In an ordinary izakaya in Yokohama City, Shigeichi Taoka and Jiro Kato sit opposite each other.

"Taoka-senpai, I would like to toast you..."

"It's time for me to write that you can help me out of the siege..."

"I heard that the Lingnan basketball team led by Senior Taoka was in the winter tryouts again... I'll toast you again..."

"Where, where, you're not bad this time, although Umezawa didn't make it to the quarterfinals in the end, but his performance is also remarkable, and your credit is obvious to all..."

After some staggering, the two of them, who were full of wine and food, showed a satisfied look on their faces. During this period, Jiro Kato also roughly figured out the purpose of Shigeichi Kooka through the conversation, so he brewed for a while, and took the lead in talking about the topic from business to business.

"I heard that Taoka-senpai has looked for Hasegawa-san alone before, and having Taoka-senpai's teachings can be regarded as Hasegawa's blessing, and he will definitely be able to go to the next level in the future." Kato, who was only present at the end, did not know that Kazushi Hasegawa had not responded to Shigeichi Kooka's invitation.

"You're exalting me too much! However, the child's technical characteristics are indeed very suitable for coming to Lingnan, although he is still lacking in experience, if he can polish in Lingnan for another two years, this child will make the ace players of other schools have a headache. Although the last sentence was supposed to be a question, coming out of Shigeichi Taoka's mouth, it seemed to state a fact. As one of the top defensive experts in the prefecture, Shigeichi Taoka has a lot of confidence in himself.

"Huh? So, Hasegawa-san hasn't promised you to go to Lingnan? It may be that Hasegawa-san is too introverted, and he was so surprised by the invitation of Taoka senior that he was speechless. Kato, who carefully grasped the details, immediately noticed the problem in Shigeru Taoka's words, and although he was surprised in his heart, he still asked very flatteringly.

"Haha, after all, I still have to ask for the opinions of the child's parents!"

"Ahh That's right. It is true that the matter of going to school is not something that he can decide immediately as a middle school student. Don't worry, I'll leave the work of Hasegawa's parents to me. I'm still very confident in that. ”

"Well, let's take the time to visit the child's family, so that we can be more sincere. After all, Kamakura is not far from Yokohama, but it is not close, and parents must be worried about the safety of their children. ”

"It's worthy of being a senior in Taoka, or are you more thoughtful, so I will contact you after I have agreed on a visit time with the Hasegawa family, I don't know what you think?"

"Then I'll wait for your call, in fact, I have another matter to look for you this time."

"Let me guess what can make Taoka-senpai care so much. Is it for Haneda-san? ”

Shigeichi Taoka didn't speak right away, thinking back to the scene when he met Hikaru Haneda, and simply refused, a very assertive child.

"How much do you know about that kid? I've heard that he doesn't seem to have played basketball at school for a long time. ”

"Haneda-san, his talent in basketball, how to say, even compared to Mitsui-san, who performed well today, is not inferior. However, I don't know if Haneda-san continued to play after he quit the club, so I can only tell you what I know. ”

"I remember Haneda-san who joined the basketball club and caused a sensation in the school shortly after. Haneda, who was still a first-year junior high school student at the time, defeated a team of senior students by an absolute margin in a team practice match. The results of the game spread throughout the school the next day, and they all said that Haneda-san was a basketball genius, but ......"

In the basketball court of Umezawa Junior High School, Hikaru Haneda received the ball and shook off the defenders, and then rode into the dust, killing the opponent's basket directly, and Haneda, who was unstoppable, quickly scored a layup, and the defensive players were able to run through the half.

Haneda's score also drew screams and shouts from the young girls on the sidelines, which were contrasted with the sad expressions of the third-year players.

"This kid! It's so unkind to take us seriously! ”

"Bastard!"

"I don't even want to play anymore, it's boring to play like this"

"Gotta find a way to suppress that guy!"

"Boss, now that people are suppressing us, we are all about to become the laughing stock of the grade."

"It's already a laughing stock! Bastard! ”

"Let's think about what to do now, I don't want to lose another thirty points and go back, Shizuka will laugh at me tomorrow."

"Koji, you also come over to help prevent that kid!"

