After Sabonis came to this house in the West District, he was a little excited when he thought that Gan Guoyang had lived here for three years.

This detached house reminded Sabonis of his hometown of Kaunas when he was a child, where people lived in such a separate house, but it was much more beautiful and spacious than their house.

This time when he came to the United States, Sabonis was alone. Although the Soviet Basketball Association agreed to release the person with the efforts and persistence of many parties, it was impossible for Sabonis to take special care. After all, he was playing in a "hostile country".

Sabonis is very grateful to Gan Guoyang. He has made a lot of efforts for his trip to the United States, and he is also deeply impressed by Gan Guoyang's football skills.

After playing that three-on-three match with Gan Guoyang in Seoul, Sabonis told himself in his heart that he would go to the United States to play with him no matter what. In the past, in Sabonis's eyes, Gan Guoyang was a player with outstanding personal abilities. His 113 points in Europe were shocking.

But after playing a game with Gan Guoyang, Sabonis realized that Gan Guoyang not only had strong personal abilities, but also a perfect team player. Every little skill he had was polished to be close to perfection, and it was completely unaware of it on the sidelines and on TV.

You must truly stand on the court, become teammates with Gan Guoyang, or become opponents, in order to understand it, and Sabonis does not want to easily become enemies with Gan Guoyang.

Thinking of himself as he wanted to start a new life here independently, Sabonis was both worried, but also full of expectations.

After arranging all his luggage, Sabonis looked at the rooms, then opened the courtyard door and saw the basketball rack standing in the backyard.

When Sabonis saw this basketball hoop, he remembered that the staff in the team had told him that this was built by Gan Guoyang when he lived here before. At that time, he injured his back because of repairing a drainage ditch, and ended up missing the preseason.

Thinking of this, Sabonis returned to the room, took out his basketball from his luggage, and then came to this slightly simple basketball court, and began his first training after coming to the United States.

Sabonis was alone on the court, but he imagined the scene of cooperating with Gan Guoyang on the court. It seemed that for him, it would be very likely that he would be unable to fall asleep tonight.

……………………

The next day, early in the morning, accompanied by the Feng brothers, Gan Guoyang went around a big circle to his original residence in the west area and asked Sabonis to go to training together.

Gan Guoyang has always been getting up very early. When he ran there, it was only half past five o'clock. Gan Guoyang went to knock on the door, and he thought it was strange. After all, this was his former home.

Unexpectedly, as soon as he knocked on the door, the door opened quickly. Sabonis was already standing in front of the door with full equipment. It seemed that he had already gotten up.

"Wow, it's so early. I thought you didn't get up. Did you sleep well at night?" Gan Guoyang was also surprised that Sabonis could get up so early.

"It's really early, but I didn't sleep much at night. I kept thinking about the next day's training. I was thinking that you would come at about five o'clock, so I prepared early."

"How did you know I'll come at around five?"

"When I came to the Trail Blazers to try out, the man named Drexler told me that he said you are very, very early every day, and others said that you don't sleep at night, just sleep during the game. Because when you are sleeping during the game, you can beat your opponents even if you fall asleep."

"Haha, maybe, there is a kung fu in China called 'Sleeping Arhat Fist', and I learned this kung fu."

Gan Guoyang didn't think about it carefully. Stephen Chow's "Su Qi'er" had not been released yet. However, even if it was released, Sabonis couldn't understand what "Sleep-arhat-boxing" meant. He didn't watch Hong Kong movies.

Anyway, the two of them ran to the University of Portland while chatting. Sabonis' English is not very good, and chatting more with Gan Guoyang can improve his English level.

When the two arrived at the University of Portland gymnasium, there was still no one in the stadium, and the two of them were indeed the first to arrive.

"If you want to quickly integrate into the team and adapt to the NBA, I advise you to have the same training time as me every day, come at the earliest and leave at the latest." Gan Guoyang said to Sabonis in the locker room.

Sabonis nodded after hearing this. He also thought so, and he had to rely on diligent training to integrate into the team.

"Also, Kalp is a very good trainer. He will make a training plan for you that suits you. It's right to listen to him. Coach Adelman...I think he will like you."

One of the problems Sabonis was very worried about before coming to the Trail Blazers was the coach, because he heard that Adelman was a stubborn and conservative old man and didn't like to seek innovation and change.

