The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 328 - 64: People from Different Camps

Mark Pray patted Manute Bol and said, "No need to say sorry, getting schooled by this guy is nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, like I told you, you should say ’my fault,’ not ’my bad.’"

Bol sat on the bench, eyes fixed on the court, watching Gan Guoyang continue to bounce around energetically.

Bol’s stamina and offensive and defensive abilities could only support him for about 20 minutes of play; any longer and he couldn’t keep up.

After all, he had started playing basketball quite late and had mastered the basic skills in a very short time.

His English skills were even more rudimentary than his basketball skills, though. Despite Pray correcting his grammar on more than one occasion, Bol would still say "my bad" when he didn’t perform well.

Because ’bad’ is much simpler and easier to pronounce than ’fault’ or ’mistake.’

Surprisingly, at first everyone either laughed at his grammatical mistake or tried to correct him.

But when he persisted in saying it that way, "my bad" gradually became accepted and then it started to gain popularity.

Many years later, "my bad" became a recognized part of English grammar and was included in the dictionary.

Of course, Bol certainly wasn’t the first person to say "my bad." It was said that he had picked it up from other players.

But no other player had Bol’s influence and visibility. Once "my bad" spread through him, people began to slowly accept this piece of street slang.

Taking Manute Bol’s place on the court was the Bullets’ center, "Silver Fox" Tom McMillen, and the Trail Blazers subbed in Bill Walton.

By the late ’60s, Tom McMillen was a slender, handsome youth who rivaled Bill Walton in the All-America high school basketball scene.

Back then, McMillen could average 47.7 points per game with a 76% shooting rate. Upon graduating high school, universities across America vied for him, with dozens of prestigious schools like North Carolina, UCLA, and others extending him offers.

In 1970, he was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated, overshadowing Bill Walton with the title "America’s Best High School Player."

McMillen’s father hoped his son would become a successful dentist, so any school with a subpar medical program was eliminated from consideration. In the end, he chose the University of Maryland for its strong medical specialization.

UCLA, on the other hand, recruited Bill Walton. Walton proved to be more outstanding and successful in college basketball, becoming one of the most dominant centers in the game.

McMillen was just as outstanding in college, but once in the NBA, his performance was mediocre. The only area where he bested Walton was in staying healthy and having high attendance rate.

Time flew, and a decade or so later, both found themselves near the end of their professional careers. McMillen had gone from a dashing youth to a silver-haired man, and Walton had become a red-haired oddity. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Neither of them were stars on the court anymore, but mere supporting characters on the bench. However, their rivalry didn’t cease.

Walton grabbed an offensive rebound and scored with a put-back, and McMillen soon after sank an elegant left-handed hook shot from a 12-foot position on the left side.

In terms of the authenticity of a hook shot, McMillen’s was even more textbook than Jabbar’s. Jabbar’s technique of raising the ball high and hooking it with his wrist was an anomaly among hook shots.

A hook shot like McMillen’s, which comes from a big arc starting at the waist, was the original and most standard form.

After scoring, Walton taunted McMillen, "Your move is still so effeminate!"

McMillen shook his head and replied, "Bill, you’ve returned to Portland, and you’re still so juvenile. Are you still into your anti-war activism? How can Portland people put up with you?"

The two jockeyed for position under the basket, while Guoyang faced off against Charles Barkley at the power forward spot and took a mid-range shot, but missed.

This time Walton didn’t secure the offensive rebound, and McMillen guarded the ball and the Bullets initiated a fast break.

Charles Barkley took the lead, powerfully driving to the basket and drawing a foul from Gan Guoyang.

With McMillen on the floor, the Bullets picked up the pace on both offense and defense, finally regaining some advantage.

Though Barkley was at a disadvantage against Guoyang, his sheer strength and explosive power meant he wasn’t incapable of competing.

As Barkley shot his free throws, Walton and McMillen continued to bicker. Walton said, "I’m not juvenile, but because I truly love this country and its people. Not like you, wanting to be a parasite to this country."

McMillen retorted, "I think you’ve got Stockholm Syndrome, or maybe all of Portland does for being able to tolerate you."

"Didn’t you also return to Maryland?"

"I did it for a cause."

"So did I."

McMillen and Walton were both active political activists, albeit in entirely different camps.

McMillen was a staunch Reagan supporter; in fact, as early as 1983, after being traded from the Hawks to the Bullets, he had already planned a political career, aiming to run for Congress.

