[{"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-636":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},1444503,1896,"Chapter 636 - 28 The Irritable Sabonis","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-636",636,"\u003Cp>Although Sabonis is quite low-key off the court and appears honest and simple beside Gan Guoyang,\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>on the basketball court there are no real honest people, it’s all relative.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Compared to ordinary people, NBA basketball players are a bunch of irritable and even more irritable people, with a portion being fiercely competitive.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>People like Gan Guoyang, who are measured in their actions but genuinely hot-headed—how else could they start throwing punches when words fail, and not just for show?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sabonis also had his moments of rage. In the 1986 European Champions Cup final, before his major injury, during the game between Žalgiris (Lithuania) and Cibona (Croatia), a Cibona player got into a physical conflict with a Žalgiris player during a fast break counterattack and elbowed him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that moment, Sabonis charged at the Cibona player like a truck and sent him flying with a punch (4).\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Coincidentally, Dražen Petrović was right next to the involved parties, hoping to mediate and prevent the fight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Who knew that Sabonis would knock someone over with a punch, leaving Petrović bewildered. He didn’t dare confront Sabonis.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With Sabonis’s bear-like stature, who would dare to step up? His own teammate was laid out on the ground unable to rise.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Thus, the final ruling was Sabonis being the only one ejected from the game while the rest stayed on since the fight never escalated. No one dared to step in.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In 1986, a young and spirited Sabonis paid the price for that punch.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He had already scored 27 points by then, with Žalgiris in the lead, and winning the game would have made them European champions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After he was ejected, Žalgiris lost their core and couldn’t compete with Petrović’s Cibona team.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ultimately, Žalgiris lost the game and handed over the European championship to Petrović and Cibona, securing Cibona’s reign as two-time European champions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So, Sabonis is certainly not some honest player on the court; life in the rough interior lines isn’t for the meek.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Only a few players like Mark Price, a guard, genuinely have a good-natured demeanor, playing the game and not getting physical.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If that 1986 incident involved someone like Isiah Thomas instead of Petrović, don’t think that just because you’re a bear—even if you were an elephant—he wouldn’t rush up to throw a punch to settle the score—unless you are Ah Gan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the first half of the game, Sabonis was somewhat rattled by Ewing and Gan Guoyang’s continuous advice only agitated Sabonis further.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sabonis knew that Ah Gan meant well, and his advice was indeed spot on; cutting through the middle was indeed effective.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But Sabonis wasn’t exactly a rookie; he had already made a name for himself in Europe, played for years, and was Europe’s number one superstar.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like Petrović, he was a proud man, albeit Petrović was more outwardly so whereas Sabonis was more reserved.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>While he didn’t have the combative heart and wildness of Petrović or Ah Gan, that spirit was nevertheless ignited tonight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Outplayed by the opposing center and being tutored by the team leader as if he were a primary school student, Sabonis realized he had to do something.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Guoyang didn’t pay much attention to the change in Sabonis’s emotions and simply patted his shoulder in the locker room, without saying much else.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The NBA is a long journey where even star players rough it out when they first join the league.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Take Ewing, for example, who entered the NBA amid great fanfare and high expectations.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet in his first and second year, he suffered major injuries, the Knicks finished at the bottom of the Atlantic Division, and Ewing’s performance was less than satisfactory.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It took him over three years to come into his own, to refine his technique, and with the team’s development, he began to shine.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Players like Gan Guoyang, Magic, Jabbar, and Jordan, who dominated as soon as they entered the league, are indeed a rare few.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Sabonis still has a long road ahead, but tonight he wasn’t about to be completely subdued.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The third quarter began with Sabonis continuing to start.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ewing was still in excellent form, a rarity for him against the Trail Blazers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The first offensive play of the second half, Jerome Kossie’s low-post turnaround and drive for a floater was promptly blocked out of bounds by a defensive Ewing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Out of bounds play, Hornacek receives the ball utilizing Gan Guoyang’s screen for a mid-range jumper that misses.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Gan Guoyang slips in to snatch the offensive rebound beneath the basket, drawing a foul from Oakley, heading to the free-throw line.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ewing’s block was indeed impressive, but his protection of the defensive rebounds had always been a problem.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As a top-tier center, he never averaged more than 10 rebounds a game after joining the league.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was quite unacceptable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In college, his height and arm span allowed him to easily grab rebounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Therefore, he never developed a good habit of boxing out under the basket, which made him susceptible to losing rebounds.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Knicks had no choice but to trade for Oakley to assist Ewing, to compensate for Ewing’s lack of defensive rebounding.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Oakley simply couldn’t win the box-out in the three-second zone against Ah Gan and sent him to the free-throw line.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Two successful free-throws, and the Trail Blazers continue to widen their lead.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Ewing’s spectacular block ended up being in vain.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>On the offensive end, the Knicks still started from Ewing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Mark Jackson’s pass to Ewing, Ewing catches the ball and swiftly turns inside, driving through the middle.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He dips his shoulder to push Sabonis aside and goes for a left-handed layup under the basket. Sabonis, unwilling to let Ewing score easily, vigorously attempts to block him.\u003C\u002Fp>",948,"2026-06-06T01:41:34.788Z",1,"novelbin.me","e302dd8eba4eb8c4a87de80af5b735beb18e3eb4fdd9c92ef3ecf3f323ceef40","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-637","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-635",2033,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-golden-age-of-basketball-cover.jpg"]