"What do you think of your performance with Jordan? Do you think you'll be the opponent in the future? ”

"I was amazed by Jordan's play, I could barely stop him when he rushed to the basket, he was so fast. Of course, I didn't play badly, and the Bulls' interior made me feel uncomfortable, maybe because this was the East. Luckily my teammates were better and we won this game, and I'm really looking forward to the next game against Jordan and I'll welcome him in Portland." ”

This is a conversation between reporters and Gan Guoyang at the post-match press conference.

Since entering the NBA, the routine at the end of each game has been to give interviews to the media.

Not only after the game, but also after training and before the game, the media have the right to go to the team dressing room to interview the players and coaches.

Gan Guoyang is not a person who is not good at words, but he still doesn't like to be asked by a stranger before and after the game, and so far Gan Guoyang has no friends in the media circle.

It's just that the consecutive victories have made Gan Guoyang feel good, plus he is still a rookie and speaks beautifully, so media reporters are willing to interview him.

"The Trail Blazers have had two road trips and you've both won, what do you think about the next few games?"

"Uh... It's only my first year and I don't know a lot of teams, especially the teams in the East. But I'm still confident and I think we've got a great team because we've only lost two games so far. Gan Guoyang's answer now is becoming more and more tactful, and it is easy not to give the reporter a handle.

So far, the Trail Blazers have a 13-2 record, sitting first in the West and second in the league, behind the defending champion Celtics.

Last season, the Trail Blazers were third in the West, but they didn't perform well in the playoffs, and they were eliminated in the first round by the Phoenix Suns.

So in the summer they had a major surgery in exchange for Van de Verki, who picked Gan Guoyang in the draft and reorganized the team.

At present, the loss of players in order to trade for Van Devic has caused the Trail Blazers to suffer a certain loss of depth, especially the depth of the backcourt and the loss of defensive ability.

But Van de Verkie also brings a lot of attacking firepower, and his backcourt with Paxson makes it inevitable for any team to lose sight of one or the other in defence.

And Gan Guoyang, the role model, has integrated well into the team and become a member of this team, his scoring explosiveness in the offense is amazing, and in the defense, he has gradually become the defensive gate in the hands of Ramsey.

His biggest problem with the team at the moment is perhaps the problem with Sampson on the ball, although the current position has been overshadowed by the record.

After a day in Chicago, the Trailblazers set out on their journey to their next central city, Cleveland, Ohio.

However, after arriving in Cleveland, it was just in time for Thanksgiving, an important holiday in the United States, so the game got a day off in Cleveland Trail Blazers.

At their hotel, the Trail Blazers borrowed a lobby to organize an all-team dinner to celebrate the important American holiday.

"Come on, Gan, take a bite, turkey meat is great."

"No, I don't like to eat this kind of fat, big, ostrich-looking guy." For some reason, Gan Guoyang hated turkey because he rejected Drexler's suggestion.

"Then try Cleveland's famous corned beef, which is amazing." Ramsey, who was next to him, recommended Cleveland's specialties to Gan Guoyang.

It's a good dinner, and for NBA players, the diet is controlled, and in order to maintain good body shape and athleticism, a reasonable diet is a must.

And reasonableness is often associated with unpalatable.

Luckily, drug testing isn't strict in the NBA, so it's okay to overeat and drink at some point.

In order to improve his skills, Gan Guoyang has been living an ascetic-like life, but when necessary, he will also indulge his ** and eat a good handful.

After the meal, the players went their separate ways, and most of them went back to their rooms to rest, when the snow was falling in Cleveland, and there was really little fun in the heavy industrial city.

Gan Guoyang did not go back to the room, but went to the hotel's only gym to do some digestive exercises after meals.

There was no one else in the gym, Gan Guoyang took the key from the front desk, turned on the heating in the construction room, and started the warm-up exercise.

In the 80s, NBA players began to get better and better, and in the early 80s, many players looked relatively delicate, and in the middle and late years, the muscles began to gradually increase.

