First in scoring

Chapter 89 88. Rookie season is here
Starting in mid-September, Bickerstaff led his players into joint training mode.

Every strong team in the NBA has its own strengths, the Spurs' stability, the Mavericks' wealth, the Suns' gorgeousness, the Heat's brutality... The weak teams also have their own unique weaknesses.

The Bobcats are uniquely weak, and there is a chaos within the team. This small team with 14 players is actually divided into 4 small teams!

There are a few guys who play well with Brevin Wright, most of whom were able to put up stats by running around with him last season.

These people laugh and joke all the time, and they seem to be no different from the black thugs squatting on the streets in East Charlotte.

Several very motivated people, such as Brezek, Kareem Rush, and newcomer Jumaine Jones, surrounded Gerald Wallace, who was passionate even during training.

Although he doesn't have a passion, his enthusiasm is no less than any other player. This is Gerard Wallace.

He led several teammates who followed him and worked hard to improve themselves.

There is also a small group of three people - the Rookie Trio.

Felton is the leader of the small group. He met Zhang Yang first before entering the workplace and was greatly influenced by Zhang Yang. In comparison, he looked down on Breven Knight's group from the bottom of his heart.

And he knew that the Bobcats chose him back to replace Brevin Knight, and it was only a matter of time before the other party was sent away or abandoned.

Like Zhang Yang, Felton was disdainful of Brevin Knight's provocation, but the difference between him and Zhang Yang was that if the other party made him angry, he would directly scold him instead of making innuendos like Zhang Yang did. He felt that Brevin Knight could not understand innuendos... mainly because he did not know how to make innuendos.

Also influenced by Zhang Yang, Felton was attracted by Gerald Wallace's enthusiasm and gradually shifted his attention from Okafor to this teammate, but he did not choose to join. He wanted to compete for the boss on his own!

When Felton was training, learning techniques, tactics...even eating, he was competing with Gerald Wallace to see who could eat more.

Gerald Wallace is also a strong-willed person. He would give in to Zhang Yang, who is only 17 years old, but he would not accept the provocation from Felton, who is only two years younger than him. He would have to suppress Felton in all aspects.

Apart from anything else, Felton had a strong ambition to be the boss, and these two people got involved.

The last "team" is Okafor, who is a loner and a school of his own... If we go by the amount of food he eats, he alone is as good as the entire rookie trio.

Why didn't Gerald Wallace and Felton think of competing with Okafor? Okafor is stronger than these two, his training attitude is no less than these two, and his appetite is not as good as theirs combined...

As for Zhang Yang, he trains when he should, reads books when he should, and doesn't bother with worldly matters...mostly because no one takes him seriously.

Having your own "boss" does have its advantages. Felton is a champion from North Carolina, and he has the determination to be the boss when he enters the NBA. His teammates all regard Zhang Yang as Felton's bag-carrying brother, so no one asks him to do chores.

The "bosses" all have their own personal assistants. Brevin Knight's assistant is Matt Carroll, a slot pitcher who is good at catching the ball while running and shooting, and he was undrafted in 03. Gerald Wallace's assistant is Kareem Rush, a left-handed 3D player who is keen on defense and can shoot, and he was a first-round pick in 02 and has experience in the finals.

Most of the Bobcats players were once the lowest level personnel of other teams and they fully understand how realistic the NBA is. They know what the No. 5 pick and a 17-year-old high school lottery pick represent to a newly established team. If there is a conflict, it will definitely not be these two rookies who will leave.

In addition, Zhang Yang has his own score, so he only challenges Felton and Anderson in singles. Occasionally, he challenges Gerald Wallace and Kareem Rush to challenge the difficulty, and he also politely asks for advice. His teammates know him as a polite and studious 17-year-old kid...

In this regard, Felton asked why he was the only one who had to endure the same treatment as Jordan, and not even Anderson.

Zhang Yang replied: "Because you are strong! You won't want to beat me up because of this. What if someone else wants to beat me up? I'm afraid I'll accidentally beat them to death, and you are my eldest brother!"

Felton felt that there was something strange about this sentence, but when he heard the word "brother", all problems disappeared.

As for whether Zhang Yang can fight, Felton just asked that question at the beginning. He didn't expect that the young man really knows kung fu. At the beginning of the month, he and Zhang Yang went back to school together to get the textbooks. The young man said that he had studied in college for three years and he might as well get a college diploma, otherwise it would be a waste of the efforts he had made in the previous three years to avoid failing the courses. He thought it was right.

When returning to school, Felton accompanied Zhang Yang to the Jeet Kune Do Club in North Carolina to go through the membership procedures. He witnessed Zhang Yang pinning down several seniors in the club who had won awards in the state competition and had provoked him, and punching them to the ground to test their submission.

It was then that he learned that Zhang Yang was already the leader of a high school club at the age of 14, and that he was now more than ten centimeters taller than when he was in the 9th grade. His weight had increased from 9 kilograms at the end of the 75th grade to nearly 90 kilograms. He had superb Jeet Kune Do skills and was much stronger than people of the same age and body type... He was indeed his good brother!

