The first second of the next day, Zhang Hao entered learning mode again.
He went straight to the training room, and this time, he started simulating a turnaround jump shot.
As soon as he thought about it, a three-dimensional image of Jordan appeared next to him and began to catch the ball in slow motion, turning around and shooting.
Unlike simply practicing movements during the day, the training here not only involves practicing movements, but also remembering the details of Jordan's turns.
When it comes to learning a new technology, especially a technology that will definitely be of great help to him, Zhang Hao always complains that the time is too short.
Soon, four hours passed and Zhang Hao fell asleep again. When he woke up again, it was already 6:30 in the morning.
"Remaining lifespan 232 days, usable lifespan 231 days..."
After washing and having breakfast, Zhang Hao arrived at the Continental Airlines Arena early. There was a game tonight, so the training volume would not be large. He first completed 200 catch-and-turn jump shots with the help of a trainer. He still practiced the movements based on the training experience in his "dream". Compared with the first day, his movements are now obviously more decent.
Do it in a group of 100. The first 50 jump shots after catching the ball are purely for practicing the movements. With the last 50, start trying to find the aim when catching the ball and making the jump shots.
The basic skills of mid-range shooting have been solidified to the top level, which has brought many benefits. Although the details have not been polished yet, when Zhang Hao tried to find the center, he found that his accuracy was not bad! The first group of training was better than expected.
He believes that as he learns more about the technical details of the turnaround jump shot after catching the ball, he will soon be able to display his top-level mid-range shooting ability using this shot.
When Zhang Hao finished the second set of training, the prompt came!
"Specially signed player Zhang Hao: Catch and shoot improved from 87 to 88..."
“It is indeed so!”
Zhang Hao had analyzed before that once one reaches a first-class level in catch-and-shoot, it would be difficult to improve through regular training, so he has been trying to find ways to expand his shooting methods. Now, it has been proven that he was right!
People feel refreshed when good things happen to them, and Zhang Hao was in a good mood.
But one spectator had extremely complicated feelings.
Kenny Anderson went out very early today. When he drove to the stadium, he happened to see Zhang Hao walking into the stadium gate. After parking the car and coming to the training ground, he chose to watch Zhang Hao train first.
As a player close to the top level, Kenny Anderson, who is good at three-pointers, mid-range shots and offensive work under the basket, has naturally gone through a stage of honing his skills. He naturally knows the difficulty of developing a new technology.
The process is simple in theory: imitate, think, improve, and then continue to strengthen through actual combat. However, it often takes a long time, and the most troublesome part is the time from imitation to having a certain practical foundation. This period of time often takes the longest time, and it depends on whether you have talent in that area and whether you work hard.
When it comes to shooting, Kenny Anderson knew that Zhang Hao had talent since the first time he saw him, but this talent was too good!
In just a few days, Zhang Hao's catching the ball, turning around and jumping shot have become quite good!
After Zhang Hao finished practicing the second set of catching the ball and turning over, Kenny Anderson couldn't help but approach him and asked, "Aix, how did you practice that? How did you learn so quickly?"
Some things cannot be explained clearly. Zhang Hao thought about it, looked at Kenny Anderson and said, "Just like that, watch it once, then practice it, and you will learn it."
“…”
Kenny Anderson online Q&A: "There is a talented rookie on the team, and he is my younger brother. I am the boss of the team, and I want to kill this younger brother. How can I kill him without affecting such a talented rookie as my helper?"
…
That evening, in the game between the Nets and the Magic, Kenny Anderson played particularly hard.
It was so desperate that the players on the Magic team suspected that someone on the team had painted the hat of this top point guard with some indescribable color last night.
Without Anfernee Hardaway and O'Neal, the Magic's overall strength is indeed not that of a strong team. Brian Shaw, Nick Anderson, Denise Scott, Horace Grant, Joe Wolfe, the Magic's five starters tonight, are all excellent starters or high-quality role players. With Anfernee Hardaway, it is definitely playoff level, and with O'Neal there, it is even more championship level. But without these two people, the Magic is far inferior to the Nets with Kenny Anderson and Armon Gilliam.
By the second half of the third quarter, the Magic players' desire to win had faded. To them, it was just a preseason game.
In the end, the Nets defeated the Magic 103-87.
