Chapter 22: Rising to Fame
After breakfast, Zhang Hao and his teammates began preparing for the afternoon game.
It was the first time that Zhang Hao used the player detection system, and he didn't get much help. First of all, after seven days of training camp, he got to know these players very well. He also had a good understanding of how these players played in the NBA, and now he could see some shadows of them.
Of course, Zhang Hao didn’t think that the player detection system was useless, it was just that it didn’t play a strong role in the game among these high school students. The most important thing was... he didn’t have the ability to make good use of this thing.
Zhang Hao feels that this detection system is like the most comprehensive player information database, and it is updated in real time... This is the case at present. Perhaps in the future, when he becomes a player or a coach, there will be some changes, but the basic situation should be a player information database.
This database is very useful for a player or a coach. Only by knowing yourself and your enemy can you win every battle.
But to make good use of the data, you need analytical skills and the ability to use the data. The latter is the ability of the players...
If you want to use this database as a coach, you must also have rich tactical knowledge and the ability to respond on the spot on the court...
He is still far from these, and needs time to learn and accumulate experience...
After the morning training, the coach of Team B, Reggie Seuss, a former top scorer in the NBA who had just retired a few years ago, gathered the players and said, "OK, everyone has worked hard. Next, take a good rest, have a good lunch at noon, and kill the guys on the other side in the afternoon.
In this game, Mike, Corey, Akers, Sharif, Kevin, you five will start. "
No one dared to be dissatisfied with Rege Seuss's arrangement.
It’s not that he has much power, but that this player was also a well-known figure in the NBA ten years ago, but he also had a very tragic playing career.
He averaged 23.8 points and 5.9 assists per game in the 82-83 season, was selected to the All-Star team, and was also selected to the All-Star team as a starter. At the age of 26, he was the star player of the Bulls at the time. Then, because Olajuwon was going to participate in the draft in 1984, Reggie Seuss was sent away by the Bulls in the 83-84 season. The Bulls directly gave up on Olajuwon and then selected Jordan. Some old Bulls fans originally scolded the Bulls management, but less than two months into Jordan's rookie season, no Bulls fans mentioned Reggie Seuss anymore.
In his 13-year professional career, he averaged 18.5 points and 6.3 assists per game. Such a star was abandoned at the peak of his career just because Olajuwon was a senior and was about to participate in the draft... You can imagine how tragic it was.
These are what Marbury told Zhang Hao. The reason why Reggie Seuss’ words are effective is because of his performance in the NBA.
Although his career was a bit tragic, he was really awesome at playing basketball. Players are most likely to be impressed by people who are good at playing basketball.
What surprised Zhang Hao was that Corey Benjamin was actually more recognized among his teammates than Billups!
Rej Seuss arranges the starting lineup based on the players’ abilities.
Zhang Hao found that he had really underestimated this opponent from the same state.
…
"Do you think Bryant and Odom's team will win, or Bibby and Garnett's team will win?"
"Garnett and Bibby, they are older, but I don't care which team will win, I want to know which high school student is the strongest."
"Is there anyone better than Magic? I heard that Lamar Odom is even better than Magic in high school. He's not even 16 yet! He's already 206cm tall, and he's as fast as a 196cm player!"
"I watched Garnett's freshman year, and he was just as good as Odom."
"I'm more interested in Bryant. I heard he plays as flashy as Penny!"
"I think Raheem is the best. I've seen him play, and he's a monster."
"I am actually very interested in that Chinese high school student."
"That arrogant Chinese high school student?"
"He is a little arrogant, but I like his confidence. If I can beat everyone in shooting, I will also say that I am the best."
"Haha, you're right..."
A group of college students from Arizona entered the San Francisco Auditorium with free tickets for buying Adidas sneakers, and enthusiastically discussed the Adidas Training Camp Elite Tournament that would start at 3:30 p.m.
There were many people watching the game in groups like them, and they were all discussing it enthusiastically. They would more or less mention Zhang Hao, the Chinese genius who had become famous in the past two or three weeks.
If Zhang Hao heard their discussion, he would be very surprised, because most of them admired him!
Because it’s fresh!
There has never been a yellow-skinned player in the history of basketball.
Although Zhang Hao failed to become famous like Kobe, Garnett, Bibby and Rahim in his senior season, his achievements were real. He became the California champion and one of the two best high school students in California.
This is the foundation, and then his performance in the McDonald's Slam Dunk Contest and the Adidas training camp used him as a selling point for a lot of publicity. At least some people in California and nearby states such as Utah and Arizona have a basic recognition of his strength.
Who doesn’t like to watch the excitement? Who doesn’t like surprises?