After returning to the team for more than two months, Zhang Yang has already mastered the skill of beating Zhang San with the big bird's back.

Post-up shot, turnaround jump shot, post-up shot, post-up breakaway shot, post-up breakthrough... the high-post post-up technique is already very comprehensive, and it is time to strengthen training and actual combat training.

Engelland and Jordan were instrumental in helping him develop his high post game.

England was the most critical. When he was developing his high-post back-to-the-basket game, he constantly corrected the details of his technical movements and shooting, and also made many effective suggestions on shooting-related techniques.

Jordan provided his experience. Zhang Yang was also quite puzzled and wanted to learn something else, but Jordan ignored him. He was lucky enough to be able to practice with him once after being asked three times. But once the topic of post-up play was mentioned, Jordan immediately took off his jacket to warm up and wanted to hit him on the spot. The more he hit him, the more excited he became.

However, he did not spend much time on technical development and training. He mainly discussed with England how to adjust the details during the breaks in shooting training.

Most of the time is spent on three aspects: running, catching the ball and shooting, long-distance running, catching the ball, and spot shooting.

Bickerstaff told him early on that if he ever got a chance to play in regular time, this would be his role when working with his teammates.

On September 9, Zhang Yang's dull life was disrupted and he began to get busy.

Also busy are Okafor, Felton and Gerald Wallace.

Media Day has not arrived yet, but many reporters have come to Charlotte, most of them are from China and Asia, but there are also many local reporters from the United States. Fans are very curious about the Bobcats this season and want to know the quality of the youngest rookie in NBA history.

In the interview, Zhang Yang's role is to be the image representative. He is handsome, has a good figure, is popular... To be more precise, he is very controversial and a hot topic.

The other three are the team's strength players selected by Jordan. He will use the attention brought by Zhang Yang to promote these three people.

Seeing the reporters' enthusiasm for Zhang Yang, Jordan accelerated his efforts to acquire the team.

After more than two months, Jordan has completely recognized Zhang Yang's talent.

Although Zhang Yang is still very weak and may perform even worse than Kobe in his rookie season, his ability to withstand pressure has been tested by him. He believes that even if Zhang Yang is put in the situation of Jermaine O'Neal during his rookie contract, Zhang Yang will be able to stand up.

Here, Zhang Yang received the same preferential treatment as Kobe in his rookie year. Kobe did not have a shooting coach of Engelland's level around him in his rookie year. Hamblen followed Phil Jackson to the Lakers in the summer of 99. He believed that Zhang Yang would definitely be able to stand out, it was just a matter of time.

What Jordan needs to do is to show his importance to Zhang Yang and praise Zhang Yang's talent in front of the Chinese media.

In the beginning, it was only instinct that drove Jordan to choose Zhang Yang. Now that he has calmed down, he still values ​​Zhang Yang so much because of his talent and economic benefits.

Zhang Yang was as humble as possible when facing the media and took the initiative to introduce three teammates to domestic reporters. His action won praise from domestic and foreign media.

If you are weak, you will develop poorly...

Looking at the humble and polite little brother, Felton really wanted to take Zhang Yang to the training ground for sparring, so that the reporters could see the little brother's true face.

...

On October 2005, 10, NBA training camp began.

When Zhang Yang woke up in the morning, the "Gate of Experience" popped up. There were two reminders. One was that after completing this mission, the next mission would be related to experience.

Another is that the competency assessment has been updated!
After just one look, Zhang Yang immediately jumped out of bed, washed, had breakfast, and ran to the Charlotte Arena to start training.

“Name: Zhang Yang.

Age: 17 years old (date of birth: June 1988, 6).

Height: 193 cm, wingspan: 206 cm, weight: 88 kg.

Ability evaluation (NBA): three-pointer -, mid-range shot 75, layup 77, ball control 79, pass -, speed 92, strength 78, jumping 84, physical strength 82..."

The three-point shot is not even up to the passing line, mainly because the NBA three-point line is longer than that in high school. The three-point shot that I practiced well in the 11th grade has now become two points longer, and I’m still working on widening my shooting distance.

For a layup of this level, the only layup that can guarantee accuracy in the NBA is an open shot.

His current advantages are speed and mid-range shots.

The speed score was a little higher than he expected. He thought 90 would be good, but it turned out to be higher than when he was 23 years old. Maybe it was because he was underweight?

In terms of strength, it is higher than he initially expected. His ability to fight is still insufficient, but not so bad that he will fly away at the slightest touch. He can deal with the bumps during his running, but if he really has to fight with Felton, who is 185 cm tall and weighs 90+ kg, he will definitely not be able to compare with him.

As for mid-range shooting, he felt that he was still weak, but Bickerstaff showed him the team's training statistics and found that his mid-range shooting training performance was among the best in the team, while most of his teammates failed to pass the mid-range shooting test.

Bickerstaff told him that with his decent mid-range shot, he would definitely get playing time.

With playing time guaranteed, Zhang Yang felt a little more confident, but this drove him to work harder. He set a small goal that he thought was reasonable - to be on par with Kobe, McGrady and Garnett in their rookie season!