At this time, Gan Guoyang is at the middle of the inflection point of time.

When setting the value of the NBA2004, Gan Guoyang set the strength value of 83, which was far beyond the level of the times in the eighties.

Gan Guoyang himself can feel that his strength training effect is particularly good, and the growth rate of muscle mass is not significant, but the bench press data is skyrocketing.

Gan Guoyang also understands in his heart that it should be easier to discover the talent value of strength, as long as he is willing to practice, his level will rise rapidly.

It stands to reason that Gan Guoyang's strength has few rivals in the current NBA, and his skin color and body shape tend to deceive opponents and make opponents underestimate his strength.

Abdul-Jabbar, Sikma, and Wharton had all suffered from him, and they didn't expect this kid to be as invincible as a bulldozer.

However, Gan Guoyang has always been striving for excellence, he feels that he has to develop all his strength talents, and from the game with the Bulls, he felt that the confrontation in the NBA is really, very fierce, without strength as a foundation, no matter how good the skills are, it is in vain.

Gan Guoyang looked at his increasingly thick arms, which still had blood marks from the scratches he had made during the race against the bull.

Since he was the only one, Gan Guoyang did not do some heavy weight equipment exercises, but started with yoga to relax his body.

Since he drafted a yoga class at UCLA, Gan Guoyang's yoga practice has not been left behind, and when he arrived at Gunzaga University, he still signed up for a yoga class to increase his body's flexibility.

Gan Guoyang's limbs are slender, but he is not rigid and stiff, but soft and coordinated, in which the practice of yoga is indispensable.

Gan Guoyang's ability to practice Tiangou is because of his excellent coordination and flexibility, and he can stretch and smooth his movements in high confrontation, and with his good feel, he can achieve such an effect.

He found a mat out of nowhere, and after the room had warmed up, he started doing yoga on it.

Yoga not only exercises his body, but also his mind, allowing him to have a calm and calm mind, which is very important for players to play at critical moments.

Just when Gan Guoyang closed his eyes and sat on the mat to breathe and relax, the sound of the door of the gym was the sound of the door opening.

Gan Guoyang's heart moved, thinking that there should be players who came in to do strength training like him, I don't know if it was Clyde or Cauchy, these two people are the pioneers who spend the most time in the gym except Gan Guoyang.

"Hello, Gan." Gan Guoyang didn't open his eyes, but he heard the voice of the man greeting him, it wasn't Drexler, it wasn't Cauchy, it wasn't Vanderwig.

"Hello, Sampson." Gan Guoyang opened his eyes and saw Mitchell Sampson coming in through the door, wearing a tracksuit.

One of the differences between a professional team and a college team is that you can never get along well with everyone on the team.

Gan Guoyang has a good relationship with several rookies in the same class, and Drexler, who is one year higher than himself, is an iron buddy, and he also has a good relationship with Van Dewych.

And Mitchell Sampson is one of the two people who have the most trouble with Gan Guoyang - the other is Jim Paxson.

From the first day of the team's training, there was some unpleasantness between Gan Guoyang and Sampson.

In the NBA, whether you are a first-round pick or a final-round pick, you are just a rookie, and in a team with seniority, a rookie means serving the veteran players.

Carrying bags after training is the most common, but Gan Guoyang is reluctant to carry bags for anyone on the team, including Mitchell Sampson.

At the start of the season, half of the Trail Blazers' roster players were new arrivals, so Mitchell Sampson, the veteran of the original stay, naturally became the nominal boss of the team.

But Gan Guoyang, a newcomer, completely ignored Sampson's request and left with his things after training, which made Sampson very shameless.

When Drexler first arrived with the Trail Blazers last year, he also worked as a bunker for a while.

Since then, there have been problems in the relationship between the two, and they don't like each other.

As the season progressed, the two had a deeper conflict because of the problem of ball possession.

