First in scoring

Chapter 63: It's not easy to gain talent

The next day, Saturday, was the day for the Southern California League 'Championship' semi-finals.

The Compton High School prep team will face off against the Seaside Middle School main team.

At around 9 o'clock in the morning, Zhang Yang and his teammates entered the stadium.

Looking at the big guy on the opposite side, Zhang Yang complained: "A player like him is totally cheating in this game!"

Another player who attracted the most attention from scouts and agents in this year's Southern California League championship game was on the opposite side - Devin Harding.

Ranked 04th among all high school students in the United States in the Class of 95, 19 years old, 216 cm + 113 kg in height, excellent mobility, sharp sense for rebounding and blocking, averaged 20 points, 28.1 rebounds and 16 blocks in 6 league games, all three statistics are first in the league, and the hit rate of 72% is also first. He is invincible in the Southern California League, and has no defeat in the entire 12th grade season, from warm-up games to league games. In 20 league games, he averaged a net win of more than 20 points per game.

One can imagine how terrifying it is for a student to be selected as one of the top 100 high school students in the United States from a non-first-tier school in the single state of California.

昨天下午张杨和队友们留在海鸥球馆看了海滨中学和第八名的传教士中学的比赛，画面简直残忍到极点，哈丁18投14中拿到31分20板8盖帽，率领海滨中学以114比73狂屠传教士中学。

In the fifth round of the league, Harding gave DeRozan, Tatum and others a little shock of "adult basketball". After a few months, Harding became even stronger.

When DeRozan heard Zhang Yang's words, he thought of the game he watched yesterday afternoon and nodded: "It's true that he is cheating."

Tatum on the side heard this and complained in his heart - you two are quite cheating.

Miller, the good guy, said, "You can't say that about him. I read a report that Harding was only 9 feet tall when he was in 6th grade. No first-level school wanted him at that time. Unexpectedly, he grew a foot taller in two years, and his guard became a center. He also has good mobility. In the past two summers, many high schools wanted to recruit him, but he was rejected in the physical examination and refused to transfer. He stayed at Seaside Middle School. The media commented that his ranking was dragged down by the school. If he transferred to a first-level school, he might be ranked in the top ."

Zhang Yang heard a sense of "Don't despise the poor young man". He didn't remember there being a star center named Harding in the NBA in the future. However, it was not important to him whether Harding could enter the NBA or not. What was important was that this 19-year-old top high school center was an insurmountable mountain for them now.

However, this pressure also stimulated his fighting spirit!

The season is coming to an end, and Zhang Yang has long become the absolute leader of the reserve team. His high morale has reduced his teammates' fear of Harding a lot.

At 10 o'clock, the game between Compton High School preparatory team and Seaside Middle School main team started.

On Zhang Yang's side, everyone worked hard and fought hard with the opponent.

Facing a group of kids who were about fifteen or sixteen years old, Harding showed no carelessness and attacked fiercely in the interior without holding back.

Harding doesn't regret not going to a Division I school, but if he stays at Seaside High School, he will have to win all his games to get the attention of top universities.

Zhang Yang and DeRozan are considered top high school talents, and Tatum is also a second-top talent. They have the ability to surpass their current age group, but the opponent is also a top talent, and is 3 years older...

Zhang Yang had 21 points, 6 rebounds and 3 assists, DeRozan had 25 points, 2 rebounds and 6 assists, Tatum had 7 points, 2 rebounds and 6 assists... They fought hard, but facing the basket guarded by Harding, Tatum, Miller, Kanter, Monroe... and other players who scored at close range and at the basket all fell asleep. In addition to Zhang Yang and DeRozan, the best performing player among Compton High School players was the 9th grade pitcher power forward Abuya, who scored 18 points.

德文-哈丁狂砍32分22板7盖帽，率领海滨中学以105比96力克康普敦高中，拒绝爆冷！

...

The first season of his basketball career was over. During the season, Zhang Yang had always thought that he didn't care about the results in the "mere secondary high school league". When he was really eliminated, he felt upset for two nights.

His competitive spirit is even stronger than he thinks!

After returning to Compton with the team on Monday morning, Zhang Yang calmed down and returned to training.

Next season, they will join the main team. The strength of CIF Division I schools is completely different from that of the teams in the Southern California League. A team like Seaside Middle School can only be the bottom of the CIF Division I schools. When their reserve team played a training match with the main team, they really had no power to fight back. They could at least hold the score against Seaside Middle School. Zhang Yang already knew that the talent of the 11th grade of the school team was broken. After this season, the 12th grade seniors graduated. Next semester, he, DeRozan, and Tatum will join the main team and have to take the lead. The pressure is not small.

