The Golden Age of Basketball

Muscatine, located more than 200 kilometers east of Des Moines, the capital of Iowa, on the northwest bank of the Mississippi River, is a small agricultural town.

When Gan Guoyang arrived in Muscatine in Stockton's car, the sky had already darkened, and this small city by the river was bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun.

Since the economy here is dominated by agriculture and there are not many industrial production equipment, the red color reflected in the sky by the setting sun is still thick and gorgeous.

In Gan Guoyang's impression, in later generations of China, only he could see such a brilliant sunset in the orphanage when he was a child. The older he grew up, the more cloudy the sky became.

Muscatine is not so much called a city as a town, and the entire city has only about 2 people, which is not much different from the population of Gan Guoyang's university in later generations.

As soon as he entered the city, Stockton drove left and right and quickly arrived at his destination tonight, the home of Stockton's teammate, Bob Hansen.

Gan Guoyang didn't have a deep impression of Bob Hansen. He only knew that this guy was a backup shooting guard for the Jazz and entered the NBA a year earlier than Stockton.

When the Blazers played against the Jazz, the white shooting guard didn't play too much time, but he was active in defense, which caused a little trouble for Drexler.

Of course, if history is not changed by Gan Guoyang, then this Bob Hansen will play an important role in the 1992 Bulls' championship series defeating the Trail Blazers. Gan Guoyang, who doesn't know much about history at this time, Nature is known. [

Now Bob Hansen is just a fringe figure on the team, a white player with mediocre talent who was selected in the third round of the draft.

However, the relationship between Stockton and Hansen is very good. According to Stockton, he learned a lot from Hansen, especially the defensive experience.

After arriving at Hansen's home, both Gan Guoyang and Stockton were warmly received by the Hansen family. Hansen's father was a farmer in Muscatine, and his farm was inherited from his ancestors. If Hansen After retiring and not being a player, he can return to Muscatine to raise pigs.

And Hansen's mother works in a large agricultural company - Monsanto Agricultural Technology Company, so Hansen's family is a standard middle class.

After coming to the United States, Gan Guoyang also gradually discovered that in the Midwest of the United States, the people in many places are still very simple and conservative, especially in the agricultural states in the middle of the country. Compared.

After a sumptuous dinner mainly consisting of corn and pork, Gan Guoyang, Stockton, and Hansen began to watch the finals around the TV.

As players of the Jazz and Trail Blazers, the three were crushed by the Lakers one after another in the playoffs. As usual, they should share the same hatred, but the three were not consistent in supporting the team.

Hansen and Stockton naturally sided with the Celtics. They were swept by the Lakers in the semifinals. Of course, I hope the Celtics can avenge them in the finals.

However, Gan Guoyang felt that the Lakers would win the game and eventually win the series. The reason is very simple. Chris said that the Lakers would win.

Tonight's game is the fifth game of the finals. The two sides had a 2:2 tie before, so this has become the key battle of Tianwangshan. Whoever wins the game will get championship points. It will be a huge psychological advantage for the winning side.

和季后赛其他的系列赛不同，总决赛的赛制从2-2-1-1-1变为了2-3-2，提出这一改革建议的正是凯尔特人的总经理，红衣主教奥尔巴赫。

Auerbach's reason was that the team was exhausted by the finals, and the distance between the two teams in the east and west was relatively far. If the home and away games were exchanged consecutively, it would be a great drain on the players' physical strength.

Mr. Auerbach has been racking his brains for the victory of the Celtics all his life. As long as it is beneficial to the Celtics, Auerbach will do his best to win the advantage for the Celtics.

But this time Auerbach miscalculated and changed to a 2-3-2 format, so that the Celtics had to play the extremely critical battle of Tianwangshan at the Lakers' home court. If Auerbach knew that this would be the case, he would definitely Will regret proposing to change the competition system.

Sure enough, the Celtics were completely suppressed by the Lakers at the start of Game 38 of the Finals. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar once again exploded with great energy after a slight silence in Game [-]. Parish had no way to stop the [-]-year-old Jabbar. Barr's hook. [

In the first half, the Lakers established a 13-point lead.

"Bird is so bad at playing. He can't compare with the magician. If this continues, the Celtics are going to die." During the intermission, Hansen commented on the performance of the representative players of both sides. .

Indeed, Larry Bird seemed to have fallen into a downturn after the first game, and his performance in several consecutive games was unsatisfactory. Magic Johnson, who led the Lakers to beat the Jazz and the Trail Blazers, sent out assists again and again. After the downturn in the first game, he sent 13, 16 and 12 assists in a row in the next three games. Alright amazing.

"Hansen, I think you must defend the magician in the future, and let him know how powerful the 'Alaska Massacre' is." Stockton rarely joked to Hansen.

Because Bob Hansen's full name is Robert-Louis Hansen II, and when Hansen participated in the draft in 1983, the killer in Iowa at the time, "Robert Hansen" with the same name as Hansen The arrest in Alaska made the headlines of major media in the United States, so Hansen got such a nickname.

Although Stockton's words were a joke, Hansen really became a vanguard against the magician's magic in the days when the Jazz will fight against the Lakers in the future.

As the game progressed, the situation became more and more to the side predicted by Gan Guoyang. Bird has been unable to find his state, and without the play of Bird, the core of tactics, the Celtics really took off their pants. Not on the Lakers.