The training camp has begun, and the Bobcats have entered the stage of intensive tactical training, with Brevin Knight as the tactical core.

The tactics revolve around Brevin Knight's ability to launch counterattacks and break through in positional warfare.

The team training in mid-to-late September mainly focused on tactical running. After entering the training camp, the training mainly consisted of intra-squad training matches and confrontational training.

On the first day of confrontational training, Felton showed his excellent combat effectiveness, and his personal ability was clearly superior when facing Brevin Knight.

Bickerstaff is very satisfied with Felton's performance. He has the ability to start in the NBA and has a strong ability to adapt to tactics. Whether he is the main point guard or partnering with Brevin Knight, he will not lag behind on the offensive end.

But Felton has obvious flaws - his playing style is not the core style.

The four young players of North Carolina are four players with lottery-level talents. They were not the core players in college, but played team basketball with mutual cooperation.

This gave Bickerstaff a headache, as Felton seemed unable to replace Brevin Knight as the tactical core.

Sometimes it's a problem when a rookie is too mature.

Gerald Wallace had the most dazzling performance in the team's training match, and his ability to break through the basket has greatly improved compared to last season.

Zhang Yang once again made Bickerstaff feel what a surprise was.

In the previous joint training phase, Zhang Yang's performance was average. His strengths were that he could quickly remember tactical running routes and had strong execution. This can only be said to be due to his good memory, good sense of space on the court, and the ability to follow instructions.

When it came to the team's training matches, no matter he was on the same team with Brevin Knight or Felton, Bickerstaff could always see Zhang Yang appearing in the right position. Although there were factors such as the opposing players' poor concentration and switching ability when chasing without the ball, there were only two pitchers on the team who could see such an opportunity, Zhang Yang and Kareem Rush.

Kareem Rush, who came from the Lakers, played for two years under the tactically strong Phil Jackson and played in the finals, so it is not surprising that he has this ability.

But Zhang Yang, a player who just graduated from high school, has this awareness of positioning... Selecting a North Carolina shooting guard with the 13th pick in the first round is a huge profit!
On October 10, the training camp was coming to an end. Zhang Yang spent 6 days to accumulate 47 shooting points and received a reward, strength talent +12, and the basics of the three-threat stance.

The random skill he got was strength, and Zhang Yang was very happy. After he came to the Bobcats, the talent he most wanted to improve was strength and stamina.

He is considered fast in the team and his jumping ability is also sufficient, but he is worried that he does not have enough physical strength. He can only practice for so many hours every day, and he lacks confrontation and is beaten by the fat boy.

The basics of the three-threat stance, just take some time to practice and quickly lay a solid foundation, so that you can "show your talent" to your coaches.

We are not considering strengthening this aspect for the time being. Defensive lateral movement and turnaround can be used immediately. The three-threat stance is a ball-holding style of play, and a comprehensive ball-holding style of play, which is not used at present.

A new task is here, 8 shooting points, 1 point of shooting talent, 10 shooting points, to start the next experience.

It took him 12 days to get 47 shooting points, and he estimated that it would take until the end of the year to get 18. He has a lot of things to practice right now, so he is not in a hurry and can just practice normally.

It is October 10th, and the NBA 10-2005 preseason begins.

The Bobcats' first preseason opponent is the Atlanta Hawks.

The Hawks' lineup is much more aggressive than the Bobcats'. They include the modern Jordan Joe Johnson, Josh Smith, who was praised as having the same physical fitness as James during the draft, 03 center Zaza Pachulia, 04 quality pitcher Josh Childress, Al Harrington, and the new No. pick Marvin Williams...

But during the training camp phase, the media rated each team, and the Hawks and Bobcats were placed together in the competition for the No. 1 pick.

In terms of player ability, the Hawks seem to be stronger than the Bobcats, but in terms of lineup structure, the Hawks are worse than the Bobcats.

At least the Bobcats still have two core ball handlers, Brevin Knight and Felton.

The best player in organizing offense for the Hawks...Tyronn Lue, who had a heated conversation with Zhang Yang after entering the court.

Looking at Zhang Yang, Tyronn Lue felt incredible.

Last summer, Zhang Yang was still his nephew's teammate and participated in his training camp.

This summer... Zhang Yang became his publicity sign - the genius high school student Jack entered the NBA at the age of 17 after training in my training camp for a year. Children with talents and dreams, come here, Coach Lu is your best choice to pursue your basketball dreams!

The preseason game between the Bobcats and the Hawks begins at 7 p.m.

Just as the media and experts predicted, the two teams are really equally strong.

Although Joe Johnson had many assists, they were all singles. The Hawks did not have a supporting expert like Gasol and Odom. The inside players who could pass the ball, Al Harrington and Josh Smith, were also singles... Such a good lineup talent wasted.

Zhang Yang thought, there are already so many forwards, why can't the Hawks choose one of the three major point guards in 05? Even if they choose Felton, this team can still fly a little, right?

……

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Last minute update, this chapter is a little short, only 4500 words, the evening chapter will have more, at least 500 words a day, please vote! Xiaofeng sees that I have almost 5000 monthly votes, after that I will add another chapter with at least words, thank you!
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