If those already famous high school students play well, the fans who come to watch the game will of course be happy. It is enough for the game to be interesting and for them to appreciate the performance of talented high school students who may become superstars in the future.
However, the counterattack is even more interesting!
Local students in California are much more familiar with Zhang Hao, and many of them came to San Francisco from Los Angeles to watch the game.
"It's such a shame that Pierce didn't attend the Adidas camp. It would be great to see Pierce and Akers team up to challenge all the other great high school students in the United States."
"Yes, yes. I've seen their matches. They are so strong. No other school in California can rival them."
"But Pierce and Aix are both too good. If both of them participate, Aix's limelight will be stolen by Pierce..."
"That's true, but Pierce will definitely help Axe get noticed."
"Right, so I still feel sorry. But those universities should be regretting it now, right? I feel like their coaches are crazy. California has the strongest... No, the strongest pitcher in the United States, the strongest dunker in the United States, and they didn't even let Axel join!"
The Adidas training camp held in San Francisco is equivalent to half of Zhang Hao's home court. Regardless of whether the high school students in California have really heard of Zhang Hao before, they have now become the group that knows Zhang Hao best.
Not to mention the students in Los Angeles, they just brag about everything and talk about all sorts of things as if they had seen them with their own eyes.
Adidas has been giving away the remaining tickets over the past two days, but there are conditions. If you buy designated sports equipment or designated sneakers from Adidas, you can request the free tickets. The designated products are not junk but popular products. Adidas's clever trick is that they only gave away a fixed number of free tickets in each branch... Selling shoes is secondary. The main thing is to create a scene of a booming store.
The San Francisco Municipal Auditorium has a total of 15,622 seats, of which 4,000 seats were given away to schools in San Francisco, more than 600 tickets were given to major media, scouts, university basketball clubs, local politicians... The remaining 12,000 tickets were sold as shoes and sports equipment, and they were all given away in two days!
As a California player, Zhang Hao had half the home-court advantage in this game. However, the main force of people who bought shoes and got free tickets were not students, but local Chinese, overseas Chinese, Chinese Americans, Asian Americans, and Asian Americans in San Francisco.
…
“X…X…X…”
At three o'clock in the afternoon, when Zhang Hao and Bibby finished warming up and followed Garnett into the stadium, they were surprised by the enthusiastic cheers of the fans.
If you look closely...at least a third of the fans have the same skin color as him!
In addition, this is a city in California. It is true that some students support other high school students, but most of them still support "their own people."
It’s just that Corey Benjamin is one of us, but he’s been ignored…
This scene still scared Zhang Hao. He never expected that the fans would be so enthusiastic towards him.
He also paid attention to the news, but mainly to those national media because his goal was to enter the NCAA. During his daily rest time, he would look for national sports news to see if there were any reports about himself, and occasionally he would see one.
He didn't realize that he already had a high level of fame in California, even more so than Pierce.
This is related to Adidas' strategy. There are too many Chinese, Chinese, Asians, and Asians in California, so they can use this to expand the market. And they just support Zhang Hao because they think Zhang Hao deserves support. This is the conclusion they drew through observations in the training camp, and then they implemented it without hesitation.
Listening to the cheers, Zhang Hao felt his heart beating faster - he loved this feeling!
The scene became Zhang Hao's home court, and the high school students had different ideas.
Some are envious, some are jealous, and some, like Garnett, know the reason very clearly, which is that they know that this is actually the home court for California high school students.
The most peculiar thing is a genius who gave birth to a daughter but did not want to reveal his name.
"That bastard is actually more popular than me!"
Kobe's thinking is particularly unique. He always likes to compare his weakest aspects with others. For example, he has such comprehensive skills, but he likes to compete with Zhang Hao and Hamilton in mid-range shooting. He finally caught up with Hamilton in mid-range shooting, but then there appeared a super mid-range shooter like Zhang Hao who had a qualitative gap with all other high school students in mid-range shooting. So he felt that his mid-range shooting was rubbish and he needed to work harder.
Originally he didn't care about popularity or anything, but now seeing that Zhang Hao, who is also a high school student, is enjoying the cheers of thousands of people, he began to envy and hate him.
Kobe's idea is very simple - "I must win! All these cheers will become mine!"
It was the first time for most of the high school students present to see so many fans watching the game. Although some of the high school students participating in the Adidas training camp had participated in the McDonald's High School All-Star Game, only 18 people passed the tryouts that time and participated in the competition. There were only a dozen people in the three-point contest and dunk contest combined. Most of them had been eliminated during the training period of the Adidas training camp. For example, Bibby was eliminated in the previous McDonald's All-Star Game tryouts.
