[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-the-golden-age-of-basketball":3,"chapter-the-golden-age-of-basketball-the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-1554":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"english","The Golden Age of Basketball",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1445380,1896,"Chapter 1554 - 25: A Difficult Decision","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-1554",1554,"\u003Cp>On January 18, the Trail Blazers visited the Washington Wizards.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Guoyang and the Trail Blazers didn’t show any courtesy to the people of the capital and the Commander-in-Chief, easily defeating the Wizards at 116:102, extending their winning streak to an astonishing 38 games.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It’s already near 40 games, and the Trail Blazers remain undefeated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Guoyang scored 38 points, grabbed 19 rebounds, and made 11 assists, achieving a triple-double tonight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>His performance was as outstanding as ever, and the Wizards had no ability to resist.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The traditional front-line duo of Rashid Wallace and Juwan Howard seemed as fragile as paper in front of Gan Guoyang.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Two young players, famed in NCAA, found themselves very unadapted to Gan Guoyang’s varied playstyle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Juwan Howard’s size was a hard weakness, and his physical fitness could only be described as average — a major reason why many who shined in NCAA cannot reproduce glory in NBA.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Meanwhile, Rashid Wallace’s terrible offensive rebound defense let him suffer greatly in the rebound battles, with Gan Guoyang snatching 7 offensive rebounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>During the game, the NBC commentator exclaimed: \"Ah Gan and the Trail Blazers have surpassed this era; their basketball is something other teams cannot touch and find hard to comprehend.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Guoyang’s playstyle was indeed too advanced; he truly achieved Dr. Naismith’s ultimate basketball dream: wherever the ball is, initiate the attack from where you got the ball.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In these regular season encounters, watching film isn’t helpful; once they play, it’s clear they can’t withstand it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Everyone is accustomed to grinding out position battles, used to contesting defenses; this set of Trail Blazers catches everyone off guard, mismatched from lineup structure to rotation, tactics, and match details.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the game, teams were left puzzled from top to bottom, questioning how games can be played this way.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Some smart people figured out a bit of the taste, yet haven’t fully understood, only to face the next game, returning to the usual rhythm.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Meeting the Trail Blazers next time, still unable to win, coaches don’t have any good solutions — true systematic study and targeting can only wait until off-season.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In this season anyway, wait, wait for the Trail Blazers’ own slump, wait for their ugly maiden nights.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Trail Blazers achieved 38 straight wins, but this news wasn’t the next day’s headline, as another explosive story emerged.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Just three days after Clinton was accused of sexual harassment, on January 19th, the President held a televised news conference.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At the conference, Clinton stood with his wife Hillary, admitting to cameras that he had contact relations with White House intern Levinsky.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On television, Clinton held his wife’s hand, tearfully apologizing for his behavior, stating he is willing to accept any punishment, including losing the presidency.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This news was immediately spread across All-America by television media, then impacted globally, becoming January 1998’s most shocking news:\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The American President admitted to making a mistake that any man can make.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Guoyang saw this news while back in Portland, resting at home.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Eastern away trip ended, and the teammates were quite exhausted, fortunately, the schedule provided two days of rest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This season’s Trail Blazers schedule arrangement can be described as very friendly, with many home games at the start, less back-to-back, and only two away back-to-back.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After each away trip, two days or even more rest was arranged, then several back-to-backs at home.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This is very beneficial for players’ physical recovery, as well as organizing life and match rhythm.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So far, within the Trail Blazers, there have been no major injuries, only some minor, insignificant issues.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>These are all prerequisites for the Trail Blazers to win all the way until now, which can be said to be a combination of timing, geography, and harmony allowing the Trail Blazers to go this far.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So far that even the Trail Blazers players, coaches didn’t quite dare to believe, reaching mid-January 1998, yet have not lost a game.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But even more unbelievable was their President admitting on television to having relations with an intern.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"America as a country is done for, the President could do such things, what is this? When a nation is about to perish, there will be evil.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Youwei sat on the sofa, watching the news and expressing his thoughts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Over the past two years, Gan Youwei’s condition tended to stabilize, without very obvious dementia symptoms, which was Gan Guoyang’s greatest comfort.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Whenever home, he would take time to watch TV with his father, watch the news, and chat simply.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Guoyang enjoyed discussing past events with Gan Youwei, using games as temporal anchors to continuously stimulate Gan Youwei’s memory.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For example, the 1986 Finals, the 1991 Finals, losing at the 1989 West Finals, wrestling Malone in 1992, and so on.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Youwei remembered most of it clearly, able to articulate what happened that day and his feelings.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every time Gan Youwei freely discussed past events, Gan Guoyang felt relieved to concentrate more on games.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Besides talking about the past, Gan Youwei liked to point out American social news and make statements from his perspective.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a person ages, coupled with no work, reading, newspapers at home every day, inevitably generating various random thoughts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Youwei saw a dignified country president, admitting his follies on TV in front of the nation and the world, feeling his worldview was bombarded.\u003C\u002Fp>",890,"2026-06-06T01:42:05.224Z",1,"novelbin.me","edbd3a0bcd30764826496fcc8c8beb7d601fe00e3a01aa31dfac827408a7943c","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-1555","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-1709",2033,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-golden-age-of-basketball-cover.jpg"]