The Golden Age of Basketball-Chapter 395 - 14: Control Power

For Bobby Beelman, moving from Gonzaga to Portland was not a troublesome matter.

All his belongings could fit in a pickup truck. Departing from Spokane, he drove southwest on Highway 90 to Hermiston, where he fueled up, took a rest, and then continued westward along the Columbia River for another three hours to reach his destination.

Since the breakdown of his marriage, basketball had been Bobby Beelman’s entire life.

From Michigan to New Jersey, from San Francisco to Spokane, and finally to Portland, he had left his mark every step of the way, completing his personal comeback in a very short time.

The man who was once dismissed from college for suspected gambling had fallen to the position of an assistant coach in grassroots basketball training classes, but now he had set foot on the path to the NBA.

Beelman undoubtedly had fond memories and reluctance to leave Spokane and Gonzaga University. It was here that he had spent four solid years truly settling down to study basketball and coaching.

Especially after Gan Guoyang went to the NBA, and without him as the team’s superstar these past two years, Beelman managed to lead the Bulldog into the NCAA national competition twice with his own coaching skills alone, which was indeed an impressive feat.

In Gonzaga, he was highly respected. He had good relationships with people like Fitz and Delong. His new contract offered a substantial salary, and the living environment in Spokane was pleasant. He could have easily started a new life there, coaching at the college for five years, ten years, or even longer.

In an era before the NCAA was completely commercialized, it was common for a fitting, outstanding college coach to stay with a team for 15 to 20 years.

Ray Meyer of DePaul University was one such coach, holding his position for 40 years until retirement. His son, Joey Meyer, took over his spot, and by the way, his grandson was sent to be a scout for the Bulls.

If Beelman had wanted to, with his NCAA championship and two national competitions, he could have taken root and grown in Spokane like Meyer, starting another marriage, raising children, and becoming the head of Gonzaga University’s basketball.

But Beelman didn’t do that. He didn’t even buy a house in Spokane, living in rented accommodations for four years, even working part-time jobs to pay rent in his earliest and most challenging days.

Later on, after winning the championship and seeing his circumstances improve, Beelman still opted to rent. From that moment on, Fitz knew that Beelman’s heart wasn’t truly in Gonzaga, and even with a signed contract, he retained the clause to leave at any time.

Upon arriving in Portland, with the help of Gan Guoyang, Beelman rented an apartment in Lake Mountain Park, close to Portland Community College, which was convenient for commuting to and from work.

Thanks to his proficient professional skills, Beelman was quickly assigned with important tasks, responsible for the rookie training camp and acting as the defensive coach during the preseason training camp, coaching individual player defense.

For Beelman, the difficulty of the job was not in the technique; he had absolute confidence in his basketball skills. The real challenge was how to get along with the players and how to earn the respect of professional athletes.

This was the primary difficulty that many college coaches faced when coming to NBA professional teams. How to play and what tactics to employ were often not the hardest parts; getting players to listen to you and maintain a good relationship was the number one challenge.

Professional players are not students; you cannot treat them with the same attitude a teacher uses with students. A player’s status is often more stable than that of a coach, sometimes the coach has to coddle the players.

In the past, at Beiqiao High School and Gonzaga, Beelman had always been a master of profanity. When he went to the Trail Blazers, he had to be somewhat restrained, holding back words that he could not say for the time being.

Starting with the rookie training camp, he was in charge of a large number of miscellaneous tasks: making spreadsheets, taking notes, editing videos, serving as the referee for scrimmage games, and so on. These were all tasks that used to fall to Adelman, and now they were handed over to him, keeping him busy all day long.

He was an NCAA championship coach, yet here he was at an NBA team doing menial tasks, something not every coach could put up with.

But Beelman had no complaints; he had been through worse, and this was nothing in comparison.

Besides, working alongside Ramsay, he found he could indeed learn a lot, ’the coach’s coach’ wasn’t just a saying.

For Beelman, the good news was having Gan Guoyang around, which made integrating into the team much easier.

Gan Guoyang was a natural leader, the undisputed king of Portland. Beelman’s standing as "Ah Gan’s University Coach" did bring him many conveniences.

