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

This detached house reminds Sabonis of Kaunas, his hometown in Lithuania when he was a child, where people also live in such independent houses, but it is much more beautiful and spacious than their own house.

Although the Soviet Basketball Association agreed to release him with the efforts and insistence of many parties, it was impossible to take special care of Sabonis, after all, he was going to play in a "hostile country".

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

After the three-on-three match between Seoul and Gan Guoyang, Sabonis told himself in his heart that he would go to the United States to play with him no matter what, and in the past, in Sabonis's eyes, Gan Guoyang was a player with outstanding individual ability, and his 113 points in Europe were staggering.

But after playing a game with Gan Guoyang, Sabonis realized that Gan Guoyang not only has strong individual ability, but also is a perfect team player, and every one of his small skills has been polished to perfection, which is completely unfelt.

You have to really stand on the court and become teammates or opponents with Gan Guoyang to have a realization, and Sabonis doesn't want to be an enemy of Gan Guoyang easily.

The thought of starting a new life here on his own was both worried and full of anticipation.

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

When Sabonis saw the basketball hoop, he remembered that the staff on the team had told him that it was built by Gan Guoyang himself when he used to live here, and that he missed the preseason because he was repairing a drain and injured his back.

Thinking of this, Sabonis returned to his room, took his basketball from his duffel bag, and then went to this slightly rudimentary basketball court to start his first training session since arriving in the United States.

Sabonis was alone on the field, but imagined the scene of cooperating with Gan Guoyang on the field, and it seemed that it was likely that it would be difficult for him to sleep tonight.

………………

The next day, early in the morning, Gan Guoyang, accompanied by the Feng brothers, went around in a big circle to his original residence in the West District and asked Sabonis to train with him.

Gan Guoyang has always gotten up very early, and when he ran there, it was only half past five, Gan Guoyang went to knock on the door, and he still felt weird, after all, this was his former home.

Unexpectedly, as soon as I knocked on the door, the door opened quickly, and Sabonis was already standing in front of the door in full gear, and it seemed that he should have gotten up early.

"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, and I was thinking about the next day's training, and I was thinking that you would come at about five o'clock, so I prepared early."

"How do you know I'll be here at five o'clock?"

"When I came to the Trail Blazers for tryouts, the guy named Drexler told me that you say you get very, very early every day, and other people say you don't sleep at night, you just sleep during games. Because when you are playing, you can beat your opponent out when you fall asleep. ”

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

Gan Guoyang didn't think about it carefully, Stephen Chow's "Su Qier" hadn't been released yet, but even if it did, Sabonis couldn't figure out what this "Sleep-arhat-boxing" meant, he didn't watch Hong Kong movies.

Anyway, the two of them just chatted long and short sentences while running to the University of Portland, Sabonis's English is not particularly good, and chatting with Gan Guoyang can improve his English level.

When the two arrived at the University of Portland's gymnasium, the arena was still empty, and the two were the first to arrive.

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

Sabonis nodded, he also thought the same, he had to rely on diligent training to integrate into the team.

"Also, Culp is a good trainer and he'll give you a training plan that works for you. And coach Adelman ...... I think he's going to like you. ”

One of Sabonis's biggest concerns before coming to the Trail Blazers was coaching, as he had heard that Adelman was a stubborn, conservative old man who didn't like to be new and changeable.

Now that the Trail Blazers' lineup is quite solid, Sabonis will undoubtedly have to say hello to whether he can get more playing opportunities and an important team role as an airborne soldier.

However, Gan Guoyang has a lot of confidence in Sabonis's position with the Trail Blazers, and one of the important reasons is because their coach is Adelman.

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

As a playmaker centre-forward of his kind, Sabonis is taller, stronger, more aggressive, and more versatile than Divac.

Of course, if Adelman thinks that Adelman will reuse Sabonis just because of some impressions from later generations, then Gan Guoyang has played in vain in the NBA in recent years.

In fact, Adelman is not as stubborn and conservative as one might think, and it is not so much that he is stubborn as he is unusually insistent on his basketball philosophy.

Adelman's basketball philosophy is that "everyone has their own strengths", and it is necessary to give full play to the strengths of each player and tailor tactics for the team according to the composition of the players.

That's the biggest difference between him and Jack Ramsay.

For example, in the use of Gan Guoyang, Jack Ramsey has always wanted to cultivate Gan Guoyang into a Bill Wharton-style player, with the most comprehensive center forward skills, and become the offensive hub of the team.

But Adelman recognises that the young Gan's greatest strength is his explosive attacking prowess, which has been proven in countless matches.

Transferring the ball is Gan's weakness, and for the weakness, he should try his best to make up for it, but he can't expect it to become his specialty, Adelman believes that Gan Guoyang can't become a master of passing before the age of 30.

Therefore, Adelman gave full play to Gan Guoyang's advantages in offensive power and designed offensive tactics around Gan Guoyang, so that Gan Guoyang became a center with an average of 30 points per game in another season after Moses Malone in the 1988 season.

Of course, this persistence also cost the Trail Blazers in the Western Conference Finals, but it's hard to say that if Adelman makes a change, the Trail Blazers will be able to win.

A similar example is Terry Porter, who Adelman believes that with Porter's size, shooting ability, and strong will to dare to shoot, it would be a waste for him to be a pass-first point guard, so he made Porter an attack-first, pass-second point guard.

On the contrary, Drexler has the same level of passing as a point guard, but he can't shoot well and doesn't shoot decisively, so Adelman has developed Drexler into a versatile backcourt player who is a perfect match for Terry Porter.

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

Since Gan Guoyang entered the NBA, Adelman has been staying in the Trail Blazers, and Gan Guoyang can be said to get along 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 the two practiced together for nearly an hour, the rest of the Trail Blazers players arrived at the arena one after another, in fact, they arrived early, and many NBA teams practice at 9 o'clock in the morning.

When Adelman arrived at the training gym, the team's training began.

However, Sabonis was not directly involved in the team's joint practice, and Adelman handed the baton of the team's training to Bellman, and he walked to Sabonis himself and began to have some in-depth exchanges with Sabonis.

It's Adelman's habit to communicate with players, to understand a player's inner thoughts, to know what he understands and thinks about basketball.

The two chatted a lot on the sidelines, and Sabonis poured out his unique understanding of basketball with the Hitler-like head coach in English, which was not yet fluent.

It should be said that Sabonis is lucky, if he comes to the Trail Blazers a year later, to the Trail Blazers who have already won the championship or reached the Finals - with the current Trail Blazers lineup, there is no problem without Sabonis doing both of these things, then Adelman may not accept him again.

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

And once the system is formed and has achieved a certain success, he is not willing to change, but wants to go all the way to the dark until he obtains the ultimate victory.

So, Sabonis was lucky that he came just right.

Of course, Adelman was also fortunate that there was always a lack of success in his basketball life.

Now, the most important element is in the array.