Volume 1: A rookie who breaks into the basketball world Chapter 12: Informal
"Zach Randolph, ability rating 95 (Summer League), physical fitness 97, basic skills 88, technology 86. Replicable talent: low-post singles."
"Quentel Woods, ability rating 80 (Summer League), physical fitness 91, basic skills 72, technology 77. Replicable talent: catch-and-shoot."
"Reuben Bontjie, ability rating 76 (Summer League), physical fitness 72, basic skills 83, technology 79. Replicable talent: turn around and shoot the ball."
"Travis Outlaw, ability rating 79 (Summer League), physical fitness 95, basic skills 69, technology 72. Replicable talent: chase-down block."
"Eric Barkley, ability rating 71 (Summer League), physical fitness 60, basic 91, technique 87. Replicable talent: front-body change of direction breakthrough."
“…”
“…”
At around 8 o'clock in the evening, Liu Xiu returned to the hotel.
If I were in Syracuse, I might go to bed a little later, but in an unfamiliar city... it would be better to go home directly after dark. Even Randolph didn't object.
After taking a shower, Liu Xiu prepared to go to bed early and looked at the strength of their Trail Blazers summer league team as determined by the system when all members gathered this morning.
Now, the Trail Blazers' summer league roster, including Liu Xiu, has only 21 people left, and several people were eliminated on the first day.
"The three general judgments of physical fitness, basic skills, and technology are a bit vague."
Liu Xiu looked at Quintl Woods and Travis Outlaw, then at Eric Barkley...
"Although physical fitness alone is not enough, basic skills and techniques are very important, but poor physical fitness is definitely not enough..."
During the daytime training, Liu Xiu saw that Eric Barkley, who was also a point guard, had outstanding skills. In the entire Trail Blazers summer league team, there should be no one with better skills than Eric Barkley.
During Liu Xiu's junior season, he could always be seen in the local New York State media comparing him to Eric Barkley.
Eric Barkley is a native New York player. He is known as the strongest point guard in New York after Marbury. He was selected with the 28th pick in the first round of 2000.
Travis Outlaw, who has very poor skills and basic abilities, has reached an excellent level in the summer league purely based on his physical fitness. Quintl Woods, who has the same physical fitness as Travis Outlaw, has reached an excellent level in the summer league with just a little bit of skills.
Eric Barkley played in the NBA for two years and spent a year in the Development League last season. Now his strength is still only at the good level of the summer league...
This reflects a big difference between playing at the professional level and playing in college - the importance of physicality.
Eric Barkley has solid skills and fundamentals, but he probably won't be able to fully display them in the summer league.
When Randolph arrived at the training ground in the morning, Liu Xiu was already able to use the Great Magician to "copy" a teammate's talent.
But the head coach's arrangement at that time was to conduct group training on specific projects. Liu Xiu did not rush to copy, but instead demonstrated everything he knew.
At that time, he didn't know what the bonus after copying was. He had a guaranteed contract and didn't have to perform well in a group training for an insignificant project. He just needed to show his strengths and weaknesses normally.
As a lottery rookie with a four-year guaranteed contract, Liu Xiu believes that the team will at least focus on training him this summer. He should not make trouble for himself and just accept his situation as it is. If the team wants to train him, they can make a training plan that is truly beneficial to him.
But the talent of "Great Magician" must be used when necessary.
But as for the summer league lineup, there really aren’t many options.
After hesitating for a while, Liu Xiu found that Randolph and Eric Barkley seemed to be the only two who might be suitable.
If we consider the "technical level of the object being copied", "degree of fit", and "one's own control over the technology", there are really only Randolph's back-to-the-basket and Eric Barkley's in-front change of direction breakthrough.
"Eric Barkley! Randolph will have plenty of time to partner with him in the future. Eric Barkley, although he still has a fourth year on his contract, didn't get a single chance to play last year."
Liu Xiu made up his mind and issued a command in his mind, and then the system prompt came.
"Host's talent: Great Magician (incomplete). Copy target: Eric Barkley. Copy specialty: Front-end change of direction breakthrough. Bonus effect: Training effect bonus 5% (including simulated training effect bonus, professional training methods must be learned. If not, the host's regular breakthrough action training will be used.)"
"Uh... I forgot about that. I rarely use the trick of changing direction to break through. I either don't break through, or I just go straight and simple..."
'Then let's not simulate this training tonight. It's worse than not practicing it blindly.
5% bonus, isn't that low? I'll try to copy Lan Pang tomorrow...'
…
Liu Xiu entered study mode and fell asleep in seconds.
In a suite in the same hotel, the Trail Blazers coaching staff was still busy.
Maurice Cheeks slacked off for long periods of time during the day, but when it was his turn to work, he still worked hard.
Maurice Cheeks looked at Liu Xiu's report from the initial tryout and the report from today's project group training.
"The technology is still simple and practical, but it has improved a lot compared to before. It's only been a month, right? This kid is really talented."
Kevin Pritchard, who was standing next to him, listened to Maurice Cheeks' words without saying anything.
It is true that Liu Xiu has made progress, but this progress is not enough to make one's talent amazing, right?
If I have to say, this improvement in Liu Xiu's simple expertise does not involve any new technology, and it is not a qualitative improvement. If you don't pay attention, you won't notice it.
But Kevin Pritchard could understand why Maurice Cheeks was so concerned about these details - this was the rookie he got in exchange for Bonzi Wells.
In that case, let the head coach be happy.
Kevin Pritchard handed a document to Maurice Cheeks.
Morris Cheeks asked, "What is this?"
"Here's Jace's warm-up sheet for this morning."
"warm up?"
"Yes, our trainer said that even if they tailored a warm-up training program for Jace, it would be difficult to do a better warm-up than Jace."
