First in scoring

Chapter 62 62. The Mysterious Eastern Genius
It's in the newspaper! A major newspaper!
On Monday morning, the day after winning the Southern California League, Zhang Yang was doing morning exercises when Thomas ran out and stuffed a newspaper into his hand with a delighted expression.

Zhang Yang looked at where Thomas was pointing and saw his name! Jack Zhang!
I thought it was a local tabloid, but when I looked up, it turned out to be the Los Angeles Times!
Was his performance good enough to be in this newspaper? I read the news again. Hmm, I thought too much. He just took advantage of the "campus basketball season" and was featured in the basketball season special.

In the college arena, the NCAA basketball tournament, commonly known as March Madness, begins in the middle of the month; in the high school arena, the final stages of the high school leagues in various states are also in full swing.

The CIF Division I league has also come to an end. The championship will begin on the 15th, with 4 teams from four divisions competing for the championship.

Their Compton High School main team had already secured the top spot in Region 3 and, as the region's seeded team, was highlighted in reports, with their reserve team also mentioned.

However, even though it was just incidental, they earned it through their performance, Inglewood High School, Santa Barbara High School, Southern California High School, Oakland Middle School... all had columns, but their reserve team performance was not reported!
Their performance in the Southern California League earned them the reputation of being a dark horse.

The three core players, Zhang Yang, DeRozan and Tatum, were all evaluated.

德罗赞篇幅最多——20场比赛，场均24.1分4.6板3.8助攻1.4抢断，被称为加州最强新人。

An average of 24.1 points per game may not seem very high. Some teams in low-level leagues have an average of more than 30 points per game, but in the Southern California League, this is already ranked third!

The Southern California League's data is the most valuable among all non-Tier 1 leagues.

With such performance from a 9th grade freshman in the Southern California League, DeRozan deserves to be called the strongest rookie. The former 'former No. junior high school student in Southern California' has also become the 'former No. junior high school student in California.'

Tatum got a weird review—Tyronn Lue’s nephew.

场均15分5.2板8.8助攻2.2抢断1.1盖帽的表现，显然没有NBA球员的侄子的头衔吸引记者注意。

Zhang Yang felt that the evaluations he received were full of flaws - the vision of the best coach, a mysterious oriental genius poached from the baseball field.

Who the hell told the reporter about his baseball career? He wasn't as good at baseball as Allen Iverson was at football. It's embarrassing to mention this!
When talking about Chinese people, they use the word "mysterious", which is very American.

As for Thomas' vision, it is true that Abuya, Miller, Monroe, Keefe... these are all players he recruited from all over the place and were not favored by other first-level schools.

张杨第一次看到他的场均数据，之前也没关注过——场均18.4分7.6板1.8助攻2.6抢断1.8盖帽，56%的投篮命中率。

His scores in the last few league games were much higher than this, but before Christmas his stats were mediocre at the sixth man level, which dragged down the overall stats… But it’s good enough that such a major newspaper could give him a one-sentence evaluation and post some stats.

...

The reserve team made it to the semi-finals, and the school gave them a few days off to prepare for the weekend game.

This year's championship tournament is hosted by San Diego Mission High School and begins on Friday, lasting three days and featuring a one-elimination format.

At 9 o'clock in the morning, Zhang Yang came to the training ground and handed the newspaper to DeRozan, who said, "I will come to training earlier than everyone else."

DeRozan had already read the newspaper and his mother had even prepared the clippings, but when he saw the description 'former No. 1 junior high school student in California', he couldn't help but smile.

But seeing that Zhang Yang’s performance had almost caught up with his own after less than a year of playing, DeRozan stuffed the newspaper back to Zhang Yang and told him to continue practicing!

At 10 o'clock, Johnson and Burke came to lead the team in preparation for the game.

The players are excited about the championship game, and Johnson is also excited.

13 wins and 7 losses, if the wins and losses were reversed, would be the result he predicted at the beginning of the season. While he was happy, he was also reluctant. After this week, most of these players will no longer be coached by him. DeRozan, Tatum, Zhang Yang, Miller, Monroe, Kanter... these people will all go to the main team.

