The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 290 - 30th - : The Virgin of Sodom

After defeating the Dallas Mavericks away on November 12, the Trail Blazers achieved a five-game winning streak, tying with the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference for first place with a 9-1 record.

The Mavericks obtained Schlammfeste in the draft to strengthen their weakness at the power forward position.

This 6-foot-10 German forward had competed against Gan Guoyang in college and was a very talented all-rounder.

However, Schlammfeste was prepared for the future, and in Dallas, he temporarily couldn’t get enough playing time.

Sam Bowie had become stronger after a summer of hard training, but he still couldn’t defend Guoyang.

Dick Motta originally wanted to use a clever defensive battle to take revenge for being swept in the first round of last year’s playoffs and boost the team’s morale.

But Guoyang and Vandeweghe combined for 79 points, and their accurate shooting tore the Mavericks’ defense to shreds.

The Mavericks’ defense was still lacking tenacity, and Motta was surprised to find that some of his tactical setups that worked last year were useless now.

The Trail Blazers’ offense was extremely agile, and with Walton’s presence, their inside rotation was abundant, making their changes unpredictable and difficult to catch.

After the game ended, Motta shook hands with Ramsay and said, "Doctor, you guys have a real chance this year, truly strong."

Ramsay smiled faintly and said, "Don’t flatter us to death, the show isn’t over until the fat lady sings, it’s still early."

Motta also smiled, the little old man was becoming more humorous lately, and his style of dress had changed a lot; today he was wearing just two colors from head to toe.

Back in the ’70s, Dr. Jack often wore flashy plaid, which became his signature with the Trail Blazers and was imitated by many coaches.

In the ’80s, he began to wear monochrome suits, but the colors of the pants and shirts he paired with were still very diverse and bright.

Tonight, a simple grey tweed suit along with deep-colored trousers was all he wore.

Moreover, in terms of coaching style, Ramsay differed greatly from the past; he rarely knelt by the court anymore, instead sitting quietly off the court, directing operations, and occasionally standing up to shout a few words from the sidelines.

Motta thought to himself, it’s great to have a stable and considerate superstar; now, coaches all over the League envied Ramsay for coaching Ah Gan.

Not only because Gan’s strength was great, but key to this was he didn’t cause trouble off the court, brought a natural management aura, and led the team well.

Other coaches, aside from in-game commanding and practice off the court, had to play both mom and dad; they weren’t as worried about their own kids as they were about some of the players.

Considering that so many NBA players are either fatherless or motherless—a bunch of poorly educated youngsters exploding with hormones, rich and famous—it’s no brain teaser how difficult they are to manage.

And Dr. Jack Ramsay was well aware of the role Gan Guoyang played in the team; just a second-year player, he had already become the undisputed leader of the team.

Privately, Ramsay said to Adelman, "Sonny is the only real man on the team, the rest are all boys."

On the flight from Dallas to Los Angeles, Adelman asked Guoyang, "Sonny, have you been spending a lot of time with Kolter lately?"

Gan replied, "Yes, I’ve been training with him, running, finding form, his status has been terrible since the season started."

Adelman nodded and said, "He really is in a bad shape, nearly falling out of Jack’s rotation, what’s wrong with him?"

Gan said, "He wasted too much time partying during the summer and didn’t train properly, give him some time."

Guan didn’t tell the coaching staff about Kolter’s drug use because he knew Ramsay would have surely kicked Kolter out the door once he found out about the drug use.

Either by cutting him or by trying to trade him to a team willing to take him on.

As for how devastating drugs can be, just look at the neighboring Suns, who have already lost nine games in a row.

Walter Davis has made only 75 out of 171 shots in nine games, with a shooting percentage of only 43%.

At his peak, his shooting percentage was 56%; drugs and alcohol turned him into an ironsmith.

The NBA crowd has beast-like physical fitness. For ordinary people, they say, "I want nothing to do with gambling, drugs, and debauchery," but for players, only addictive substances like drugs and alcohol are their only hindrance; gambling and debauchery are actually essentials.

Gambling is prevalent among players, who are all quite wealthy, and those with a heavy gambling spirit often have a strong desire to win; the game itself is a form of gambling.

NBA explicitly prohibits gambling on games, but it doesn’t forbid players from visiting casinos or from engaging in private, small betting pools among themselves.

Trail Blazers like Thompson and Kenny-Carl often indulged in such minor bets, such as how many rebounds Ah Gan would grab tonight, how many times Dr. Jack would yell, and how many slam dunks Clyde would make—these wagers were part of the old-timers’ daily amusement.

As for keeping NBA players away from sex... it might be easier to tell them to stop playing ball.

