Today's training, everything went very well, and it can be seen that the Trail Blazers players are in quite good shape.

The arrival of new teammates has given Gan Guoyang a lot of freshness, Buck Williams as a scout in the 1981 draft, has been in the league for 7 years, and as a member of the Nets, he has played against Gan Guoyang many times on the inside.

As a light interior player who is only 6-foot-8 tall and weighs 215 pounds, Buck Williams has energy to be reckoned with and a powerful rebounding ability.

That's why he was known as "Buck" (Buck), and his original name was Charles Williams.

After coming to the Trail Blazers, Buck Williams joked that Gan Guoyang may not be able to get the rebounding king, because there is one more rebounder on the team, and he will inevitably be divided.

When practicing the inside basket confrontation, Gan Guoyang and Buck Williams shared tips and tricks for grabbing rebounds.

Since Gan Guoyang entered the league in 1984, except for the 1987 season, he was reimbursed due to injury, and the other three seasons won the league's rebounding title, but his rebounds accounted for most of the rebounds.

This is not only related to the tactical characteristics of the Trail Blazers, but also related to the fact that Gan Guoyang is not very good at grabbing frontcourt rebounds.

Buck Williams is different, his relatively thin and short stature does not give him an advantage when guarding backcourt rebounds, but his flexible movement and strong explosiveness have allowed him to maintain more than 3.9 frontcourt rebounds since he entered the league in 1981.

At his peak, he averaged 4.5 frontcourt rebounds per game, and no one in the entire league could match it except frontcourt rebounder Moses Malone.

Buck Williams' form has been declining in recent years, and he was born in 1960 and is approaching the age of 30, and as a small interior who relies on explosiveness and speed, his body is getting worse and worse.

Although he still scored 18.3 points and 11.9 rebounds with the Nets last season, including 11.9 rebounds, which was the lowest since his rookie season, his entire state is in an unstoppable decline.

Coupled with the fact that the Nets' record has not improved, the Trail Blazers and the Nets, along with New York, made a three-way trade that brought Buck Williams to Portland ahead of schedule — and his arrival in history was not until 1990.

The Trail Blazers made this trade for two reasons: one was that after the departures of Sampson and Kenny Carr, the team lacked a quality and reliable No. 4 spot, which made them suffer in the 1988 playoffs against the Lakers.

The second is that Gan Guoyang proposed to the management that he could trade for Buck Williams or Otis Thorpe.

In fact, Gan Guoyang hopes that Thorpe can come, the relationship between the two in private is quite good, and Thorpe is taller and younger.

But unfortunately, Thorpe was traded by the Houston Rockets, so the Trail Blazers had to trade Buck Williams.

Gan Guoyang is a good learner, and on the first day of training, he learned a lot from Buck Williams on how to rush for frontcourt rebounds.

In the intense and uncertain playoffs, Gan Guoyang knows that at the critical moment of the game, sometimes a frontcourt rebound can completely change the direction of the game.

In addition to Buck Williams, Gan Guoyang's inside helper also includes "Big Duck" Kevin Duckworth.

Duckworth was originally just a second-round pick picked by the Spurs in the 1986 draft, when the Trail Blazers were struggling with Gan Guoyang's season reimbursement of a useless center, and the interior defense was empty after the season began.

So they traded the No. 14 rookie, power forward Walter Barry, who was drafted in the first round, to the Spurs and traded for this second-round center.

At the time, the deal was criticized by many people, who felt that it was too much of a loss to trade a first-round 14-round rookie for a second-round pick.

However, Duckworth quickly became a barrier for the Trail Blazers' interior line, and his 7-foot height and 270-pound weight made the Trail Blazers' interior line look a little thicker.

After Gan Guoyang's comeback in the 1988 season, Duckworth became Gan Guoyang's stable substitute, allowing Gan Guoyang to have enough rest and rotation time to ensure his health.

At the beginning of last season, a year ago, when the Trail Blazers also held training camp, Duckworth faced the returning Gan Guoyang in training for the first time.

I don't know what to do, the big duck wanted to go head-to-head with Gan Guoyang one-on-one in confrontation training, but Gan Guoyang poured 10 balls in a row, with a basket of trash talk, and never dared to provoke Gan Guoyang in training again.

In the first training this year, the big duck had to be Gan Guoyang's sparring partner in the confrontation training as usual, but he was a lot more honest, just conscientiously doing a good job of defensive movements, and there was no single in the attack.