Just when Maurice Cheeks was feeling happy, Kevin Pritt said "bat", which made Maurice Cheeks feel that something bad must be going on.
Kevin Pritchard didn't keep the secret. He said directly, "Jace might be as lazy as the scout report said. Today, apart from the training content of our group training program, Jace didn't do any training at all. Zach worked harder than him..."
Kevin Pritchard couldn't help but complain as he spoke.
Maurice Cheeks asked: "How can such a lazy person make progress in less than a month? Or improve in technique? Is this kid more talented than I expected..."
Kevin Pritchard was speechless: "Morris, is this what you care about?"
"Isn't that what you're talking about?"
“…”
Well, Kevin Prittach has gotten used to it. The head coach he assists, in addition to his love of slacking off, has another notable characteristic - he doesn't pay attention to details.
To put it simply, Maurice Cheeks doesn't care about the player's character, how much trouble the player has caused, or how hard he works...as long as you can perform well in the game, you will be given a chance.
…
…
July 6th, the day before the Orlando Summer League starts.
"It's so cruel. Now there are only 15 of us left..."
While eating lunch, Liu Xiu looked at the remaining people and sighed.
He wanted to learn Eric Barkley's change of direction technique from him today, but he was not given the chance. The Trail Blazers and Eric Barkley agreed to buy out the fourth year of his rookie contract signed in 2000.
According to regulations, the salary of a first-round rookie in the fourth year of his contract will increase by 26.1% compared to the salary in the third year.
Liu Xiu saw the news that Eric Barkley gave up the increased salary, so the Trail Blazers agreed to buy out his contract and let Eric Barkley go to another team.
This morning we had several 10-minute five-on-five team scrimmages.
Liu Xiu overestimated the extent to which he was "hated". He was originally worried that he would be isolated and targeted during the team's training matches, but that was not the case.
The coaching staff was not stupid enough to put players who obviously had bad relationships in the same group.
What Liu Xiu said yesterday really hurt a lot of people's hearts, but compared with the really bad players, Liu Xiu's words were considered good.
Liu Xiu participated in three 10-minute team training matches and completed them all smoothly. His performance was okay. It cannot be said to be outstanding, but it was not bad either. It's just that there was nothing special about it.
Randolph even eats one more portion of nutritious meals than others... Hearing Liu Xiu's sigh, Randolph said, "Jace, you have to get used to it. Even in the regular season, there will be changes in teammates. In the preseason and summer league, there are many people we won't see in the future."
Liu Xiu certainly understood this, but what bothered him was - "I haven't learned change of direction from Eric Barkley yet! Although he is unlikely to teach me, I have to try anyway..."
Plans always fail to keep up with changes.
The morning training has ended. To be more precise, the Trail Blazers summer league team's preparatory training before the start of the summer league has ended. Now it's directly the game, and there will definitely be pre-game training before the game.
We will gather at the TD Waterhouse Center in Orlando in the afternoon. The host Magic team will have a simple summer league opening ceremony, which is also an interview activity.
After that, you can train and move freely.
Based on what Liu Xiu has learned about his temporary teammates over the past two days - "This group of pencil-scribing people can definitely train!"
"Forget it, if I can't roll, then forget it. I'm definitely going to go with the technical flow. If I can't learn from Eric Barkley, then I'll learn from Fatty Landry..."
Liu Xiu looked at Randolph who was eating a nutritious meal, and a thought came to his mind, and the system prompt came.
"Host's talent: Great Magician (incomplete). Copy target: Zach Randolph. Copy specialty: low-post post-up singles. Bonus effect: 80% (including simulation training effect bonus, you need to learn professional training methods. If you don't learn it, you will be trained according to the host's regular post-up singles movements; because the copy target's technical proficiency and matching degree have reached an extremely high level, you can consume healing points to start fast learning and quickly learn training methods.)"
"80%? A 15-fold difference? Is Fat Lan's post-up technique so much better than Eric Barkley's breakthrough technique ?"
"The Grand Mage determines that the target of the copy is good at technical proficiency, based on the proficiency that the player can demonstrate in the current level of competition."
After hearing this, Liu Xiu understood.
Just like the comparison between his breakthrough and Eric Barkley, his breakthrough technique is not even as good as Eric Barkley's.
But in the team training match in the morning, he and Eric Barkley had a matchup. He pressed forward directly and Eric Barkley's movements were all crooked; and when he broke through, he just ran over him... He and Eric Barkley were basically the same speed, but there was a big difference in strength and weight.
But this is not important. What is important is to learn quickly!
"I'm a bit confused. I'm a point guard, and a point guard of normal height of 188 cm... It's OK. Payton, Miller, and Cassell are all post-up point guards... System boss, how much does it cost to learn quickly... No, how much healing value does it cost?"
"Zach Randolph's low-post post-up singles skills, determined level: NBA excellent level, quickly learning the training method requires 1500 healing points.
(Note: The 80% training effect and simulated training effect bonus are only effective when the "Great Magician" talent copies Zach Randolph's low-post singles.
After using quick learning, when the host's technical level reaches the judgment level, the 'Great Magician' training bonus will be invalid. The subsequent copy object's technical improvement requires the host to re-learn the training method. )"
Liu Xiu read it twice and understood what it meant, which was that he had quickly learned Randolph's back-to-the-basket technique and had trained it to the extreme. This was Randolph's current level of strength. He would need to practice more and would definitely improve, and he would be able to find his own subsequent training methods, but it had nothing to do with Randolph.
1500 healing points, and it’s just a quick learning… The meaning of quick learning is that Liu Xiu probably just learned the training movements.
Training means practicing movements repeatedly.
Between taking a few days to learn and learning quickly, Liu Xiu made a decisive choice - spend money!