After a five-game winning streak, the Trail Blazers’ next opponent was the NBA’s sex symbol, the defending champions, the Los Angeles Lakers.

This star-studded team, living amid the glitz of Hollywood, kept away from drugs, alcohol, and gambling to a certain degree because they were too preoccupied with sex, so much so that it left little interest for other vices.

After clinching the 1985 championship, Magic Johnson and Jerry Buss threw Los Angeles’ grandest and most seductive parties at their respective mansions.

Just a few miles apart, their homes featured swimming pools, hot tubs, bars, and home theaters, with each guest surrounded by women with ample bosoms, long legs, and the flexibility of gymnasts.

They were all in their twenties, youthful and beautiful, very open about anything, especially matters of the bed.

Buss’s home was once the residence of Hollywood stars Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks after their marriage in the 1920s and was the first mansion in Los Angeles to have a private swimming pool.

In 1980, Buss spent five million US dollars to buy it and after extensive renovations, he restored its former glory, turning it into a hub for various parties and gatherings.

Buss would often be seen entering and leaving with Hollywood starlets, roughly 25 years old, and after a night of wild celebration, he might rent a plane the next day to take everyone to Las Vegas for high-stakes gambling, or drive to Tijuana, Mexico to watch a bullfight.

Compared to Buss’s colorful parties, Magic Johnson’s gatherings were much simpler, purely and simply about sex.

After moving out from the player’s apartment in Green Valley, Johnson bought a 9,000-square-foot mansion in Bel Air, which housed an indoor squash-basketball court, a sauna, a whirlpool tub, and a disco dancefloor.

All the Lakers players would agree that the most beautiful women they ever met were encountered at Magic Johnson’s parties.

These gorgeous girls included models, strippers, Hollywood actresses, foreign dancers, and so on. To get into Johnson’s parties, one needed a ticket, which was the hottest in Los Angeles, not easily obtained, nor did it guarantee entry to the party.

Johnson had strict criteria for the women: beauty and a fine figure were the minimum requirements; they also had to dress casually, in a way that left little to the imagination, and lastly, they had to be very open about sex.

When midnight struck at Johnson’s parties, it didn’t matter whether you were a man or a woman, you had to be rolling in the sheets in some room, on a couch, or in the toilet or bathroom. If you were just there to look around, to broaden your horizons or feast your eyes, sorry, but Johnson would have you kicked out.

Johnson, like a peculiar lord of a castle, invited men and women of all kinds to his fortress, and after the noisy revelry, as dusk fell, he would begin lustful escapades. He wandered through his castle, checking who was alone, who was idle, then he’d supervise and command them to engage in the activities they were supposed to do.

This was akin to a world of Sodom, a state of affairs that peaked after the championship journey of 1985, with the smell of laurel flowers permeating the air around the upscale neighborhoods of Los Angeles throughout the summer.

AC Green, the kid from Oregon, was selected by the Lakers in the 1985 NBA Draft and came to this modern Sodom.

Gan Guoyang and the Trail Blazers arrived in Los Angeles on November 14th. After landing, Gan received a pager message from AC Green. Returning the call, Green said he wanted to have dinner with Gan because his sister Vanessa wanted to meet him.

She was a hardcore fan of Guoyang, having traveled from Portland to Los Angeles to watch her brother and her idol play.

Gan Guoyang met with the Greens at an Italian restaurant in Inglewood. The first time he competed against AC Green was during the Far West Classic basketball tournament where Green was the main player for the Oregon State University Beavers Team.

Of course, he couldn’t avoid being soundly defeated by Gan, as the Bulldogs achieved a complete victory in the NCAA that year.

They had met earlier when Gan was a freshman acting as a ballboy, and Green launched a campaign in Portland: he believed bookstores should not sell serious publications such as the Bible, Time, and Sports Illustrated alongside pornographic magazines like Playboy, and he urged and inspired students to boycott such bookstores until they sold pornographic magazines separately.

This campaign attracted national attention, allowing Green to publicly discuss his attitudes towards marriage and love, stating he’d remain a virgin until marriage.

At that time, Gan was at the University of Portland, joined the commotion, and because of his tall stature caught Green’s attention. They got along well and became good friends.

What Green didn’t expect was to be picked by the Lakers. Upon seeing Gan at the restaurant, his first words were, "Ah Gan, I said I’d stay a virgin until marriage, but nobody believes me."

Gan laughed and said, "I believe you, AC. The whole of America is watching you. If you break your vow, you’d be betraying your promise to God."

AC Green nodded solemnly, reasserting his conviction to remain a virgin until marriage.