Although sometimes he had to speak ill of Gan Guoyang behind his back to please Jack Ramsey, Beelman was clear in his mind that Ah Gan was his foundation at the Trail Blazers, and he needed to take good care of this ’young master’ no matter what.

Gan Guoyang’s demands of Beelman were simple: stay behind every day to help him with extra practice, coach his defensive skills, and then have dinner together in the evening.

Last season, Gan Guoyang didn’t win the Defensive Player of the Year award because, having lost weight, he focused more on offense. Additionally, to control his fouls, his number of blocks decreased, thus the Defensive Player of the Year title went to Irving Robertson, who had impressive steal stats.

Come playoff time, especially in the finals, Gan Guoyang proved with his blocks and defense that he was the league’s best interior defender.

One could only say that statistics and impression scores are very important for the Defensive Player of the Year award because it’s selected by the media, and that’s what they focus on.

The defensive lineup, however, is picked by the coaches, who know best who the league’s top defenders are—Gan Guoyang was an unquestionable choice for the All-Defensive First Team.

Gan Guoyang wasn’t satisfied with just this; he believed he still had room for improvement on the defensive end, especially in terms of guarding two opponents at once—a challenging feat requiring experience and skill which he found very interesting.

Since he knew that Walton would mostly be unable to play this year, and Jones and Thompson had aged another year, he was sure he’d need to expend more energy on defense.

As for offense, with Drexler, Vandeweghe, Porter, Kossie, and others in their growing phases, there was no worry about the team lacking scorers. Thus, for the sake of the team, Gan Guoyang was willing to contribute more on defense, even if it meant sacrificing some of his scoring stats.

Upon hearing Gan’s plan, Beelman exclaimed, "You truly are willing to sacrifice everything for victory—you’re the best player I’ve seen, from both an individual and team perspective."

Gan retorted, "So you’ve been talking behind my back?"

"Ah?... I... I didn’t, I was just joking." Beelman thought to himself, who is the mole that talked, could it be Adelman?

"Say what you want, just butter up Dr. Jack; I’ve noticed he’s not in the best shape this year, probably because of his age. People get stubborn as they grow older and like to hear pleasant things. Adelman has been an assistant coach for many years, and your coming up is like a step up for him, so he’d be full of energy. You should work well with him. He might be slow to catch on, but he has some good ideas for offense; together, you guys will be great."

Beelman nodded. Gan’s grasp of human nature still defied his age, and his control over the team was increasing—a level not commonly reached by the usual team leaders.

Back in high school, he already had this ability, continued to show it in college, and in just two short seasons in the NBA, he took the Trail Blazers under his wing.

"Hey Bobby, when have you thought about becoming the head coach of a team?" Gan then asked Beelman a soul-stirring question.

Beelman stuttered, searching for words, "I... I’ve just gotten to the Trail Blazers, I haven’t thought about that yet."

"Don’t lie to me, Bobby. If you didn’t want to be a head coach, why give up the job at Gonzaga? It’s only a matter of time before you become one," Gan persisted.

With this, Beelman dropped the act, "At least until Dr. Jack retires, right?"

Gan smiled, "So when do you want Dr. Jack to retire?"

Beelman thought to himself, is that something I can decide? Or does it only happen when you want it to?

The two didn’t delve deeper into the topic, but Beelman could feel he was already in the grip of his proud protégé.

In fact, when Gan called the "Excel in Basketball" camp in 1981 and Beelman picked up the phone, he was already in Gan’s clutches.

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The time quickly reached mid-October, and the preseason officially began.

After a period of adjustments, the reigning champions started their preseason warm-ups.

The Trail Blazers’ preseason performance was as plain and unremarkable as ever; Ramsay never wasted too much energy on preseason games. 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

The main objectives of the preseason were to evaluate players and strategize; young players got substantial time on the court to prove if they could stay.

After the final preseason game, the Trail Blazers solidified their 12-man roster for the 1986-1987 season.

Frontcourt: Gan Guoyang, Walton, Jones, Thompson.

Forwards: Vandeweghe, Jerome Kossie, Kenny-Carl.

Guards: Drexler, Parkson, Terry Porter, Dale Curry, Jeff Hornacek.

This was still a competitive roster, and the Trail Blazers were officially on their challenging journey to defending their title.