The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 289 - 29 Relaxation

The evening game between the Trail Blazers and the New York Knicks had garnered much attention.

This was the second official encounter between Patrick Ewing and Gan Guoyang on the basketball court.

In the 1984 NCAA quarterfinals, Gan Guoyang led Gonzaga to eliminate Ewing and ultimately clinched the championship.

For the sake of the championship, Ewing had to lie low for another year, finally achieving his desire in 1985, coming to New York with the championship honor and expectations of the masses.

After being continuously ejected in the preseason games, Ewing did not disappoint New York fans during the regular season.

Apart from his first career game where he was dominated by Moses Malone, Ewing showed high standards in subsequent away games.

For example, against the Golden State Warriors, he scored 27 points, grabbed 16 rebounds, with 2 blocks and 2 steals, and against the Eagles, he scored 27 points with 11 rebounds and 2 assists.

Although Ewing did not start an explosive data journey early on like Gan Guoyang and Jordan, his on-court performance was still worthy of the top draft pick title, indeed having the makings of a superstar.

However, the Trail Blazers’ second overall pick was traded from the Pacers, and before Gan Guoyang arrived, they were second in the Western Conference.

New York had the first overall pick because they were truly bad, full of injured players, and core players out of action, with Bernard King missing the entire season.

Apart from Ewing, New York’s second-leading player was forward Pat Cummings, a third-round pick.

The third key player was Roy Sparrow, a fourth-round pick guard, illustrating just how dire the situation was for New York, having to rely on third and fourth-round picks to hold up appearances.

Back then, most of the usable players were basically selected in the first two rounds, with only a few hidden gems available in the third or fourth rounds, but not many.

As for the fifth through tenth rounds, some teams began to make arbitrary selections, as the NBA’s draft rules were quite domineering, similar to the way Americans exert long-arm jurisdiction, irrespective of whether you participated in the draft or not. If a team was interested, they could select you, and whether you signed or joined afterwards was another matter.

In 1984, apart from selecting Michael Jordan, the Chicago Bulls also picked the track and field star Carl Lewis with the 208th pick in the tenth round, although Lewis did not report to the team.

Choosing Carl Lewis was still considered a relatively sane move, considering he was a famous athlete with excellent running and jumping abilities; if he could have joined the Bulls and become a fast-break dunker, many fans probably would have loved to see that.

But some teams started making nonsensical selections. For example, one team chose House Minority Leader Gerald Ford, the Hawks picked their general manager Pat Williams, the 76ers selected a pharmacist and a 47-year-old fried chicken shop owner, and the Jazz outright picked a woman player, Lucia Harris, in 1977.

In earlier years, the NBA draft was even more terrifying, with no limits to the number of rounds, going on until there were no more players to select.

It was changed to 21 rounds in 1960, then to 10 rounds in 1974, and now the NBA is considering reducing it to two rounds of drafting.

So players like Cummings and Sparrow, if in the two-round draft era, would not be able to play, ending up undrafted.

Even with a team having Ewing, it was still at the bottom of the league, and the Knicks did not demand performance but only hoped everyone would help Ewing level up.

Up to the present, the Knicks had not won a single game, suffering a streak of seven consecutive losses. They lost one game by 15 points, the least by 4 points, all of which were games without any hope of victory.

Their only hope was Ewing, yet Ewing looked a bit frail as he stood on the court tonight, unlike Gan Guoyang who always seemed energetic and full of vigor.

Needless to say, last night Ewing must have hardly rested. Gan Guoyang approached and asked, "How was it, to your liking?"

Ewing grinned and replied, "Not bad."

"Sheesh, you’ve got high standards. I went to the trouble of finding someone and spent quite a bit of money."

"Your money wasn’t wasted."

The camera at the scene captured the two chatting and laughing, which later made it onto the newspapers in New York.

John Thompson even called to criticize Ewing, telling him he shouldn’t be laughing and chatting with the opponent before a match.

Actually, Ewing was mostly stone-faced, giving off an unapproachable vibe, and was quite volatile on the court.

But this was not his true nature. He was a straightforward person, not particularly bright, but made for a good friend.

