With pre-season approaching, Adelman is constantly tweaking his best lineup, repeatedly comboding players in matchups like jigsaw puzzles, hoping to find the most suitable rotation for the squad.

The most natural options for starting are, of course, Gan Guoyang, Buck Williams, Jerome Cauchy, Drexler plus Terry Porter.

Since the 1987 season, the outside trio has become a common outside trio for the Trail Blazers, but at that time the Trail Blazers still relied more on Vanderwicz's outside firepower, and Cauchy often played as a defensive supplement and a second-team impact point.

By 1988, Van de Veric began to suffer from injuries, and the return of Gan Guoyang made the Trail Blazers' offensive focus shift to the interior, and the Trail Blazers needed a wing defensive gate at the No. 3 position to relieve Gan Guoyang's defensive pressure on the inside.

After all, in the first two years of the Trailblazers, Gan Guoyang wiped his ass with outside holes, and now he must allocate more energy to offense.

So, starting the game and bursting with great energy, the player who was drafted in the second round averaged 17.8 points and 6.9 rebounds per game in the 1988 season, making him a fully qualified role player.

And in the playoffs, in the big battle with the Los Angeles Lakers, he took on the heavy responsibility of marking Magic Johnson, not only doing his best on the defensive end, but also making repeated achievements on the offensive end, becoming the second powerful fast-break endpoint in addition to Drexler.

I have to say that Cochy can get to this point is inseparable from his hard work and diligence, and the hardest working player of the entire Trail Blazers, except for Gan Guoyang, is Jerome Cothy.

And Terry Porter's transformation is no less than Cauchy's, since Adelman became the Trail Blazers, Porter has begun to change from a traditional pass-oriented, scoring-assisted point guard to an attack-oriented, pass-assisted offensive No. 1 position.

This is naturally due to Drexler's poor shooting ability and relatively lack of autonomous offensive ability, and now Adelman has fully exploited Porter's accurate shooting and bold shots, turning him into an excellent attacker who can take over the game in key moments.

Coupled with Drexler, who has been steadily improving and is becoming more and more well-rounded, and with veteran Jim Paxson on the bench, he has been actively developing his three-point shot in the past two seasons, and he has also adapted to the role of sixth man, ready to come on the court to provide firepower for the team.

In this way, the trio on the outside, plus the rotation, basically don't need to be considered by Adelmando.

The problem is mainly on the inside, but it's not that the inside line is not strong, but the inside line is too strong, so Adelman doesn't know how to arrange and combine.

Gan Guoyang and Buck-. started the combination, although both of them are short in their respective positions, but this does not affect their performance on both offensive and defensive ends.

Gan Guoyang is an all-round superstar, every year he will master a new technique, as long as his strategy level is above the average level this year, then he will become a big killer with his own system on the offensive end.

Buck Williams and Gan Guoyang can reduce Gan Guoyang's excessive physical strength due to large-scale movement in defense, and Williams' relatively light stature and excellent movement ability in the big forward will largely replace Gan Guoyang as a mid-lane scavenger.

The starter-level center, who was underrated in the draft, came to the Trail Blazers and began to shine, and in the first week of training, the hook training that Gan Guoyang gave him has already begun to pay off.

Gan Guoyang himself also likes this simple big man, he plays very solid and down-to-earth, and Adelman also thinks that Duckworth is more than enough to serve as a substitute, at least he is on the court, and the Trail Blazers' penalty area defense will not drop in grade.

However, Adelman knows that the Trail Blazers will also have a center to arrive, and that is Sabonis, who has made a name for himself in European basketball.

According to the rules of the NBA, overseas players like this come to the NBA, no matter how awesome they have before, they will definitely have to sit on the bench for a long time in the first season, especially in a strong team like the Trail Blazers that aims to win the championship and has a complete and stable lineup.

However, in the communication with Adelman, Gan Guoyang strongly supported Sabonis, and claimed that if this player can be used reasonably, the Trail Blazers this season are absolutely unstoppable.

Adelman, as an academic coach, is not particularly good at using new talents, using surprise players, starting lineups, stable rotations, and adequate pre-match preparation, which are the foundation of Adelman's guaranteed victory.

On the other hand, Adelman's shortcomings are poor on-the-spot command and lack of adaptability, which are also related to Adelman's philosophy of playing - steadfastness, good preparation, and perseverance in the end, which is not easily changed.

In the 1988 Western Conference Finals, Adelman had to pay part of the responsibility for the loss of the Trail Blazers, and in the face of the Lakers' effective defensive strategy against Gan Guoyang, Adelman never changed his offensive style of play, resulting in the fourth quarter of Game 7, the Trail Blazers lost the opportunity to enter the Finals at home.

