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 city.

By the time Gan arrived in Muscatine in Stockton's car, it was already dark, and the small city on the banks of the big river was bathed in the afterglow of the setting sun.

Since the economy is mainly agricultural here, there is not much industrial production equipment, so the red reflected in the sky by the sun is still strong and gorgeous.

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

Muscatine is not so much a city as a town, and the entire city is about 20,000 people, which is not much different from the population of Gan Guoyang's university in later generations.

Once in town, Stockton drove left and right and soon arrived at tonight's destination, the home of Stockton's teammate, Bob Hansen.

Gan Guoyang didn't have a deep impression of Bob Hansen, only knowing that this guy was a backup point guard for the Jazz and entered the NBA a year before Stockton.

When the Trail Blazers played against the Jazz, the white quarterback didn't play much of the time, but the defensive aggressiveness caused Drexler a little trouble.

Of course, if history is not changed by Gan Guoyang, then this Bob Hansen will play a major role in the 1992 championship series in which the Bulls defeated the Trail Blazers, and Gan Guoyang, who does not know much about history at this time, naturally knows nothing.

Now Bob Hansen is just a fringe figure on the team, a white player who was drafted in the third round and has mediocre talent.

However, Stockton has a very good relationship with Hansen, and according to Stockton, he has learned a lot from Hansen, especially in defence.

After arriving at Hansen's home, both Gan Guoyang and Stockton were warmly welcomed by the Hansen family, Hansen's father was a farmer in Muscatine, and his farm was inherited from his ancestors, and if Hansen retired from playing in the future, he could return to Muscatine to raise pigs.

Hansen's mother worked for Monsanto Agtech, a large agricultural company, so the Hansen family was standard middle class.

After coming to the United States, Gan Guoyang gradually discovered that in the Midwest of the United States, the people in many places are still very simple and conservative, especially in the central agricultural states, where most of the people are hospitable, in stark contrast to the indifference of citizens in some big cities.

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

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

Hansen and Stockton naturally sided with the Celtics, who were swept by the Lakers in the semifinals, and of course hope that the Celtics can avenge them in the Finals.

Gan Guoyang, on the other hand, felt that the Lakers would win this game and eventually win the series, for the simple reason that Chris had said that the Lakers would win.

Tonight's game is the fifth game of the finals, the two sides were tied 2:2 before, so this has become a key battle of Tianwang Mountain, whoever can win the game will get the championship point, which will be a huge psychological advantage for the winner.

Unlike other series in the playoffs, the format of the Finals has changed from 2-2-1-1-1-1 to 2-3-2, and it was Cardinal Auerbach who proposed the change.

Auerbach's reason is that the team is already tired by the finals, and the two teams in the east and west are relatively far apart, and the continuous exchange of home and away games is a great drain on the players' physical strength.

Old man Auerbach has been racking his brains for the victory of the Celtics all his life, and as long as it is beneficial to the Celtics, Auerbach will do his best to fight for the advantages of the Celtics.

But this time Auerbach miscalculated, changing to a 2-3-2 format, so that the Celtics had to play the crucial battle of Tianwangshan on the Lakers' home court, if Auerbach knew that this would be the case, he would definitely regret proposing to change the format.

Sure enough, the Celtics were fully suppressed by the Lakers at the beginning of the fifth Finals, and after Abdul-Jabbar was slightly silent in the fourth game, he once again burst out with huge energy, and Parrish had no way to stop the 38-year-old Abdul-Jabbar's hook.

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

"Bird is playing so badly, he can't compare to the magicians, and if this continues, the Celtics are going to be finished." At half-time, Hansen commented on the performance of the representative players of both sides.

Indeed, Larry Bird seems to have fallen into a slump after the first game, and his performance in consecutive games has not been satisfactory, compared to Magic Johnson, who led the Lakers to the Jazz and the Trail Blazers in the Western Conference semifinals and Western Conference finals, has delivered assists again and again, and after the slump in the first game, he has delivered 13, 16 and 12 assists in the next three games, and he is in amazing shape.

"Hansen, I think you must defend against the Magician in the future, and let him know how powerful the 'Alaskan Murderer' is." Stockton made a rare joke to Hansen.

Because Bob Hansen's full name is Robert Louis Hansen II, and when Hansen participated in the draft in 1983, the then Iowa murderer, the namesake "Robert Hansen" with the same name as Hansen, was arrested in Alaska and made headlines in major American media, so Hansen got such a nickname.

Although Stockton's words are a joke, in the future days when the Jazz will play against the Lakers, Hansen will really become a sharp soldier against the magic of magic.