"Boss! Are you serious? Three people defend him! ”

"No one else in the first-year imp is a concern, only this kid! As long as you can't stop him, the game is over. ”

In the later games, even if the senior sent three people to defend Haneda, it still couldn't change the result of the game, although the score was not so ugly. However, it takes three seniors to barely prevent Hikaru Haneda, who is in the first grade, which still makes the other seniors in the basketball team very faceless.

“… Until," Kato said with a sigh as he recalled the events of that time.

"Until what? Those uncompetitive guys did it? The more Shigeichi Taoka listened, the more shocked he became, on the one hand, shocked by Hikaru Haneda's performance, and at the same time annoyed by the lack of anger among the senior members of Umezawa.

"Hands-on? No. Although the other students in the senior year were jealous of Haneda's talents, they did not choose violence in the end, but ran away. ”

"Escape? These guys are really useless. But if that's the case, why did Hikaru Haneda quit the basketball club? Yes! I know! It's because there are no opponents! ”

"Not bad! It's worthy of Taoka's seniors..."Jiro Kato praised Shigeichi Taoka from the bottom of his heart, and then continued.

Because of the bad reviews at school, the senior students lost the courage to compete with Haneda, and began to avoid basketball games in which Haneda participated, and even practiced. This atmosphere of avoidance was gradually affected not only by the senior students, but also by other classmates who were in the same first year as Haneda.

If the senior students can still put some pressure on Haneda, the first and second graders are like children, and they can only watch Haneda-san play. Not a player at all at all, and the rest of the classmates are getting more and more lazy. Although Haneda-san did not lose his enthusiasm for playing because of this, he was reluctant to play with them anymore, and sometimes his unintentional speech inevitably hurt his self-esteem.

After all, basketball is also a competitive sport, and without competition, it is difficult to improve skills. The school's basketball club has always had a very strange atmosphere, obviously everyone is full of confidence in the basketball club, and the basic practice is also very motivated, but once it comes to the team game, everyone loses motivation completely, and once the ball is in the hands of Haneda-san, the defenders will even automatically give way to the defense of Haneda-san.

“… Under these circumstances, Haneda-san soon submitted an application to leave the club, and he never played basketball in school again, except for physical education classes. That's all I know, and if I'm interested in Haneda-san, I really shouldn't miss out on this good seedling. ”

Shigeichi Ogaoka fell into deep thought when he heard this, and his heart was more of a sadness for the current situation of Japanese basketball, and if the soil of Japanese basketball could be a little more abundant, the result might have been different.

While Shigeichi Taoka was talking with Jiro Kato, ignoring the growing fine snow in the sky, Hikaru Haneda, who had led the team away, arrived in front of a house. It is a small courtyard with a garden, and the word 'Haneda' is prominently displayed on the nameplate next to the door.

"What did Haneda-san bring us here?" A classmate asked curiously.

"Why are you still here?" Hikaru Haneda, who hadn't figured out why, found out that the basketball team hadn't dispersed yet.

"Huh!" Everyone said in unison.

"Didn't you say you should each go home?"

"Huh!?"

After writing this chapter, the author feels that it is necessary to briefly talk about the setting of this book, in fact, it can be seen from the original book that the gap between the strength of ordinary people and the main and supporting characters in Slam Dunk is very large.

For example, in the original book, Mitsui in the junior high school period played Hasegawa can't find the north, and he has been impressed for several years, and the Hasegawa jersey at that time in the manga is No. 4, which is the captain level of the first team. However, after Mitsui was promoted to middle school, he was injured in the knee by Akagi during the rookie period. And what strength is Hasegawa? From Fujima's point of view, Hasegawa three years later has the strength of the general team leader in Kanagawa Prefecture, which is also in line with Hasegawa's positioning during the junior high school period. So you can imagine what kind of level of players of other levels is in front of Mitsui, needless to say.

For another example, such as Sendo and Rukawa in the first grade, does anyone think that the three Kakuda can prevent Sendo or Rukawa? Even if you can, five Kakuda VS Rukawa + four Kakuda, what is the result? You can say that you cooperate, but sometimes cooperation is not everyone's thing. Ahem.

Therefore, there is a big gap between the role players in Slam Dunk and the Slam Dunk protagonist generation. Therefore, the strength of the protagonist is not as perverted as everyone thinks, after all, he was surrounded by a group of role players before.