Of course, this also has something to do with the fact that the Trail Blazers were seriously lame at the No. 4 position at that time.

Now, the Trail Blazers' No. 4 position has been supplemented, and Adelman is also relatively satisfied with Williams' performance in training camp, and he is indeed a good addition to Gan Guoyang on both offensive and defensive ends.

However, in the communication after training, Gan Guoyang still repeatedly emphasized the importance of Sabonis, and the opinion of the first star made Adelman have to think about how to arrange the upcoming European MVP.

………………

In October, after Sabonis's "clearance paperwork" was all in place, the giant finally got a visa to travel to the United States, and flew to Portland on October 5, four weeks before the regular season.

It was a beautiful day, with crisp autumn skies and clear skies, and reporters from Portland's major media outlets gathered at Portland International Airport to await the arrival of the Soviet giant.

On the Trail Blazers' side, not only did manager Inman and head coach Adelman all arrive, but even Gan Guoyang arrived at the airport in person, which is enough to prove that the Trail Blazers attach great importance to Sabonis' arrival.

Sabonis's joining the Trailblazers and obtaining the consent of both the United States and the Soviet Union caused a great sensation in the United States, not only because he was the first player from a Soviet Union and Eastern European socialist country to play in the United States during the Cold War, but also because of the basketball earthquake brought about by the United States' defeat to the Soviet Union in the semifinals of the 1988 Olympics.

Sabonis was the backbone of the Soviet Union.

Such a grand welcome ceremony made Sabonis a little flattered, especially the arrival of Gan Guoyang, which made Sabonis quite excited, and after he saw Gan Guoyang at the exit, he stepped forward to hug him warmly.

"Avedas, look, I came to Portland before, and I didn't have half of the reporters who greeted me." Gan Guoyang said with a smile at Sabonis.

After being elected as the No. 1 pick in 1984, Gan Guoyang Gui was the star of the show, and there were very few reporters who came to Portland to greet him, because no one thought that a Chinese could succeed in the NBA.

Now, Sabonis is just a rookie at the end of the first round, but he has been treated like a champion, which is not only related to his strength and identity, but also related to the importance of the Trailblazers, or Gan Guoyang.

Adelman watched the tall and burly Slavic giant and shook his hand, wondering how to arrange the center's place in the team.

Even before Sabonis came to Portland for a tryout in 1986, Adelman had spent a lot of time watching Sabonis' videos, and it can be said that Sabonis's style of play was very unexpected for Adelman.

Adelman thought that such a strong and tall center like this, who is 7-foot-2 tall, should be a strong offensive interior lineman, but he is still worrying, the Trail Blazers already have an offensive killer like Gan Guoyang, so what's the point of having an offensive interior line.

But after watching some of Sabonis' games carefully, and actually getting into contact with Sabonis during the tryout, Adelman realized that this was not a traditional inside lineman, and his playmaking ability, especially in the high post, was amazing.

What Adelman has to do now is how to arrange the right tactical position for Sabonis at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends, obviously letting Sabonis be a blue-collar center is a waste of his talent, but the Trail Blazers can't design a system around Sabonis, he can only adapt to the current Trail Blazers system.

At the same time, whether Sabonis and Gan Guoyang are compatible, how to arrange his rotation on the court, and how to ensure his coexistence with Duckworth and Buck Williams are all issues that Adelman needs to consider.

And all this, given Sabonis and Adelman, less than four weeks.

……………………

Upon arriving in Portland, the Trail Blazers quickly arranged for Sabonis to live in the same house that Gan had once lived in on the West End, and now Gan had moved to an upscale villa in the Jewish community because of its proximity to the Trail Blazers' training hall.

In the evening, Trail Blazers owner Weinberg hosted a special banquet for Sabonis, and the entire Trail Blazers team attended to express their welcome to Sabonis's arrival.

Such a grand welcome made Sabonis feel valued, because the last time Sabonis came to Portland in 1986, he was no different from an ordinary tourist.

But this also brought Sabonis a lot of pressure, only the first day to get such treatment, and there are many media praise, if his performance in the new season does not meet expectations, then he will be criticized more than ten times more than now, and by then, he will not have a good time as a Soviet.

After the banquet, Gan Guoyang took the initiative to drive Sabonis to his old residence, which is now Sabonis's home in Portland.

Sitting in Gan Guoyang's modified Mercedes-Benz S-500, Sabonis still looks a little restrained, in fact, in terms of age, Gan Guoyang is a few months younger than Sabonis.

"You look nervous, Avidas."

"yes, it's nervous, you're so enthusiastic, I'm thinking, what if I don't play well, what will I do? Will it drive me back. ”

"Haha, don't worry, I believe in your level. However, time is really running out, I will come to you tomorrow morning and we will go to training together. Very early, remember to get up. ”