Slam Dunk: My Study Abroad Career in Northern Hunan

The entry of the Timberwolves players made the atmosphere in the Target Center more lively.

Although these star players of the Timberwolves are the focus of everyone's attention, today's training camp is open to young players after all.

The protagonists are not the Timberwolves players led by Wu Dao.

The Timberwolves players gathered together and sat down on the benches on the sidelines, looking at the young players who were gathering on the court under the command of Coach Philip, with smiles on their faces.

Once upon a time, these players had been under the watchful eyes of others, trying to prove their talents through tryouts and various training camps in order to gain the slightest chance of entering the NBA.

Nowadays, all of this has nothing to do with them anymore. They have become "mature" players who can sit on the sidelines and watch other people's tryouts.

There are only more than 30 young players who came to the Target Center to participate in the Timberwolves training camp today. Except for Tyronn Lue, who was selected by the Timberwolves with the 17th pick this year, there are several new players who are substitutes for the Timberwolves.

In addition to this, Wu Dao could also see several players he was familiar with in the crowd.

Needless to say, Yao Ming, who was standing in the front row, also stood in the queue. Besides him, Tyson Chandler, who was always mentioned by Yao Ming, was also in the queue.

This kid is now quite famous across the United States. Basically, scouts from all teams are very optimistic that he will be able to enter the NBA smoothly, and even have a very high predicted ranking for his draft pick.

Generally speaking, with Tyson Chandler's current fame, he doesn't need to go through "low-level" occasions such as training camps to increase his exposure and gain a chance to enter the NBA.

In fact, he only needs to train and play step by step, and entering the NBA is a foregone conclusion.

He would think of coming to the Timberwolves to increase his presence, and he is also quite interested in the Timberwolves as a team.

This is understandable. The Timberwolves, who once blocked Michael Jordan's path forward, have now become one of the hottest teams in the league.

Maybe the basketball market in Minnesota is not big, and the Timberwolves are far from being a strong team, but this does not prevent young players from yearning for the Timberwolves.

Championship team.

Such a title is enough to attract many talented rookies.

In addition to Tyson Chandler and Yao Ming, Desagana Diop, who was standing in the second row of the team, was also looking at Wu Dao, who was sitting in the rest area on the sidelines, with a fiery gaze.

Desagana Diop (210cm, 104kg), now 17 years old, is Wu Dao's junior at Oak Hill High School. He has outstanding physical talent and has attracted a lot of media attention shortly after entering Oak Hill High School.

The fact that he can appear in this training camp is more or less related to martial arts, and he is also the youngest player in this training camp.

As for the other team members, Wudao had heard of some of their names, but there was no way he could match their appearance with their names, so he could only say that he had heard of them.

Just as Coach Philip was directing the young players to gather, the Timberwolves' assistant coach handed a list to Wu Dao.

This is a list of players participating in the training camp. The list simply records the players' age, height, weight, college, and the game data in the league with the most games currently played. It can be regarded as a simple personal information.

The intention of giving Wudao this list is not to allow him to choose his favorite players from among the players in the training camp, but just to let him recognize the people. If there is an exhibition match later, he will not be completely in the dark and at least be able to call out some names of players who left a deep impression on him.

"Everyone is welcome to join our Timberwolves training camp."

"This training camp lasts for one week, and the main purpose is to give young people the opportunity to get in touch with the training model under the NBA system."

"For you, the most important thing is experience and expression."

"Don't think that your strength will be able to make a qualitative leap after this training camp."

"The growth of players' strength is gradual. It is impossible to have such effective training that can raise your competitive level all at once."

"So, everyone should just keep a calm mind and show their best in training."

After waiting for all the young players to line up, Coach Philip also smiled and clapped his hands, and began his pre-training speech. After that, Coach Philip paused, turned his body slightly, stretched out his hand to the people sitting on the chairs, and continued:
"You see these guys? There are sports media reporters and scouts among them."

"Everything you do in training camp will be remembered by the sports media and these scouts."

"Players who perform well during this period may get their recommendations, and the door to the NBA may open up for you."

"Of course, we, the Timberwolves, also hope to have more young and outstanding players join our team."

“So, I will be very, very looking forward to your performance.”

As soon as he finished speaking, led by Tyronn Lue, there was warm applause in the stadium. This guy is already a member of their Timberwolves and is more relaxed than other young players.

"Next, prepare for today's training."

"Before we officially begin, let's do a simple warm-up."

“Charles, please, please warm up these young people first.”

Coach Philip gave Barkley the opportunity to show up in front of the media reporters and take these good students in the training camp to warm up. This was actually Coach Philip's initiative to give face to Buck. Originally, this kind of work should have been done by Wu Dao, the star player, to show the team's attention to the training camp.

However, Barkley is a famous player who has been famous for many years, and he must give enough face in front of the media reporters.

This period is a critical period for Barkley to integrate into the team, and Coach Philip does not want to make Barkley uncomfortable over such a small matter.

"Okay, coach."

Barkley glanced at Wudao beside him, and seeing that there was no unhappiness on Wudao's face, he also quickly stepped into the court with a smile.

After a brief self-introduction, he clapped his hands and started warm-up activities with the players.

Run circles and stretch.

The NBA warm-up activities did not seem to be anything special to the players. On the sidelines, Yao Ming's team reporter Xiao Yang was also paying attention to the players on the court. After watching for a while, he lost interest and glanced at the Timberwolves players sitting on the sidelines, muttering to himself:

“Charles Barkley comes to the Timberwolves.”

"I also heard that the young man was the star player of the martial arts world. Now it seems that his status is not as high as I thought."