However, Gan Guoyang asked Duckworth to stay after the training to accompany him to practice hooking and carefully coach the big duck.

Duckworth was instructed by the league's second hook master, and naturally studied hard and trained diligently, so the third hook master on the Trail Blazers' interior line would soon be born.

Now, what Gan Guoyang misses most in his heart is the second hook master of the Trailblazers, Sabonis.

……………………

After the training, Gan Guoyang, as the boss of the team, invited the whole team to go to the bar in Chinatown for a drink, which used to be done by Kenny Carr, but now it is Gan Guoyang's turn.

Training was tiring, but it was also relaxing, everyone was having a good time drinking in the bar, and Portland's beer was famous all over the country.

Gan Guoyang, as usual, just sat there and drank slowly, while chatting with each of his teammates from time to time.

It's a little different from three or four years ago, when he rarely came to the bar, was occasionally pulled over by Kenny Carr, and just drank silently, an occasion that wasn't his home turf.

Now, like a venerable godfather, he walks among his teammates with a glass of wine, shushing and asking for warmth, chatting about training, basketball, or anything that interests anyone.

It's what he's learned from Kenny Carr, to pay attention to each of your teammates, to build relationships with everyone, like a friend, or like a brother, that a person's leadership skills come not only from their own strength, but also from the support of those around them.

Halfway through the wine, everyone entered the state, and the wine was hot, but at this time, Gan Guoyang was about to withdraw and let them go high by themselves.

Gan Guoyang put down his wine glass and prepared to go to the bathroom for convenience.

As soon as he came out of the box, Gan Guoyang was pretended to be full of troops, and he was hit in the abdomen, and ordinary people couldn't hit Gan Guoyang's arms at all.

"Sorry for soiling your clothes." It should have been a reckless hospitality, he bumped into someone with a drink, and spilled some on Gan Guoyang's clothes.

Gan Guoyang looked at the waitress in front of him, and in the dim light, he found that the color of his hair seemed to be a yellow person.

It's a bar in Chinatown, but there aren't many hostesses with Asian faces.

"It's fine, but you've spilled your wine." Gan Guoyang said in Chinese that he wanted to see if the girl was Chinese.

The girl was slightly surprised to hear someone say Chinese, but it was normal to think about it quickly, this is Chinatown, and said: "It's okay, I'll go get it again, go get it again." ”

Saying that, the girl turned around and left in a hurry, she didn't look up at Gan Guoyang from beginning to end, she looked very restrained.

Gan Guoyang has been to the bars and nightclubs of Chinatown for many years, and the waitress and waitress here have always seduced him, and every time a waiter comes to deliver wine, someone will stuff him with a small note with a phone number.

When leaving the bar and nightclub, there are always girls dressed in sexy and revealing clothes at the door to show off their flirtatious feelings to Gan Guoyang, but Gan Guoyang has never been interested in them.

But this hostess, presumably new, doesn't understand anything yet.

Gan Guoyang was also a little curious in his heart, judging from the accent of the girl just now, she spoke very authentic Mandarin, unlike Chinese or Chinese-Americans from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan.

Gan Guoyang also knew that in 1988, there were still very few mainlanders who could come to the United States, either smugglers, powerful and rich people and their children, or students sent by the state.

In terms of smuggling, most of the smugglers on the southeast coast of Fujian go to Los Angeles, San Francisco and other southwest coastal areas, and rarely come to places as north as Portland.

In the past, the Chinese who came to Portland were all piglets trafficked by the Americans, and this is no longer possible.

Naturally, the rich and powerful will not come to this kind of place to work as waiters, and they don't need to come here to experience life.

Gan Guoyang knows some public students from China, who are generally older, and their living expenses are supported by the state plus scholarships, so they don't need to work here.

Gan Guoyang thought about the girl's timid appearance, and felt more pity in his heart for no reason, he wanted to be like her, probably to be scolded by the foreman.

So, Gan Guoyang walked to the door of the box and said to Feng Peiyu, who was sitting outside drinking: "Peiyu, go to the bar and have a look, saying that I accidentally knocked over a hostess's wine just now, and I lost some money to the bar."

Feng Peiyu has always done things more prudently, after Gan Guoyang finished talking to him, he didn't ask more, nodded and went to the bar.

After saying this, Gan Guoyang went back to the box, but he still thought about the hostess in his mind, and he always felt that this hostess seemed to have a little familiar feeling for him.

"Who the hell is it like?" Gan Guoyang looked at his appearance and had some vague impressions in his heart.