In the whole game, only 7 Celtics players got the chance to play, and the four starters played more than 40 minutes. Among them, Dennis Johnson played the whole game without playing for 1 minute.

This is enough to show that the Celtics are already stretched in terms of troops. They were exhausted and could no longer run against the normally energetic Lakers. They lost this extremely critical Tianwangshan battle 111:120. 2:3 behind the Lakers.

After the Lakers win this game, they are in sight. As long as they win the game at Boston Garden Plaza the day after tomorrow, they will not only win the nb championship, but also wash away the shame of the Lakers' 8-game losing streak against the Celtics in the history of the Finals .

After the game, Hansen took out beer and iced watermelon from the refrigerator for the three of them to enjoy. A major specialty of Muscatine is watermelon, and according to Hansen, this watermelon is a new breed cultivated by Monsanto. Variety.

Eating ice-cold watermelon and beer on a quiet summer night is really a great enjoyment. Gan Guoyang feels more comfortable here. He can't help but think of Wang Fuxi who is about to go on vacation, thinking that he must be with her in the future Buy a house in such a small town as a place for summer vacation.

"Gan, I heard from my mother that there will be a Chinese delegation to visit their company tomorrow, but they seem to lack an interpreter. If possible, maybe you can be the interpreter for both parties." Hansen suddenly said to Gan Guoyang Said.

After hearing this, Gan Guoyang became very curious. He has been in the United States for many years. Although there are many Chinese around, there are very few people who come directly from the other side of the ocean.

Although Gan Guoyang does not belong to this era, he also very much wants to know what is going on in China now, whether it is developing well, and how the people's lives are.

"The company will definitely hire a translator, and Gan, you are a star of nb, don't they know you in China? If you go, those inspection groups may ask you for an autograph." Stockton Said.

Gan Guoyang shook his head when he heard Stockton's words, and said, "There are not many people in China who have TVs, and the TV stations will not broadcast NB games. I play in NB, maybe a few people will know me through newspapers. But definitely not much. I guess most people don't even know about Magic and Bird."

At that time, nb was still a sports game played by Americans themselves. Although their championship was known as "worl-hmponshp" (world champion), their international influence was still very small at that time, and China, a potentially huge market, had yet to be developed. develop.

Later, through Hansen's mother, Gan Guoyang learned more detailed information about the expedition team.

This expedition team is not a national-level senior expedition team, but an agricultural technology investigation team from Zhengding County, Hebei Province. However, it is said that this visit to the United States is still very important.

Originally, this expedition team was planning to come in May, but for some unknown reason, the inspection time was postponed for a month, so until now they are rushing to the United States, and Gan Guoyang happened to meet them.

Gan Guoyang has always had a bad impression of this kind of overseas inspection team. In his impression, most of these so-called study inspection officials are traveling abroad in the name of continuing inspection. What can they learn?

However, after all, he is from the mainland of the motherland. Gan Guoyang also misses his friends from his hometown in the United States, so he also agreed to the request of Hansen's mother. Tomorrow, several people will drive to Monsanto in the southeast of Muscatine. Headquarters, go meet this agricultural delegation from Zhengding County, Hebei.

The next day, Gan Guoyang woke up very early. He was used to getting up early every morning. Hansen's father drove his family's big pickup truck with his family and Gan Guoyang to the destination Monsanto company.

Because the seat of the car is a bit cramped for a big man like Gan Guoyang, after all, Hansen is also a big man with a height of 1.9 meters, so Gan Guoyang did not sit on the seat, but stood in the back of the pickup truck, wearing a A pair of sunglasses and a car speeding against the wind in the Iowa wilderness.

When a group of people drove to the headquarters of Monsanto, Gan Guoyang saw some yellow-skinned people in white shirts walking outside the Monsanto production base to take pictures. It seemed that they also came here early in the morning.

And Gan Guoyang also quickly attracted the attention of the inspection team and Monsanto's accompanying personnel. After all, this guy was too conspicuous. He was sitting in a pickup truck standing in the back of the car, and he was wearing sunglasses. Most importantly, he seemed to have yellow skin.

When Gan Guoyang jumped out of the pickup truck, those members of the Chinese inspection team were obviously startled by Gan Guoyang's huge stature.

"This guy is too tall, is he a Chinese working in the company?" Someone in the inspection team said.

At this time, Hansen's mother also got out of the car, and said a few words to the person in charge of Monsanto's interview. The person looked at Gan Guoyang in surprise, and then walked up to Gan Guoyang and shook hands with him cordially.

"Hello, Mr. Gan, I'm also a basketball fan. I didn't expect you to come here. I really didn't recognize you just now. I'm Tubant."

"Hello, Mr. Tubant, can I ask these people from my hometown?" Gan Guoyang asked.

"Oh, of course, let me introduce to you...they are from zheng-ng-hebe, this is the head of their inspection team and the mayor of zheng-ng...Mr. X." Tubante pointed to a The middle-aged man with a round face said with a smile on his face.

"Mayor?" Gan Guoyang knew that Zhengding should be a county, and the so-called mayor should be their county party secretary.

Gan Guoyang extended his hand enthusiastically to shake the man's hand, and said in standard Mandarin, "Hi, I'm Gan Guoyang, and I play basketball in the United States."

〖∷Update fast∷∷Plain text∷〗