One Year Left to Play-Chapter 139 - 44: We Really Are Bottomfeeders

Zhang Hao couldn’t believe the Brooklyn Nets traded away Coleman and didn’t even get a single starter-level player in return!

In other words, their roster compared to last season was missing Coleman, and Kenny Anderson had gained weight during the lockout.

"No wonder the coaching staff values me so much, they simply don’t care about the record... or maybe they’re outright tanking for Duncan or Iverson?"

Zhang Hao thought he had figured out the coaching staff’s plan, which wasn’t hard to guess; many weak teams do this, developing one or a bunch of young players while tanking for the top draft pick.

What he didn’t know was that Coleman originally had certain trade value, but because Butch Baird, the lottery ticket master, went to management and confidently said, "I discovered a genius forward"...

Trusting Butch Baird’s vision, as Kenny Anderson and PJ Brown were both discovered by Butch Baird, the owner, long dissatisfied with Coleman, quickly decided to trade him away.

The Brooklyn Nets’ owner is ambitious and makes decisions decisively whenever there’s an opportunity.

The goal was Kenny Anderson plus a genius forward and adding Duncan, considering Coleman’s not-so-high trade value, he decisively chose to let go, avoiding trouble from Coleman in the upcoming possibly stalled summer.

Seeing Coleman stir things up summer after summer, the owner had long had enough.

Choosing Zhang Hao became the motivating factor.

"However, this is also my opportunity..."

Zhang Hao freed himself from the depressing thought of the roster being so poor, deciding to seize the current opportunity.

He wasn’t the only one wanting to seize the opportunity; everyone on the team could see that after losing Coleman, while the outside was okay, the inside was weak as hell, and making the playoffs seemed unlikely.

The weak inside meant everyone had an opportunity, and young, talented Zhang Hao possibly had the best chance among them.

Competition was inevitable, and it was only natural that Zhang Hao was seen as a threat by a few inside teammates who had been playing for years.

The key was whether they had a real leader to hold the fort, naturally forming into small groups.

Led by Kenny Anderson, PJ Brown, Greg Graham, Vaughn Fleming, Khalid Reeves, and Zhang Hao, a small team was formed. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

This group’s characteristics were clear, mostly consisting of players with excellent athletic ability, with Vaughn Fleming brought back specifically to aid Zhang Hao, naturally becoming part of Zhang Hao’s small group.

On the other side, there was Chris Childs’ small team, primarily focused on set offense. His relationship with Zhang Hao was fine, but with the team not only being weak but also splitting, he would definitely choose to ally with the team’s strongest scorer, Almon Gilliam, alongside teammates Jason Williams and Kevin Edwards, who excelled in set plays, forming their small group.

Where there are people, there is a community. The more chaotic and weaker the place, the more it’s true, and the weak often like to bully those who are even weaker, whether in ability or mentality.

In light of this situation, Zhang Hao had no solution, so he chose to focus on training well.

He understood clearly that the final decision on who plays wasn’t about forming good relations with which teammates but winning the coaching staff’s favor.

Not only was he serious when practicing with fast teammates, but Zhang Hao was also earnest and hardworking with any teammate. He didn’t mess up his relationships with the group of teammates like Childs and Gilliam just because there were small team divisions... Of course, he wasn’t two-faced, trying to get along with both sides, as that would be the dumbest move.

Just train seriously.

Sure enough, after the teammates gathered, Zhang Hao received the team manual, seeing the tactics inside, the team indeed didn’t intend to accommodate him specifically.

The coaching staff had assigned clear roles for each player, with multiple tactical frameworks in the team manual applicable to all players. What’s different is that detailed tactical information was printed individually based on each player’s role.

These tactics were mainly divided into two major frameworks: set plays and counter-attacks. The counter-attacks were straightforward, essentially focusing on the fast break, prevalent at the time, and Zhang Hao understood why their counter-attacks were simple... Their team wasn’t ideal for a defense-oriented counter-attack strategy.

The set plays were divided into two parts, one centered around Chris Childs, Jason Williams, and Kevin Edwards for slow-paced tactical frameworks.

The other part relied on Kenny Anderson as the core for fast-paced set plays and strategies.

This meant he needed to start learning new positioning content again.

However, seeing that every tactic included a part for Mr. Zhang, and quite a bit at that... "Does the team want me to be able to play at any time?"

...

On September 28th, the day after the team’s gathering, team training commenced.

It mainly focused on tactical positioning training.

Zhang Hao felt the team definitely valued him; his importance in every tactic was significant, largely because of his good shooting ability.

Besides his shooting prowess, his athletic abilities were also considered, resulting in more complex training content than the previous 10 days.

As real team training began, his tendency to "hesitate" became evident.

Knowing too many positioning lines, sometimes faced with a formation, multiple positioning lines popped into his mind.