As the game deepened, the situation became more and more inclined to the side predicted by Gan Guoyang, and Bird has not been able to find his form, and without the play of Bird, the tactical core, the Celtics really can't catch up with the Lakers even if they take off their pants.

In the whole game, only seven players of the Celtics got the opportunity to play, and four starters played more than 40 minutes, with Dennis Johnson playing the full game without a minute.

This is enough to see that the Celtics are already stretched thin in terms of soldiers, and they can no longer outrun the normal and energetic Lakers who rotate their physical strength, and lost this extremely critical battle of Tianwang Mountain 111-120, and have fallen behind the Lakers 2-3 in the finals.

After winning this game, the Lakers are on the verge of winning the championship, as long as they win the game at Boston Garden Square the day after tomorrow, they will not only win the NBA 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 brought beer out of the fridge and chilled watermelon, a Muscatine specialty that, according to Hansen, was a new variety bred by Monsanto.

Eating cold watermelon and beer on a quiet summer night is really a great pleasure, Gan Guoyang felt extremely comfortable here, he couldn't help but think of Wang Fuxi, who was about to go on vacation, and thought that he must buy a house with her in such a small town as a summer vacation place in the future.

"Gan, listen to my mother, tomorrow there will be a Chinese delegation to visit their company, but they seem to lack a translator, if you can, maybe Gan can be the translator for both sides." Hansen suddenly said to Gan Guoyang.

Gan Guoyang was very curious when he heard this, and he has been in the United States for many years, although there are many Chinese around, but 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 how China is now, whether it is developing well, and how the people's lives are doing.

"The company will definitely hire a translator, and Gan, you're an NBA star, don't they even know you in China? If you go, the expeditions might come to you for an autograph. Stockton said.

Gan Guoyang shook his head after listening to Stockton's words, and said: "There are not many people in China who have TV now, and TV stations will not broadcast NBA games. I guess most people don't even know about magicians and Bird. ”

At that time, the NBA was still a sports competition played by the Americans themselves, and although their championship was called the "Orld-Championship" (world champion), their international influence was still very small at that time, and the potential huge market of China was still untapped.

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

This expedition team was not a high-level expedition team at the national level, but an agricultural technology delegation from Zhengding County, Hebei Province, but it is said that the United States still attached great importance to this expedition.

Originally, this expedition team was going to come in May, but for some reason the expedition was delayed by a month, so it was not until now that they rushed to the United States, and they happened to be touched by Gan Guoyang.

Gan Guoyang has always had a bad impression of this kind of overseas expedition, and in his impression, most of these so-called officials who study and inspect are just traveling abroad in the name of continuing the investigation, so what can they learn from learning?

However, after all, he is from the mainland of the motherland, and Gan Guoyang misses his friends from his hometown in the United States, so he also agreed to Hansen's mother's request, and tomorrow several people will take a car to the headquarters of Monsanto in the southeast of Muscatine to meet this agricultural delegation from Zhengding County, Hebei Province.

The next day, Gan Guoyang woke up early in the morning, he had become accustomed to getting up early every morning, and Hansen's father drove his family's big pickup truck, carrying the family and Gan Guoyang, to their destination, Monsanto.

Because the seat of the car is really a bit crowded for a big man like Gan Guoyang, after all, Hansen is also a big man of more than 1.9 meters, so Gan Guoyang did not sit in the seat, but stood in the body behind the pickup truck, wearing a pair of sunglasses and riding in the car against the wind on the Iowa field.

When the group drove to Monsanto's headquarters, Gan Guoyang saw some yellow-skinned people in white shirts walking outside Monsanto's production base to take pictures, and it seemed that they had also come early in the morning.

And Gan Guoyang also quickly attracted the attention of the delegation and Monsanto's entourage, after all, this guy is too conspicuous, standing in the body in a pickup truck, wearing a pair of sunglasses, and most importantly, he seems to be yellow-skinned.

When Gan jumped out of the pickup truck, the Chinese delegation was visibly frightened by Gan's sheer size.

"This guy is also too tall, is he a Chinese who works in the company?" Someone in the delegation said.

At this time, Hansen's mother also got out of the car and said a few words to the person who was in charge of receiving Monsanto, who glanced 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 say hello to these people from home?" Gan Guoyang asked.

"Oh, of course, I'll introduce you to you...... They were from zheng-ding-hebei, the head of their delegation and the mayor of zheng-ding...... Mr. Xi. Tubant pointed to a middle-aged man with a round face and 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 warmly stretched out his hand to shake hands with the man, and said in standard Mandarin: "Hello, I'm Gan Guoyang, and I play basketball in the United States." ”

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