The players on the Magic team didn’t care whether they won or lost, but the Nets team was very happy... The players who had a chance to play were very happy, and those with guaranteed contracts who didn’t have a chance to play had also accepted their fate. But the players without guaranteed contracts were very nervous because yesterday, all the players on training camp contracts had left the team.
Kenny Anderson played 26 minutes tonight and scored 20 points and 8 assists, while Charles played 22 minutes and scored 4 points and 7 assists, organizing the team's offense very well.
Charles has always worked very hard, no matter how much playing time he has, he has always tried hard to seize the opportunity to stay in the NBA. The coaching staff has always seen this, so even if it is a rebuild, they have always kept Charles and have not used him to trade draft picks.
But Kenny Anderson's recent changes have indeed made Butch Baird and Randy Whitman happy.
If they want to train Zhang Hao, the basic condition is to have a player who is good at passing the ball, otherwise they can only train him forcefully.
What is “hard training”?
It means that no matter what, he would find a way to make Zhang Hao shoot at him dozens or twenty times in every game.
This training method is simple and crude, but it has great disadvantages. What if you lose confidence due to missed shots? This kind of thing is not uncommon in the NBA.
The team's strength is a bit lacking, but with two such point guards, at least the tactics can be connected well, allowing Zhang Hao to grow normally, rather than gambling on Zhang Hao's mentality.
Zhang Hao performed well tonight. He played for 26 minutes, made 4 of 9 shots, plus 3 of 4 free throws, and scored 11 points, 7 rebounds, 1 assist and 1 block. The 3 turnovers were a bit too much, but he had the heart to pass the ball in the high post and most importantly, he had excellent vision and could see the positions of his teammates, which made Randy Whitman very satisfied.
There is also the change in Zhang Hao's playing style. Starting from the game against the Pacers, Zhang Hao focused on cooperating with his teammates, as he said, and he did a pretty good job!
This would make Butch Baird and Randy Whitman happier than if Zhang Hao had scored seven or eight more points.
They were just as surprised as Kenny Anderson. Zhang Hao could actually catch the ball and turn around to shoot in the game after just a few days of practice. Although he missed both shots, it was obvious that he was nervous and had never used this posture in the game. But he could do it well in just a few days...
Keep a low profile! Don't be like that stupid vice president of the Timberwolves who brags about his rookie all day long. Yesterday, another high school student was beaten up by Kemp, who was also a high school student.
Who made the Celtics legend say to reporters after Garnett played an all-around performance, "Our high school rookie is better than anyone else"?
Butch Baird understood McHale's idea very well. After he selected a high school student, the Minneapolis media criticized him to pieces and the local fans were very dissatisfied. This showed his talent, so of course he had to show off.
But he wouldn't be stupid enough to follow McHale's example.
…
After a night of non-stop work, on the next day of the off-season, Zhang Hao once again came to the gym early to train.
Recently, the two coaches of the Nets have been very busy. Butch Baird has also been forced to join the ranks of studying the team's tactics. In fact, it is just that Randy Whitman's brain is not enough, and the team's other two assistant coaches...
The two arrived at the gym before 8 o'clock in the morning and saw that Zhang Hao had finished warming up and was calling the expressionless trainer to prepare for training.
"Axl is really...haha, I don't know how long our trainer has not been so busy." After Butch Baird came to the office on the second floor, he stood at the window with great interest, ready to watch Zhang Hao train for a while.
Randy Whitman also prepared to take a look. After watching for a while, they both noticed the changes in Zhang Hao's training.
When they just came back from a series of away games, they saw Zhang Hao developing his turnaround jump shot, but they didn't expect that his progress was accelerating every day, and now he has started to catch the ball and shoot while moving.
Moreover, it was obviously a catch-and-shoot situation in a simulated game!
On the training ground, Zhang Hao passed the ball to the trainer at the top left corner of the free throw line, ran into the basket from the left side of the three-second zone, bypassed a training post, ran out from the basket to the right at a 45-degree angle, and shouted "Pasmi".
Then he accelerated and took two steps forward within the free throw line. At this time, the trainer passed the ball to the right free throw line at a 45-degree angle. Zhang Hao received the ball with his left foot at the right free throw line at a 45-degree angle. He used his left foot as the axis, turned over, jumped, and floated towards the three-point line in the air by inertia, throwing the ball into the basket...
This ball feels good and it goes in!
As former NBA professional players and current NBA coaches, Butch Baird and Randy Whitman have seen too many players, but Zhang Hao still surprised them!