In Gan Guoyang’s view, the NBA was like a giant orphanage, filled with youths with dysfunctional families and flawed personalities, with very few truly mature and complete individuals.

Threading his way through such a place, Gan felt as natural as a fish in water. He came from an orphanage and had an instinctive understanding of the rules of such places.

Although Ewing had a complete family, his giant stature and physical imperfections made him a target of frequent attacks, leading him to become sensitive and irritable, almost a common affliction among giants.

He was from Jamaica, but the place he emigrated to was Boston. He grew up during an era of severe racial segregation and discrimination. Russell was his idol, and he carried a similar anger to Russell’s—a rage about his origins, skin color, and the unfair treatment he received.

However, unlike Russell, when Ewing entered the NBA, racial discrimination was still prevalent, and Russell, along with Muhammad Ali, became the pioneers against discrimination of their time.

When Ewing joined the NBA, the world had already changed. At Georgetown University, John-Thompson had raised him like an angry fighter, constantly keeping him tense and ready for combat. As a result, when he arrived in the bizarre world of New York, what awaited Ewing wasn’t spittle and attacks, but a barrage of colorful distractions.

The curiosity of the fans, talk shows , big contracts, luxury cars and beautiful women, people in The Big Apple loved him, but not that much, because he had to perform well, he had to learn to live with this flashy world.

These were things John-Thompson never taught him, while Dean Smith had advised Jordan early on how to deal with the outside world.

Ewing was bewildered; in the preseason, he played like a beast, trying to look tough, but everyone thought he was a fool—who gets themselves thrown out of the game all the time, especially after being knocked down by a White guy?

And it was at this time that Gan Guoyang stepped up to tell him, "Relax, it’s nothing, don’t be nervous, just breathe, and you’ll be fine soon. It might feel a bit dizzy at first, but it’s okay..."

That evening, the Trail Blazers thrashed the New York Knicks in the Memorial Coliseum, 96:121, with Ewing experiencing what relaxed basketball felt like.

From start to finish, the Knicks stood no chance of resistance. They fell behind from the first ball of the first quarter and trailed until the end of the game, with no signs of catching up or overtaking.

It was like a warm-up match; the Knicks couldn’t find any point of comeback or pursuit, and Gan Guoyang was even able to chat with Ewing while playing.

Ewing started off with a stern face, pretending to be serious, but eventually, he stopped. After all, there were no performance requirements for his first season. Dave-DeBuscher had made it clear that it was all about training, getting used to NBA games, and preparing for the future.

Ewing asked Gan Guoyang a question that had troubled him for a long time, which was what exactly Gan had been mumbling during the NCAA Sweet Sixteen game in 1984.

Gan told him he hadn’t been mumbling anything; he had just moved his lips to scare him.

Ewing was stunned and said, "I don’t believe it. If you weren’t mumbling anything, then why did I get a bad feeling?"

Gan thought to himself that it was because Ewing was a bit single-minded, that was just a psychological tactic.

"Okay, I did mumble something, but now I declare that those curses are lifted from you. Relax a bit, Patrick."

As Gan said this, he patted Ewing on the shoulder, both of them standing on the sidelines of the key waiting for Drexler to take his free throws.

Just as Gan finished speaking, Drexler’s second free throw missed, and Gan immediately rushed up, gently tipping the ball.

The ball went into the basket, a successful put-back, and the score gap was further widened.

Gan reminded Ewing again, "You need to box out, Patrick! Didn’t John-Thompson even teach you that?"

But Ewing replied, "Sonny, is it really lifted?"

"Really, really! Now please focus on playing!" 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

The Knicks were crushed in the game, disappointing the media who were hoping to see a battle of rising stars.

Gan effortlessly scored 31 points with 15 rebounds, which put him at the top of the scoring list.

It had been many years since a center, after Wilt Chamberlain, was at the top of the scoring list.

Meanwhile, Ewing only scored 10 points with 6 rebounds and made 2 blocks, a tight defense on him.

But Ewing himself felt that the game had been very rewarding, the trip to Portland was a wonderful journey.

In their next game back in New York, they defeated the Jordan-less Bulls at Madison Square Garden, with Ewing scoring 27 points and grabbing 13 rebounds, including a game-winning put-back at the last moment for his first victory of the season and his career.