But this is his job, to help the main team cultivate outstanding reserve talents.

As the saying goes, a sharp sword before battle is better than sharpening it. The training intensity from Monday to Wednesday is very high. There are definitely complaints, such as Tatum who always likes to find something to say, but complaints aside, everyone trains harder than each other.

On Thursday, the Compton High School prep team came to San Diego, rested for a night, and arrived at the San Diego Seagulls Arena early the next morning.

This is a standard basketball arena with more than 3000 seats and is the home court of the University of California, San Diego basketball team.

The number of audiences on site was more than Zhang Yang expected!

Most of them came for DeRozan, the 'strongest rookie in California in 07'. Many people shouted "DeMar". However, since it is a city with a large number of Chinese people, Zhang Yang also heard people shouting "Jack", which made him feel very happy.

The players of Compton High School's reserve team were in high spirits, while the players of Millikan High School's main team were in a bad mood.

They were originally firmly in the top four, but in the last month they were overtaken by a group of 15 or 16-year-old kids on the opposite side!
And they defeated them head-on and overtook them! They watched helplessly as the other team rushed from ninth to fourth, while they were beaten from third to fifth.

Today, they want revenge!

The last time they played against each other, they were leading by more than ten points at halftime but were overturned. They will never let that happen again!

More than an hour later, Millikan High School achieved its goal and they did not face the crisis of being overturned again.

27 to 25 in the first quarter, 31 to 22 in the second quarter... Compton High School Preparatory Team took a double-digit lead at halftime. The one that needed to make a comeback was Millikan High School!
Entering halftime, the players of Millikan High School are going crazy!

The last time they met, they had a considerable advantage in strength, leading by 18 points at halftime. Although they were eventually overturned by the three monsters on the opposite side thanks to their talents, they definitely had an overall strength advantage. Only a short month had passed, and now it was their turn to be beaten, losing by 11 points at halftime!
Watching Zhang Yang use strange steps to jump out of the crowded inside to shoot, seeing DeRozan hit one pull-up jump shot after another, and seeing how much strength these two have improved compared to the last time they met... the players of Millikan High School were unwilling to give up!
They were able to rank in the top four in the Southern California League at one point, and they also put in a lot of hard work. Are hard work useless in the face of talent? They can't accept it!
In the third quarter, Millikan High School launched a fierce counterattack, but the effect was mediocre. With the score at 28 to 25, they only recovered a 3-point difference in a single quarter.

In the final quarter, Compton High School, which withstood the counterattack, regained its momentum, scoring 31 to 27 in a single quarter, widening the gap to double digits again!

The players of Millikan High School worked very hard, but what they didn't see was that the two geniuses on the opposite side, whom they scolded as "just relying on talent", worked harder than them!
德罗赞30分4板6助攻、张杨26分9板2助攻1抢断3盖帽、塔图姆16分7板9助攻2抢断、阿布亚16分……

114 to 102, Compton High School prep team defeated Millikan High School main team and advanced to the semi-finals of the 'Championship Game'!
As the second highest level league in California high school basketball, the Southern California League is still able to attract some college scouts and professional player agents to the scene during the championship stage.

Moreover, there are two players in the Southern California League this year who are extremely attractive to scouts and agents. One is the center from Seaside Middle School, and the other is DeRozan from Compton High School.

Many professionals came to watch the game, and DeRozan's performance did not disappoint them. He had a variety of scoring methods, comprehensive skills, and a shooting range that covered from close range to outside the three-point line.

However, they did not expect that coming to watch the quarterfinals of a secondary league would actually bring them an unexpected surprise. Zhang Yang's performance caught their attention. At certain stages of the game, they felt that Zhang Yang was better than DeRozan!

Professionals who have read that issue of the Los Angeles Times sports edition remembered that it was the mysterious oriental genius who changed his career from a baseball player... They didn't take it seriously when they saw it in the newspaper a few days ago, thinking it was just a media gimmick like "Tyronn Lue's nephew". This is a state with a large Chinese population. When they read the Compton High School column, they only cared about Afflalo, Shipp, and DeRozan.

I didn’t expect that Thomas actually discovered another top talent!
……

……

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(End of this chapter)