At the end of the season, Zhang Yang also made adjustments to his training. There were no more games, no more team training matches, and no more team training. He began to take the initiative to challenge Tatum and DeRozan, and ran to the playground alone to play basketball... He actively created the conditions to combine games and training.

On March 3, the main team lost to Santa Barbara High School led by Farmar in the quarterfinals.

Zhang Yang felt sad again when he heard the news. He had already considered himself a member of the Magnet Men's Basketball Team. He hoped that the main team could make it to the end and even win a championship, which would be a great sense of collective honor.

On April 4, 4 shooting points were accumulated. This time, the speed was much faster than last time. It was completed in less than a month, and I was rewarded with "Three-point talent limit +1"

A new task has come, but new experience has not come yet. This time the reward is a random physical talent limit +1. Continue to accumulate shooting points, .

However, it is also great to be able to improve his talent. He has not yet fully digested the gains from the previous two experiences, so he calmed down and continued training.

By April 4, Zhang Yang had accumulated 23 shooting points, which took him about 19 and a half days, and he was rewarded with a speed talent +1.

Zhang Yang was very excited about the speed increase. He remembered that when he entered the NBA, he weighed 92 kg and his speed was 91. When he gained weight to 95 kg, his speed dropped to 90. So will his speed also be 95 after he gains weight to 91 kg? It's hard to say. The balance of weight, speed and strength is very important and delicate for a player. He didn't bother to study this, but he would know it in the future.

A new task has also been opened, this time the task is to improve the random shooting talent, but the task goal has changed - accumulate 4 shooting points.

He was thinking that since no new experience was unlocked, he might as well 'brush up his talent'. Unexpectedly, the time to accumulate 20 shooting points had just been accelerated to within days, and the mission target had doubled!
He analyzed it and found two possibilities for the difficulty increase. One possibility is that his strength has become stronger, the speed of obtaining shooting points has become faster, and the speed of completing tasks has become faster, or the plug-in has increased the difficulty of the task... This possibility is not great, the growth rate of his shooting value acquisition speed will always slow down. Another possibility is that after adding talent points to a certain number of times, the shooting value required to continue to improve the talent increases.
He counted and found that the difficulty of the task increased after increasing the talent by 4 points. He wanted to see if the difficulty would increase again after increasing the talent by 4 points next time.

Soon, May arrived, and the 5th grade seniors took the standardized graduation exam, officially ending their high school career.

Before leaving school, Ship held a party and invited the whole team to attend.

Ship, a young man whose family owns a mine, a real mine.

They are good at handling affairs and have good interpersonal relationships. For black people, they basically come from wealthy families... A certain player named No. 8 and a certain player named No. 23 are both outliers in their respective classes. The standard examples should be Hill and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

At the party, Shipp took the initiative to talk to Zhang Yang, DeRozan and Tatum about what will happen after joining the main team and provided advice to the three.

Zhang Yang felt that the other party was very purposeful, perhaps because the three of them would most likely enter the NCAA in the future, or even have the hope of joining a professional team. Or perhaps he was simply considering his alma mater's team and specifically looking for the three of them, or perhaps it was because of their basketball talent.

Ship has always been very concerned about the school team. He was already the captain in the 11th grade. With his family background, decent academic performance, and basketball talent, it was not difficult for him to go to a high school in a big city. It is said that he was "tricked" by a coach named Thomas and was determined to contribute to the revitalization of basketball in his hometown, so he chose to join Compton High School.

The advice Ship gave to DeRozan and Tatum was very conventional, but when it came to Zhang Yang, it was very special...

Ship: "Jack, next school year you can study for the 12th grade college preparatory courses in advance. The preparatory courses are just for us to understand the college majors in advance, so that we can have a clearer direction for choosing majors when we take the college entrance examination. The courses are actually very simple, but you need to accumulate class hours to take the preparatory courses in the 12th grade. If you study by yourself and take the exam in advance, you don't have to attend classes.

With your grades, it will be easy to get the graduation certificate in advance, so you can free up a lot of time in grade 12. I regret this year. I just played around in grade 11, which made my schedule so tight this year. I have to play games, go to classes, and be busy with the college entrance examination. I have missed a lot of training. "

Zhang Yang's eyes lit up: "Josh, your suggestion is worth considering... No, let's be more direct. I will learn the main subjects for grade 12 in advance, and try to see how many points I can get on the SAT next school year. If I get enough points, I won't have to worry about studying in grade 12. By the way, Josh, I remember that the SAT scores are valid for two years, right?"

"Yes...it's valid for two years..." Ship was ashamed. This junior was more radical than he thought! The world of the top student was really hard to understand.

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(End of this chapter)