"After Barkley joined the Timberwolves, he became the undisputed leader of the team."

Xiao Yang was not clear about the relationship within the Timberwolves. Seeing Barkley, a famous player, leading the players in the training camp to warm up, he also thought of other things. He did not think highly of Wu Dao, a Chinese who entered the NBA earlier than Yao Ming. Or, it could be said that the current domestic reporters do not have a deep enough understanding of the NBA.

Is there a clear understanding of the gap in strength between China and foreign countries?

What you see on TV is, after all, just what you see on TV. If you have never experienced it yourself, there is no way to appreciate how powerful NBA players are.

Like many basketball fans, when watching CBA games, I always feel that "I can do it too."

But in fact, even if a player is a well-known internet celebrity on the basketball court, he may not be able to pass the physical test smoothly after entering the CBA.

The gap between NBA players and the vast majority of Asian players is even greater than the gap between domestic professional league players and internet celebrity players.

Wudao, who was sitting on the sidelines, also noticed Xiao Yang's gaze. He glanced at him casually and then looked away, not paying any attention.

Barkley led the players in a thorough warm-up, which took nearly 15 minutes, and the young training camp players lined up in front of Coach Philip again.

After warming up with the players, Barkley returned to my seat and asked with a smile:

"Budo, if there's a warm-up match later, how about I team up with you?"

"We have been opponents before. This time, we are teammates? Let's see if we have tacit understanding on the court?"

Although the training camp is aimed at these young players, Barkley also became eager to move after arriving at the arena.

He had fought a 100% battle with Wudao before, and personally felt the strong sense of oppression brought by Wudao as an opponent. Now he wanted to feel what it was like to be a teammate with Wudao.

I think that if I were teammates with such a strong young player, the game would be very smooth.

Barkley actually really likes the feeling of playing smoothly. He felt that feeling when he competed with the strong players of the Dream Team in the Olympics.

Destroy with ease and bully the weak.

Although bullying the weak may seem cheap to others, Barkley really enjoys that feeling.

No one likes to lose, not even Barkley.

"Okay."

Wu Dao also agreed with a smile, and I was also looking forward to what it would feel like to be teammates with Barkley.

I don't know if there will be any chemical reaction between the two of them.

On the court, Coach Philip and several Timberwolves assistant coaches began to assign training tasks to the training camp players.

There were some ball exercises, some shooting exercises, a little bit of physical training, some confrontations, and in between each session, Coach Philip also mixed in some pure shuttle run drills.

Anyway, the main purpose is to not let these young people have time to rest.

The training intensity in the NBA is very high. Why has no one ever heard of the NBA mentioning the so-called "Three Obediences and One Big" in all these years?
The reason is very simple, because the so-called three obediences and one major is just the basics of the basics for the vast majority of NBA players and does not need to be mentioned specifically.

All competitive sports rely on training to achieve results. The so-called scientific training method must also be based on the three principles and one major principle and extend upward.

For CBA players after the 21st century, that simple physical test can stop some people.

If they had seen the training of players like Kobe and Curry with their own eyes, they would probably be shocked.

Cui Xiao's entry into the NBA league has actually explained many problems. The reason why the men's basketball team cannot perform well is no longer the so-called "lack of talented players".

There are big problems with training. No matter how talented the players are, they cannot be trained. If their physical fitness is not up to standard, no matter how smart the skills and tactics are, they cannot be replicated on the court.

If you can't even put the ball into the basket in training, how can you expect to hit the key shot in a high-intensity game?

In the arena, various training contents are in full swing.

The players were also divided into different batches and carried out different training programs.

On the sidelines, the media reporters and scouts watching the game were also very quiet, with only occasional low-pitched discussions. The entire stadium was filled with the sound of sneakers rubbing against the floor.

All the martial arts' attention was focused on Yao Ming. At this height and age, the speed and flexibility displayed by Yao Ming on the court were still impressive!

Just as Wu Dao expected, the media reporters on the sidelines actually paid attention to Yao Ming, and the scouts who were invited to participate also silently recorded the big man Yao Ming.

There are actually quite a lot of people in the team that came to the United States with Yao Ming, including not only media reporters, but also the owner of the Shanghai Sharks.

As the training progressed, some scouts found the owner of Yao Ming's team in advance to communicate. Almost all the scouts became interested in the big man Yao Ming, and some more radical scouts have even asked Yao Ming's owner about the buyout price.

The power of scouts is actually very great, and the resources they can mobilize are far beyond other people's imagination.

In an era when it was rare to find a millionaire in China, these American scouts estimated Yao Ming's value in millions or tens of millions of dollars. Fortunately, this boss had already experienced the "price" baptism during Jordan's training camp, and was very calm in front of today's group of scouts.

Noticing that Yao Ming was receiving a lot of attention at this time, Wu Dao also said to Garnett beside him:
"Kevin, if we have a training match later, you should pay special attention to that big guy."

"If you can, do your best to break him!"

Wu Dao's words also stunned Garnett beside him. He didn't understand why Wu Dao suddenly attacked this yellow fellow countryman of his.

Garnett looked at Wu Dao with a questioning look. He thought that Wu Dao was deliberately suppressing players of the same skin color.

"I don't mean anything else. I just don't want him and his boss to get too carried away."

“It is more necessary to correctly identify yourself.”

"Especially for a young player who wants to make it to the NBA."

When Wu Dao said this, he turned his head slightly to look at the owner of the Shanghai Sharks team, who was surrounded by enthusiastic scouts, and a "gentle" smile appeared on his face.

(End of this chapter)