The training progress is too fast! His learning and comprehension abilities are so strong? This is too outrageous!
They were both NBA players, and Butch Baird was even selected as an All-Star. Looking back, people were always compared to each other and were very annoying...
Before they knew it, the two of them had been standing there for over an hour, watching Zhang Hao's entire training. The mid-range shooting training was particularly comfortable to watch, the layup training was also okay, but the three-point training was unbearable to watch... After they finished watching it all, when Zhang Hao went to the physiotherapy room for a massage to relax his muscles, the two of them realized that their legs were sore from standing.
"Butch, I actually had my doubts before. Should I give up my current easy salary for a high school student? Now, I know why you made this choice. Aix's talent is even more terrifying than I expected!"
"Actually..." Butch Baird thought for a moment, took a deep breath, and continued, "I thought we just drafted a pitcher with All-Star talent, plus his athletic ability. If we develop him, even if we are fired, there will be teams that will take a fancy to our abilities. Now I believe that."
All-Star talent, this is already a very, very high evaluation.
Although there are 24 players selected for the All-Star Game from the Eastern and Western Conferences every year, in fact, at least half of the positions are fixed candidates for several consecutive years. That is, at most 10 rookies are selected for the All-Star Game in a season, and some of them have been selected before, but there is no guarantee that they will be selected every year.
It is difficult, very difficult to produce a new All-Star. If a player is selected as an All-Star three or five times in a team, it is basically certain that his jersey will be retired.
If it's not the top pick in a big draft year, it would be great if you could pick a player who can be selected to the All-Star team once or twice.
Randy Whitman thinks that the evaluation of a pitcher with All-Star strength is too high. In a championship-contending team, such a pitcher is no less important than a ball-holding superstar.
But Randy Whitman was more curious about something else and asked, "What is it?"
"Axel said something during a dunk contest. He said he had only practiced basketball for two and a half years."
“…”
Thinking about Zhang Hao’s mid-range shot, he only practiced it for two and a half years?
How can it be!
What Randy Whitman heard was not that Zhang Hao had only practiced mid-range shooting for two and a half years, but that Zhang Hao had only practiced basketball for two and a half years!
Such solid knowledge of off-ball movement, such good catch-and-shoot ability, such excellent mid-range shooting...
When Zhang Hao first participated in the draft, what these teams knew about Zhang Hao was actually more about the physical fitness he showed in the dunk contest and how good his shooting was. Except for Butch Baird who paid special attention to him, other teams did not know that much about him, so Zhang Hao's draft stock had such a wide range from the end of the first round to the middle of the second round.
Without considering physical fitness, Zhang Hao's strengths are only those three, but those three aspects cannot be mastered in one or two years.
Randy Whitman couldn't believe it, but looking at Zhang Hao's training posture, he was obviously learning from Jordan. It was basically certain that he started learning after playing against the Bulls, and this learning progress... He had to believe it...
This is truly a super genius who has been practicing basketball for two and a half years!
Due to the sluggish dissemination of information, the two people who had never seen Zhang Hao play in high school began to imagine - they might be cultivating a superstar!
Basketball superstars... seem to be quite a lot in the public's mind, and we can see news about many superstars every day.
But when all is said and done, there are only those people assigned to each team. Only a few teams have players who are real superstars, and some superstars have two on the same team. Most teams are like the Nets, who at best can get a star like Coleman or Kenny Anderson who is between first-class and top level, and that's already pretty good.
So, when the Timberwolves selected Garnett and confirmed his talent, they showed off every few days, but Butch Baird and Randy Whitman just joked about it and didn't think it was anything strange.
The two men are no longer players, but they have hidden their special feelings for basketball in their hearts. They have to work hard to make a living, and dreams cannot be eaten.
But there is really an opportunity right in front of me... Even though I can't become a superstar myself, if I can cultivate a superstar.
How cool it will be when you are old and can brag to your grandkids!
No matter how old men are, what they pursue is to be cool and handsome.
"Randy, can we help Axe find two better trainers?"
"I would also like to say this. There is no problem with Bobby, but the boss has already filled the salary quota for the team's assistant coaches and trainers..."
"I think you and I are the only ones on our coaching staff, so let's go talk to Bobby."
"This will offend people. Our team has more than one shareholder."
"I don't care about him so much..."