After feeling envious and jealous of the cheers Zhang Hao received, the players were more excited!
It feels so different to play in front of so many fans.
There are players who like to play under the spotlight, such as the future No. 1 pick of the Wizards, John Wall. Without the national live broadcast, they have no motivation to play.
Before the game started, the host introduced the 18 participating players and gave a detailed account of their achievements in high school, mainly in the 1994-95 season.
Just as Zhang Hao expected, although they had never compared their performances in high school before, and no one was stupid enough to compare the school team performance among the same group of talented high school students, all the talented high school students present had either good statistics or good grades. There were many cases of both good grades and good statistics. Even Corey Benjamin had an extremely good performance in high school. At the age of 15, he represented the United States in the Under-19 Youth Basketball World Championships and was the youngest player on that American team.
After the players came on stage one by one, the two teams gathered together for the final discussion before the game.
In a game between a group of players from various teams, the role of the coach is more to provide players with solutions to problems during team training and to help the players get along better. When it comes to the game stage, the role of the coach is far less than that of the school team coach. Even if the players under him are stronger, the coach in such a game actually knows very little about how the players play on the court, or even nothing at all.
Bibby and Garnett, the two core players, were very clear about this, so Garnett, the team leader with a very high basketball IQ and strong offensive organization ability, led his teammates in the final discussion.
The specifications of this game are quite professional, with a technical table, several cameras, three referees, and the rules are the same as the NCAA rules, and the configuration is the same.
At 3:28 pm, the starting lineups of both teams came on the field!
Team B, the starting lineup of Bibby, Corey Benjamin, Zhang Hao, Rahim and Garnett appeared.
Team A, the starting lineup of Marbury, Hamilton, Kobe, Jamison and Odom appeared.
Zhang Hao came to the center line and stood with Kobe. He felt that his excitement was no less than that in the McDonald's Slam Dunk Contest when he competed with Carter before.
At 3:30 in the afternoon, the referee blew the whistle to start the game and threw the ball into the air. Garnett won the jump ball over Odom's head with his super bounce. The game began and Team B attacked first!
The 35-second offensive time began, Bibby controlled the tempo and crossed half court before the 10-second violation. This was their strategy, to slow down the pace and play slowly.
Bibby came to the front court, and Kobe defended him. He wanted to challenge Bibby! Among all the outside players on the other side, Bibby was the strongest.
But Bibby was much calmer than Kobe. He had no intention of competing with Kobe in regular time in this game. He chose to protect the ball, wait for that guy to move, and wait for his own opportunity. He had two options.
On the other side, Zhang Hao was being chased very closely by Hamilton, and his movement was like a headless fly...
Although Zhang Hao practiced positioning in his junior and senior years of high school, he mainly practiced how to use his explosive speed and excellent physical strength to forcibly get rid of his opponents. When he met Hamilton, who was even stronger than him in this aspect, Zhang Hao was helpless. Moreover, there is a difference between training and competition, and he only practiced for more than two days. When he encountered this situation on the court, Zhang Hao really had no way to get rid of Hamilton.
However, Garnett, who was originally waiting for support, seized the opportunity after judging Zhang Hao's running route and took the initiative to help Zhang Hao block Hamilton.
Bibby, who had been observing the situation on the court, keenly judged Garnett's intention and the movement of the players on the court. He used his skillful ball control to change direction to the left and accelerated the breakthrough, allowing Kobe to move, and then seized the opportunity to pass the ball. Zhang Haogang took advantage of Garnett's pick-and-roll to get out and came to the free throw line and turned around, and Bibby passed the ball!
Zhang Hao, who was originally panicking because of his unfavorable positioning, suddenly felt safe again after receiving the ball. After receiving the ball, he threw the ball without hesitation when Jamison pounced on him.
Hit!
The first attack at the start of the game caught the scouts' eyes by surprise!
Zhang Haoben was also one of their observation subjects. Many universities and NBA teams have shown interest in this Chinese high school student who has suddenly emerged in the United States in the past three weeks and has gained a certain degree of fame.
But Zhang Hao's positioning after he came on the court disappointed the scouts - as a pitcher, his positioning was so bad.
But Garnett's timing in off-ball pick-and-rolls, and his solid pick-and-roll strength that can't be seen from his physique, are excellent.
Bibby's organization of the offense was average, but when Garnett used off-ball pick-and-roll to organize the offense, Bibby seized the opportunity well.
There was also Corey Benjamin's weak-side running and Rahim's timely cut...all very good.
And Zhang Hao’s shot at the end made the scouts understand why this guy is called the “undefeated mid-range shooting king in high school”, he is really amazing!
