The Golden Age of Basketball

Tang Jianguo and Ah Gan decided to come to Naples to meet me personally and discuss the possibility of me becoming the coach of the Trail Blazers in person.

I knew that when Ah Gan decided to come see me personally, it would be hard for me to resist this job.

Coaching Ah Gan, is there any work more interesting and challenging than this?

I decided to pick him up from the airport, imagining the scene of meeting him in my mind. I couldn't wait to have a verbal spar with him.

But Ah Gan is always a surprising guy. As soon as he got off the plane, he rushed to me and shook my hand tightly.

He said, "Larry, give me a banana, and I'll play ball for you."

———— Excerpt from "Bird Watching," co-written by Larry Bird and Jackie MacMullan, published in 1999.

Bird watched Gan Guoyang happily eating bananas in the car, this was already his fifth one; Florida didn't lack bananas.

"F**k you, Sonny, lucky I'm not black, otherwise I'd think you're making some racist joke, and you'd be done for if it got out."

"Don't be so sensitive, I'm just a bit low on potassium. I was too hungry, I wanted to face the media at the comeback press conference in my best shape."

"Then you should choose exercise, not dieting!"

"The time is too short; let me slim down first, later I'll start working out fast."

Gan Guoyang experienced the pain of weight loss like Quentin Stephenson did during a nearly five-hour flight.

For an ordinary person, skipping a meal is no big deal, not even having anything for a day could be fine, just bear it out and drink some water.

But for a former professional athlete who is 6'10" with an extremely high metabolism and amazing energy, getting food regularly and of the right amount is very important.

In the past, during matches, Gan Guoyang would have four to five meals a day, each meal would need to be plentiful and satisfying to have the energy to expend.

After retiring, due to his still strong metabolism, he ate four, sometimes five meals a day, eating less than before but still a large amount compared to ordinary people.

Recently, in order to reduce fat, he changed from four meals to two, basically eating once every 10 hours or so. Today was just the beginning; it truly felt like he was going to perish.

Even when dizzy from hunger, Gan Guoyang stuck it out without asking Bird for pizza or burgers, but instead asked for some bananas to supplement a bit of electrolytes and sugars, to avoid fainting.

When he got to Bird's home, Gan Guoyang finally had the chance to have a relatively good meal, but he still maintained great restraint.

Bird found it amusing seeing Gan Guoyang like this and said, "Your idol burden is too heavy; even if you returned looking chubby, people would still be afraid of you."

Gan Guoyang said, "You don't understand, Larry; appearance is closely related to psychological effects. Basketball is all about who intimidates who, isn't it?"

Gan Guoyang quoted "X-man" McDaniel's famous saying here.

Bird said, "It makes sense, just like you smashing the backboard in Boston or knocking down Lan Bi'er in Detroit. All of this is your bluff, a master of psychological warfare."

"Exactly! In the future, we'll be partners, so I can tell you these things. And there's nothing wrong with bluffing. A tiger will bluff, too, but that doesn't mean it can't bite through your throat. Bluffing just scares away some cowardly dogs, and the remaining energy can deal with those who aren't scared."

At this time, Bird became a bit reserved and said, "Oh no, I haven't promised to be the Trail Blazers' coach yet, so we aren't partners. Of course, it's fine if you talk to me about these things since I can't come back and play anymore."

"Tell me what you are still worried about, anxious about, afraid that coaching me won't lead to success?"

"Coaching you is not a problem. Honestly, I'm quite looking forward to it, but the Trail Blazers aren't just you. You guys drafted two kids in the draft, and I don't quite understand, what do the Trail Blazers really want? To rebuild, or to go for the championship?"

Bird gave Gan Guoyang a tough question, as if only by answering this question well would Bird agree to become the Trail Blazers' coach.

In fact, when Gan Guoyang decided to come back, Bird had already made up his mind; no matter what the Trail Blazers' lineup was like, he wanted to experience and challenge it.

Choosing two high school players may not fit his basketball aesthetic, but after these years when life took big Bird into the sidelines, he was eager to find some excitement in coaching work.

So, the more complex the situation, the more challenging the circumstances, the greater Bird's interest.

It's just that facing Ah Gan, he didn't want to lower his head too quickly; he wanted to hear more from Ah Gan about basketball, and his thoughts about the team.

This is crucial for their future cooperation; Bird hoped this would be a team that still retained its vitality.

This had nothing to do with their past achievements or whether the players they chose were young, but was related to the team's philosophy.

Like the Celtics, how successful they were, how glorious, at one point in the NBA, it almost turned green.

The Celtics' many achievements were inseparable from their philosophy.

Auerbach built a relatively closed, conservative, patriarch-led, internally sequential-selective, and externally rule-exploiting, talent-poaching corporate culture.

This system of philosophy, culture, in the late 1980s to the 1990s, under David Stern's intentional suppression and the tide of Time, already became rotten.

Bird recalled the past two years working in the management of the Celtics, it was simply like a nightmare, completely different from his player days.