The Trail Blazers' lineup is now quite solid. Whether Sabonis, as an airborne, can get more opportunities to play and important team roles, undoubtedly has to play a big greeting.

However, Gan Guoyang has great confidence in Sabonis's status as the Trail Blazers, one of the important reasons is that their coach is Adelman.

As a pseudo-fan in later generations, Gan Guoyang is also familiar with Princeton's playing style of the Kings under Adelman's rule. The Kings' center is Sabonis's old opponent in the European arena, Divac.

As a similar support center, Sabonis is taller, stronger, more aggressive, more comprehensive, and more skilled, making him look like an enhanced version of Divac.

Of course, if you think Adelman would reuse Sabonis just because of some impressions in later generations, then Gan Guoyang will have played in vain in the NBA in recent years.

In fact, Adelman is not as stubborn and conservative as people imagine. Rather than being stubborn, he is extremely persistent in his basketball philosophy.

Adelman's basketball philosophy is to "persons have their own strengths". We must give full play to the strengths of each player and tailor tactics for the team based on the composition of the players.

This is also the biggest difference between him and Jack Ramsey.

For example, in the use of Gan Guoyang, Jack Ramsey has always wanted to train Gan Guoyang to be a Bill Walton-style player, with the most comprehensive center skills and becoming the team's offensive hub.

But Adelman realized that the biggest advantage of the young Gan Guoyang is his strong offensive explosiveness, which has been proven in countless games.

Transferring the ball is Gan Guoyang's weakness. He should try his best to make up for his weaknesses, but he cannot expect to become his specialty. Adelman believes that before the age of 30, Gan Guoyang cannot become a passer master.

Therefore, Adelman fully utilized Gan Guoyang's advantage in attack power and designed offensive tactics around Gan Guoyang, so that Gan Guoyang became the center forward who averaged 30 points per game in the 1988 season after Moses Malone in the 1982 season.

Of course, such persistence also cost the Trail Blazers the Western Conference Finals, but it is hard to say that if Adelman makes changes, the Trail Blazers will definitely win.

Similar examples include Terry Porter. Adelman believes that with Porter's figure, shooting level, and strong will to take action, it would be a waste for him to be the first pass point guard, so he made Porter a point guard with the first attack and second pass point guard.

On the contrary, Drexler has a passing level that is no less than a point guard, but his shooting is not good and his shooting is not decisive enough. So Adelman made Drexler develop into a backcourt versatile player, which perfectly matches Terry Porter.

Other second-round picks like Cauchy and Duckworth all exuded dazzling brilliance under Adelman's training, which fully demonstrates that Adelman is a coach who is good at exploring the potential of players and a coach who is good at "playing his strengths and avoiding his weaknesses".

Since Gan Guoyang entered the NBA, Adelman has been staying at the Trail Blazers and has been with Gan Guoyang day and night. It is through daily understanding that Gan Guoyang is confident that Adelman can use Sabonis well, and Sabonis is definitely suitable for the Trail Blazers.

………………………………………

After nearly an hour of training, the other Trail Blazers players arrived at the stadium one after another. In fact, they had arrived very early. Many NBA teams had training time in the morning at nine o'clock.

When Adelman also arrived at the training hall, the training of the whole team officially began.

However, Sabonis was not able to directly participate in the team's joint training. Adelman handed over the team's training baton to Bellman. He walked to Sabonis by himself and started to have some in-depth communication with Sabonis.

This is Adelman's habit, to communicate with players, to understand a player's inner thoughts, and to know his understanding and views on basketball.

The two chatted a lot on the sidelines, and Sabonis spoke in his not-so-fresh English and the head coach who looked like Hitler, expressing his unique understanding of basketball.

It should be said that Sabonis is lucky. If he came to the Trail Blazers a year later and came to the Trail Blazers who have won the championship or entered the finals - with the current Trail Blazers lineup, there is no problem with Sabonis doing these two things, then Adelman may not accept him again.

Adelman is like this. When everything is not yet formed, he is willing to try any method and means to discover and shape the best team.

Once the system is formed and has achieved certain success, he is not willing to change, but has to go all the way until he gets the ultimate victory.

So, Sabonis was lucky, he came just right.

Of course, Adelman is also lucky. In history, his basketball life has always lacked a little essential element for success.
Chapter completed!