Sampson, like Gan Guoyang, can play the center position, as the 1978 top pick, he has a comprehensive basketball skills, excellent defensive ability, and a wealth of game experience.

Ever since Bill Wharton was traded due to injury, he's been the Trail Blazers' interior offensive and defensive core.

According to his original assumption, the pioneer chose Gan Guoyang to prepare for the future, and he could only be his assistant for the time being.

But he didn't expect that after a few games, Gan Guoyang gradually became an indispensable pillar of the team, showing great energy at both offensive and defensive ends.

As a team that focuses on outside offense and has a fast offensive tempo, the Trail Blazers only have so many opportunities to shoot inside, and Gan Guoyang and Sampson are obviously not enough.

Ramsey has long been aware of this problem, so he deliberately suppressed Gan Guoyang's shots in some games, on the one hand, to exercise Gan Guoyang's ability to respond, and on the other hand, to take care of Sampson's feelings and give Sampson more offensive shots.

But gold always shines, Gan Guoyang's strong attack ** can't be suppressed, and the explosiveness he shows in the attack makes Sampson can't admit that this young man really has potential.

It's just that as a pioneer minister, he naturally can't get used to young people like Gan Guoyang who "don't know how to respect the old-timers".

Gan Guoyang never seemed to bow to him, and rarely communicated with Sampson in training and games.

"Are you playing gymnastics again? The Prince of Gymnastics? Sampson saw Gan Guoyang doing yoga on the cushion, and said mockingly.

In the Trail Blazers, every time Gan Guoyang practiced yoga there alone, his teammates would laugh at him for being a gymnastics practitioner and nickname him "The Prince of Gymnastics." ”

Gan Guoyang didn't care, anyway, he felt that it had an effect and kept sticking to it.

When Sampson said this, Gan Guoyang couldn't tell whether it was ridicule or something else, so he ignored him and continued to close his eyes and do yoga on the cushion.

And his attitude turned into contempt for himself in Sampson's eyes, and his face suddenly didn't look good, but unfortunately Gan Guoyang couldn't see it.

Gan Guoyang didn't mean to go against Sampson, in fact, he also admired Sampson's skills, especially when he played against the Nets.

At that time, Gan Guoyang faced the old fritter Gominsky, and was played by Gominsky and couldn't find the north, and Sampson immediately treated Gominsky well after he came on the court.

Sitting on the sidelines and watching Sampson and Gominsky fight in that game, Gan Guoyang learned a lot of things, such as how to foul when facing the defense of Lao Youzi.

In the last game against Korzin, Gan Guoyang adapted a lot and also beat Korzin to the situation.

However, since high school, Gan Guoyang has been the boss of the team, and when he arrived at UCLA, he had a bad relationship with the veteran players and eventually ran away.

When he arrived at Gunzaga, it was with Bellman's support and Stockton's support that he became the team's boss.

But the Trail Blazers are not Gunzaga, every player here is an elite in college, Sampson is the top pick, and it is almost impossible for Gan Guoyang to be the boss as soon as he comes.

Gan Guoyang, who is used to being the boss, is of course not used to being a junior brother, and he himself doesn't like the kind of bullying newcomers, and he never lets newcomer players do this and that for himself in college.

In the NBA, he still adheres to this habit, sticks to his own practices, and treats everyone equally.

As a result, the contradiction between these two pioneers who could have cooperated with each other and inherited each other is getting deeper and deeper.

After Gan Guoyang finished yoga, he did another hour of auxiliary strength exercises alone, during which Sampson did not communicate with him, and the whole gym seemed extremely depressed.

An opportunity to improve the relationship between the two was missed, and the misunderstanding between the two arrogant players only deepened.

The one-day Thanksgiving passed quickly, and Gan Guoyang called Gan Youwei, who was far away in Jinzhou, and Wang Fuxi, who was still in school, and there was nothing else to do, as a Chinese he only had feelings for traditional Chinese festivals.

On November 24, they will take on the Cleveland Cavaliers, a "millennium bad team" on the road.