."

And Gan Guoyang’s ability to use defensive traps in the game was also inseparable from Ramsay’s daily training and real-time coaching.

Otherwise, it would have been impossible for Guoyang alone to deploy such defensive tactics.

However, in Ramsay’s view, the NBA was ultimately an offensive league.

The ban on zone defenses meant exclusively man-to-man marking, resulting in less return on investment in defense.

The total champions of the ’80s were strong offensive teams, ranking high in average points per game, with both the Lakers and the Celtics having a potent offense.

But lessons from the previous season and a meeting held in Los Angeles in September led to a change in Ramsay’s thinking.

Coaches believed that after experiencing the ’70s rough defense, the League tightened up on fouls, reducing the physical play, which generally increased the average points scored by teams in the ’80s.

Last season, the league’s average points per game were 110.8, which should have reached its limit, and with David Stern taking office, there would likely be a shift.

There might be more encouragement of physical play and defense, making the games more intense and more appealing to the fans.

Ramsay believed that it was necessary to keep up with the trend and become a trendsetter.

Of course, this process would be long; changes wouldn’t appear suddenly over one or two seasons.

Ramsay didn’t expect the Trail Blazers to transform into a strong defensive team immediately, but for a chance at the championship, they had to improve their defense.

Walton felt curious about such a significant change in Ramsay and was told by staff around him, past friends, that it was Ah Gan who had changed Ramsay.

After a practice, Walton soaked his feet with Gan Guoyang and asked how he had managed to change Ramsay.

But Gan Guoyang said, "I used to think Dr. Jack had changed, but in fact, he hasn’t changed. He’s just trying to adapt to a new world."

"Isn’t that change? Change is about adapting."

"It depends on the reason for adapting. Some people just adapt to survive. That’s not Dr. Jack, though. His so-called change is because he has an unwavering champion’s heart. I gave him hope for the championship, and that’s why he had the motivation to change, to win the next championship. Aren’t we all the same, Bill?"

Walton touched his forehead, where his characteristic long red hair had been cut off, leaving a short hairstyle. The long red beard that was once his trademark was also gone, shaved clean.