Chapter 234: The Powerful Kirisaki Daiichi

Time passed silently while Hanamiya Makoto and Haizaki were "in love."

Soon, the flames of the Winter Cup were about to be reignited.

The purpose of this tournament was to select outstanding talent from all over the country.

Those selected talents would participate in the subsequent national basketball youth training camp.

To put it plainly, it was to train the next generation and reserve talent for JP basketball.

This was the reason for the Winter Cup's full name, the Winter Selection Tournament.

It is worth mentioning that although it was also an annual tournament, compared to the national tournament, the scale of the Winter Cup was slightly smaller.

There were 47 prefectures in the country, each with only one spot, and the host automatically added one spot, making up 48 teams.

Then, the IH champion and runner-up, that is, the champion and runner-up of the national tournament, would automatically receive a spot, making a total of 50 participating teams, 10 fewer than the national tournament.

This year's Winter Cup was still held in Tokyo (in the anime, Shutoku and Seirin qualified at the same time, no overtime needed, so the Winter Cup venue should be in Tokyo).

So this year, there were a full three teams from Tokyo that could participate.

Kirisaki Daiichi occupied one spot, and the remaining two spots needed to be fought for by other teams.

But having said that, after the baptism of the national tournament, fans automatically locked the battle for spots onto three teams: Too Academy, Shutoku, and Seirin.

And then there was the knockout stage, which was conducted by random draw.

Referring to Seirin and Too Academy from the same region in the anime, they met in the first round of the Winter Cup.

It is estimated that the author himself knew such an arrangement was unreasonable, using Hyuga Junpei's mouth to complain about the tournament system.

As the national tournament champion, Kirisaki Daiichi naturally didn't need to play in the qualifiers.

They had plenty of time to prepare for the Winter Cup knockout stage.

However, Haizaki was a newly joined player and needed to cultivate a certain tacit understanding with the team.

Not much, just enough.

The Heavenly Dao always firmly believed that when a player's strength was strong enough, problems like compatibility didn't exist at all.

When the Heavenly Dao was considering who to play a practice game against, Too Academy took the initiative to contact the Heavenly Dao.

Kirisaki Daiichi had already confirmed their qualification for the Winter Cup, so there was no need to worry about becoming opponents in the qualifiers; Harasawa Katsunori, adhering to the principle of finding the strongest, arranged a game with Kirisaki Daiichi through Satsuki.

And when the Too Academy people came to the Kirisaki Daiichi basketball club and saw Haizaki warming up, they were all stunned.

"Haizaki Shogo?!"

"Isn't he from Fukuda Sogo? How did he run to Kirisaki Daiichi?"

"Transferred?"

They clearly didn't expect Haizaki to appear in the Kirisaki Daiichi lineup.

Kirisaki Daiichi, which was already a champion, had Haizaki join; the terror of their lineup strength was probably only comparable to Rakuzan.

"Haizaki, how did you run here?" Aomine was equally surprised; in his impression, Haizaki wasn't the type to submit to others.

"Nothing, someone begged me a few times, so I came with great mercy." Haizaki looked at the Heavenly Dao proudly, fearing Aomine wouldn't know.

Aomine finally understood; it turned out Haizaki had come to defect to the Heavenly Dao.

He looked at the Heavenly Dao and said in a hoarse voice, "I really admire you for being able to suppress him."

"Don't forget who led you to complete the national three-peat, and who still won the national tournament after the team disbanded." The Heavenly Dao wore sunglasses, turned his head, and shook hands with Harasawa Katsunori.

He held multiple positions—captain, coach, and player.

"Sorry to bother you, Heavenly Dao-kun."

"Not a bother, we were just planning to integrate the lineup."

Harasawa Katsunori nodded; adding a fierce general like Haizaki, who was just below the Generation of Miracles, to the lineup meant they needed to integrate well.

After the conversation, the Heavenly Dao turned his head and happened to bump into Satsuki's gaze.

The little girl was looking at him eagerly; after that ad, many friends suspected her relationship with the Heavenly Dao.

Having no choice, Satsuki could only refute it slightly.

"Are you used to the modeling work?"

"It's alright, it's just that I suddenly have a lot of fans, and I'm not quite used to it." Taking advantage of that ad experience, Satsuki was also signed by the Heavenly Dao's agency.

Her cute face and golden-ratio figure allowed her to quickly attract a group of male fans.

"That's good, keep it up; let's go eat together after the game." The Heavenly Dao touched her head and walked into his bench to prepare.

"Okay!"

Both sides were ready, and the game began.

The Heavenly Dao didn't play, but observed from the sidelines.

He was considering what position to let Haizaki play.

Haizaki was very versatile; possessing the ability to "Pillage," he could handle any position except center.

In fact, with his height, he could even play center!

Of course, for a "jack-of-all-trades" role like this, it was best to play small forward—able to shoot, drive, and pass, very suitable for holding the ball.

But this overlapped with the Heavenly Dao's own position...

He now had two ideas.

First, let Haizaki play the 4 to make up for Kirisaki Daiichi's lack of inside presence.

Second, let Haizaki play the 2 to supplement the team's lack of outside firepower.

As for letting him play his specialty, the 3-spot, sorry, the Heavenly Dao was more versatile than Haizaki and more suitable for holding the ball; Haizaki could only play off-ball.

In this game, he wanted to see the effect before making a decision.

He first let Haizaki play the power forward position; the effect was quite good, Kirisaki Daiichi lost by 10 points in a single quarter.

No way, Aomine also played the 4; Haizaki had no advantage in the matchup against him.