First in scoring

Chapter 38 38. Stimulated
The pleasant day passed, and at 3 pm the next day, the game between Compton High School Preparatory Team and Lanewood High School Preparatory Team started.

The overall talent of Lanewood High School is better than that of Compton High School. There are top-notch talents like Miller, Abuya, and Keefe who are being trained by Compton High School. Any one of them is a good example from Lanewood High School.

The city of Lanewood, which is connected to Los Angeles, has a unique advantage in attracting talented middle school students. The official team rosters of Inglewood High School and Southern California High School are limited in number. If ambitious talents cannot get the promise of joining the official team, they will settle for second best and choose Lanewood High School, Santa Monica School, etc., which are also located in Los Angeles.

But when it comes to recruiting top talented junior high school students, Lanewood High School is at a loss. Those geniuses want to go to Los Angeles, and Inglewood High School and Southern California High School will not be missed. Even the top junior high school students in Lanewood prefer to go to those two high schools.

Therefore, there is no player in the Lionwood High School prep team who is as strong as DeRozan and Tatum.

Harden is not yet a top talent in the eyes of the Ryanwood High School coaching staff. He only began to emerge two years after junior high school, and now his talent has not been fully demonstrated. In the reserve team, he is responsible for catching the ball and shooting in the corner, and his role is similar to that of James Keefe.

Both teams are composed of players in the 9th and 10th grades. Facing their peers, DeRozan and Tatum had great advantages in personal ability. They took turns leading the team and beat the opposing group of talented players. They led by 35 points with 18 to 17 in the first quarter and won the game.

In fact, the coaching staff of Lanewood High School does not need to do much. Although they have few top-notch junior high school students joining, their overall talent is still better than most CIF Division I schools. They only need to train 9th and 10th grade players in the most ordinary way, let them level up in low-level leagues, and by the time they are in 11th and 12th grades, there will be a lot of people playing, and their strength in Division I schools will not be bad...but their coaching staff has a desire to prove themselves, and they often do some fancy things, like this season, when they saw the Compton High School prep team sign up for the Southern California League, they also signed up.

The Compton High School preparatory team has two absolute strengths in DeRozan and Tatum, and Zhang Yang helps to hone the tactics. After two games, their strength has already risen above the ranks of the bottom teams, while Ryanwood High School... played worse than Compton High School in the first half of the first quarter of the first game.

Harden couldn't accept this situation in the first game, felt sad in the second game, and now it's the third game, and he has become numb.

He also thought about turning the tide, but now he can only rush in for layups and shoot three-pointers in the bottom corner. He chose to stay low and level up.

This is due to his personality. Since he started playing basketball, he has been protected by an older brother who is stronger than all his peers, and he has never had the idea of ​​taking on the main responsibility.

But he was still stimulated tonight - had Jack grown up so fast?

When they were playing basketball together a month ago, in Harden's eyes, Zhang Yang was just a rookie who had just started playing basketball and had a high basketball IQ. Now, Zhang Yang can run long distances with the ball and dunk over his center teammate Derrick Glass!

There was no suspense in the game, Compton High School beat Ryanwood High School.

Harden scored 15 points, which was a good score for a pure pass shooter who rarely had the ball. He also made the most three-pointers in the game, 3 points. But Zhang Yang scored 18 points...

Harden has been playing basketball for several years, and this is the first time he feels unwilling to give up.

In his mind, he, DeRozan and Zhang Yang are ranked according to their strength: DeRozan is the eldest brother, he is the second brother, and Zhang Yang is the third brother.

As a result, the third brother is about to become the second brother!
He had just said casually that he was worried that Zhang Yang would surpass him, but his third brother actually took it seriously!

He really has to work hard!
...

"Jack! I will definitely score more points than you next time we fight!"

These are the words Harden left for Zhang Yang before boarding the bus leaving Compton High School.

Zhang Yang just tried his best to score and score more goals in the game. This is his tactical role. Playing like this can not only exercise his practical ability and test his skills, but also is the way in which he can provide the greatest help to the team... Unexpectedly, this stimulated Harden, and he is looking forward to it!

If Harden's ambition continues to grow during his student days, will he still be willing to be a younger brother and play as the sixth man when he teams up with Shubao and Guigui in the future?

If he were just a TV audience, Zhang Yang would feel sorry for the breakup of the Thunder's three youngsters, but as a friend, he thought about the Thunder's three youngsters again... and really felt that Harden was too wronged. In terms of talent, the future king is no worse than those two.

Since his competitive spirit and motivation have been stimulated, let’s stimulate Xiao Dengdeng more in the future!

Then Jack must also work hard to improve his strength and strive to score more points than Harden in the next match. He has his advantage - to benefit himself in tactics.

Classes, training... another week has passed.

He didn't add any new training items this week. Just layups, shots from the free throw line, simple dribbling breakthroughs, and dribbling counterattacks. That's all.

This was a decision he made based on the actual situation of the team, to first practice the current style of play.

After playing three consecutive home games, the away game came. On September 3, the Compton High School preparatory team came to Redondo Beach to play a warm-up match with the Pier High School main team.

Zhang Yang, DeRozan, Tatum, Miller... and others tried very hard, but ultimately lost 88 to 106.

Tatum dared to fight in the final moments and made his first three-pointer in 4 games, narrowing the gap to within 20 points.

Pier High School is a regular in the top eight of the Southern California League. For the 8-14 year old 'kids' of the Compton High School prep team, their strength is a little beyond their capabilities and they were beaten pretty badly. But Johnson thinks it's good. Several key players of this prep team have very good psychological qualities. Look at the look in their eyes after losing, it's great.

Winning adds confidence, losing adds motivation. For ambitious players, reasons to work hard can be easily found, and Zhang Yang is one of them.

Keep training and keep striking!

A few days later, on Friday, September 9, it was the end of another week. At about 12 p.m., at the basketball team training ground in Allen Arena, Zhang Yang was practicing free throws.

He is indeed talented in technique and shooting. After more than a month, his free throw level has caught up with... O'Neal.

The current goal is to surpass O'Neal and Duncan in free throw shooting.

You can't aim to surpass Nash and Curry right from the start, you have to take it step by step.

After practicing a set of 100 free throws, the door to experience appeared before him.

"20000 shooting points have been accumulated, and rewards have been obtained: Physical talent limit +1."

The first task, to accumulate 30 shooting points, took me or days. The second task, to accumulate shooting points, took me just over days. The daily training time is about the same, or maybe a little less. The shooting points needed to play in the game are only a fraction of that... Patiently laying the foundation was indeed the right choice.

The words on the door soon changed again -

"Optional tasks open:
Normal task: accumulate 10000 shooting points. Reward: quickly learn basic off-ball movement in a short period of time.

Advanced task: Before Christmas, accumulate 100000 shooting points. After completion, the second experience will be launched. Note: For the official experience, you can choose tasks of different difficulty levels, and the corresponding rewards are of different difficulty levels. "

(End of this chapter)