However, he felt the timing was not right, so he decided to continue spending time on the basketball court, waiting for the election landscape of 1986—that is, the current year. If the opportunity seemed promising, he planned to retire and dive into politics.

He had already set up his own election campaign office. Last season, with Ruland frequently absent, he stepped up and even won NBA Player of the Week once. He joked, "This messed up my election plans."

McMillen had also invested early in a number of companies, including a wireless communications firm and BP paging service business, as well as a dedicated investment company. He had entered the ranks of capitalists and was moving towards becoming one with political power.

Walton was different; not only was he an anti-war activist, he also opposed American hegemony, capitalist exploitation, and White supremacy in America—even opposing the U.S. government itself.

In college, he was arrested for protesting against the Vietnam War and Nixon, which could be considered one of the least controversial charges in his career.

In 1974, Patty Hearst, the heiress to the media giant Herbert Group, was kidnapped by the radical group SLA. Two months later, after announcing her separation from the Hearst family, she formally joined the SLA and participated in a series of crimes, including bank robberies, with its members.

This later became one of the classic cases identified as "Stockholm syndrome," and at the time, it was a hot topic that captured the attention of the whole country.

Later on, the SLA was eradicated by the Los Angeles Police Department, all its members killed, and Patty Hearst was rescued.

Facing prosecution for severing ties with her family and participating in crimes, Patty found assistance from a social activist named Jack Scott.

Jack Scott and his wife were very close friends with Bill Walton. When Walton was playing in Portland, the couple lived in the big house that the Portland people built for Walton.

Because of Scott’s involvement with Hearst, many suspected that there were remnants of the SLA hiding in Walton’s house, which forced Larry Weinberg and the Trail Blazers’ management to step up and clarify, earning them quite a bit of trouble.

Walton often attended press conferences with the Scotts, expressing their views on current politics and the government, with some highly sharp and intense opinions.

For example, he believed that it was people behind the U.S government who assassinated President Kennedy and Martin Luther King, that they were toppling and establishing regimes all over the world in places like Vietnam, the Middle East, and Central America, waging wars and fostering interest groups, an utterly evil and chaotic act.

He criticized the American moral standards that allowed for different benchmarks for the poor and the rich; the poor would go to Attica for stealing due to bankruptcy, while the likes of Nixon could live a life of luxury on the white beaches of San Clemente after stealing national power.

Together with Jack Scott, Walton targeted the American sports industry, deeming it the most conservative and narrow part of society, a quasi-militaristic world. He supported athletes fighting for their own interests and believed many athletes had given up their fight due to the suppression of the leagues, owners, and media.

Walton wrote an open letter to America to share his views, and at the end of the letter, he reminded the public with Marxist theory: As workers, we must never forget our status; it is our skills that create goods and services, and no one can stop us from doing what we love and excel at.

But all this was nearly 10 years ago, and besides their memories and some old magazines and videos, there seemed not much trace left. American society has undergone significant changes, with Reagan and his supporters almost unshakable.

Two people from opposing camps of the past era continued to argue over some views while playing the game on the court.

But no matter how much they argued, it was all verbal disputes; their actions remained clean, without getting overheated.

Charles Barkley asked Gan Guoyang, "Ah Gan, what are those two arguing about? I don’t understand."

Gan Guoyang replied, "Of course you don’t understand, you only know about eating hamburgers... The rebound is mine!"

Gan Guoyang grabbed another rebound, launching a counterattack for the Trail Blazers, the last offense of the first half.

Gan Guoyang took the ball up the court himself and executed a pick-and-roll with Bill Walton.

Walton tapped the ball accurately back into Gan Guoyang’s hands, who then scored with a left-handed layup!

With 29 points at the half, Gan Guoyang’s performance tonight was astonishingly strong; the Trail Blazers led the Bullets 68:58, up by 10 points.

However, the referee’s whistle suddenly sounded frantically, and some commotion erupted on the sidelines.

Gan Guoyang looked over to see Coach Ramsay and Gene Shue about to come to blows!

He rushed over to the sidelines, joining Adelman in pulling the old man apart.

By then, the coach’s face was already beet red as he cursed at Gene Shue.

Gene Shue was cursing back just as vehemently, clearly the two had escalated their argument on the sidelines.

Gan Guoyang shouted, "Stop fighting, coach! The money in the pot is mine now; fighting won’t do any good. Calm down, calm down!"