[{"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-962":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},1444429,1896,"Chapter 962 - 15 A New World_3","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-962",962,"\u003Cp>After returning to America, I went to California to stay with my daughter.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every morning, my grandmother would make me breakfast, and I would get up to pray, then go exercise.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That summer, I worked very hard, hiring a coach named Charles to help me train.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every morning Charles would pick me up, and we would run together on the beach.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I don’t like running on the beach; it’s tough for me, but it’s worth it to build endurance.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I would have a light lunch, and in the afternoon, I would do strength training.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the evening, Charles and I would go to a local high school to play basketball, honing my technical skills.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Charles also took me to Gold’s Gym, telling me it’s the Mecca of strength trainers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When I walked into Gold’s Gym, I completely understood what he meant; the people here are like beasts, huge beasts, even the women.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Everyone is muscular, and at 7 feet tall, I even looked thin, some women seemed more robust than I was.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>\"This is the place for fanatics; if you’re not serious enough, you shouldn’t even step in here.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In 1981, when I arrived at the University of Houston, they took me to the weight room on my first day, and I couldn’t even lift a standard barbell.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Strength was never my strong suit. I thought of the years of contest with Ah Gan, always at a disadvantage in strength; that guy’s a monster.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When chatting with the gym beasts about Ah Gan, they all remarked that the guy is a king of strength, conquering many gyms.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So, it was not until this summer that I truly began to take strength training seriously, diving into the tedious barbell exercises.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After three days, I really started to like it; I realized these workouts brought immediate benefits.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I found my body becoming more flexible, and after persisting for a while, my body was recovering faster, performing many technical moves more smoothly, my knees, joints, under the protection of strong muscles, became healthier and more powerful.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Besides strength training, Charles arranged some high school students to be my sparring partners, and I began to refine my footwork under the basket.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the past, I never seriously refined my footwork; at the University of Houston, each summer, I focused on games, doing whatever came to mind during them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I never stood aside to seriously observe everything I did, what was effective, what was not, what was more efficient, what was merely window dressing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This is very different.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Charles would play music at the sideline, filling the training court with rhythm.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I began to study moves with videos, honing every detail, especially watching tapes of my games against Ah Gan.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I started pretending to go right, pretending to go left, spinning to the baseline, then moving out, and going back, repeatedly deceiving defenders.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>My body began to have a rhythm, like dancing to music, I felt I was dancing on the court.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Slowly, I felt myself reaching peak condition.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In the past, I relied on my hook shot, I liked to quickly move, spin, and finish with a swift hook shot upon receiving the ball.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It worked well but was somewhat singular; I began to temper my shooting, practicing various shots under defensive pressure.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I started to think like a guard, realizing this while watching Ah Gan’s game tapes; he never saw himself as a center.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Position can limit and shackle your thoughts; actually, when you step onto the court, no one dictates how a center should play, how a guard should.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>You can do everything you can do.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I carefully honed my footwork, some details went unnoticed yet were extremely important.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>For example, I worked to make my inside foot, the one closer to the basket, land the instant I receive the ball, so when jumping for a shot, I’d already have my posture set, shoulders facing the hoop.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The sequence of footwork was very important here, first the inside foot, then the outside foot, jumping after adjusting.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>If you choose both feet to land, and your shoulders don’t rotate and follow, you’d lose balance, and your jump height would be affected.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>You must adjust well, jump higher, more upright, having more time to aim for the hoop.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After a summer of honing, my jump shot height increased, my shooting release became softer, I could even pause mid-air.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This pause moment gave me room for error; if I realized this shot choice wasn’t good, I could make another choice.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I could pass the ball back out, I could see the shooters on the perimeter and redistribute it to them, completing the offense anew.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Such a change excited me; I knew I found a new way to control the game, and I also understood why the gap between Ah Gan and me was widening.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Every summer, he was perfecting his details like I did this summer, and I awoke too late.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I needed a new start, new skills, a new team, a new city.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that time, my agent was Leonard Amato from Los Angeles, and one day he brought a new client to this high school gym to train with me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The guy had just graduated from Louisiana State University, his name was Shaquille O’Neal.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When Shaq met me on the court, I knew what he was thinking; he wanted to beat me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that time, I was enjoying strength training and improving my moves’ details, I wanted to test the results.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>So, I invited Shaq to train with me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Regarding Shaq, the first thing I noticed was, he was much bigger than me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I’m 6 feet 11 inches tall, weighing about 250 pounds, while he’s 7 feet 1, weighing about 300 pounds, and still growing!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He’s a perfect giant, once he gets into the paint, nobody can stop him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>We practiced inside moves together, engaging in offensive and defensive training.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I received the ball with my back to the hoop, faked right, really quick, he fell for it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I immediately spun left, took a jump shot, hit it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that moment, he was helpless, the fake move was too fast for him.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But the next time we faced off, he didn’t fall for it when I used the same move again.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He learned very fast, guarding well, ready to block me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But I still used my footwork to dodge him, in a narrow space, scoring with a hook shot.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All in all, it was a wonderful morning, we trained together for two hours, which was very helpful for me.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Shaq worked hard, and I worked hard too.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I liked playing ball with him, he’s a cool guy.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I told him I really liked his nickname: Shark.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>It’s a very perfect nickname, matching his name, characteristics perfectly.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He looked a bit shy, saying he liked my nickname \"The Dream\" too.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>We talked a lot; I knew he was about to enter the league, he’d surely cause a stir.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He asked me many questions about the NBA, especially about centers, how to handle each opponent, who was the toughest.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I analyzed the most difficult centers in the League for him, finally telling him: be careful of Ah Gan, he’s more dangerous than the Shark.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Shaq had probably heard similar things before, so he wasn’t very concerned, curiously asking: \"Is Ah Gan really that good?\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>I told him seriously, \"He’s tougher than any center you’ve faced, and he’s a devil; be prepared to contend with him long-term.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that time, I was embarrassed to tell him, because of being in the Western Conference for a long time, I was shaken, I wanted to leave.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In Los Angeles, I was very comfortable, sunlight, beaches, places to play ball everywhere, gyms, basketball courts, everywhere.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps I should go to the Clippers, but meanwhile, many other teams extended olive branches—including the Miami Heat.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>There, too, were sun and beaches, and my former teammate, my good brother, Clyde Drexler.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Since knowing about my conflict with Houston, he had been calling, hoping I’d go to the South Coast, and I was hesitating.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Until a call came, Steve Patterson told me: \"You’ll be sent to Miami, Riley offered a good deal, sorry Hakeem, we have to say goodbye.\"\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At that moment, I was silent for a long time, somewhat regretful, was I really leaving Houston? I’d been here for 10 years, was I really leaving?\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>But soon I knew, I was about to welcome a new world.]\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>– Excerpt from the 1996 autobiography \"Living The Dream\" by Hakeem Olajuwon.\u003C\u002Fp>",1427,"2026-06-06T01:41:40.447Z",1,"novelbin.me","96ecda598f83cf328f3d78ab5e2465c50064ca2eb027a665de04386e90e8a9af","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-963","the-golden-age-of-basketball-chapter-961",2033,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fthe-golden-age-of-basketball-cover.jpg"]