One Year Left to Play-Chapter 140 - 44: We Really Are Bottom-Feeders

There are many options that arise, often better than the ones in the team’s strategy.

But once he runs according to his own ideas, even if it’s just the team running a play, it becomes a mess.

Because his teammates can’t adjust accordingly!

After two days of training, Zhang Hao found himself getting more and more confused...

The most incredible thing for Zhang Hao was that despite the chaos in his training, he didn’t feel out of place compared to the whole team.

His teammates seemed like they were also just getting familiar with the strategy!

But the good thing about his teammates was that they didn’t think too much, making visible progress, while for him, it remained chaotic despite training...

On October 1st, Media Day, there was no training scheduled. Zhang Hao had nothing else to do. Having just arrived here, there’s nothing fun to do locally. Teammates living in Jersey City, which is over an hour’s drive away, had things to do, but he didn’t. He still arrived at the gym early.

Originally, for the Brooklyn Nets, Media Day was nothing special; even when Coleman was around, they didn’t get much media attention.

But this time was different. A lot of media from Asia applied to attend Media Day. The management of the Brooklyn Nets was flattered, and when Zhang Hao arrived at the gym, the staff was busy awkwardly.

To know, even if they played in the playoffs, if their opponent wasn’t a popular team, the interview room would be empty after the games, how tragic. Today, for them, felt like seeing a ghost.

Zhang Hao had two exclusive interviews today, but since being drafted, he’s had quite a few exclusive interviews. With so many interviews, he got used to it, and continued training after joining the team. Today, there was no joint practice, so he found Vaughn Fleming to teach him the details of catch-and-shoot practice.

After finishing the catch-and-shoot practice, Zhang Hao expressed to Vaughn Fleming the confusion he had in his training over the past three days.

Over the past three days, he had been analyzing the problem—what exactly should he do?

Vaughn Fleming couldn’t teach Zhang Hao other things, but on this, he had experience!

Having played for so many years, he had many good teammates, had played in strong lineups, but also had times when teammates weren’t great.

With a lot of experiences comes experience!

Vaughn Fleming responded, "I think you don’t need to think too much about it. Don’t worry about how much you know about positioning. Even if you might... No, you will certainly think of better tactics than those in the Tactical Manual issued by the coaching staff, but do you think the coaching staff really doesn’t know how to improve the strategies? Yet, do you think we are suitable for more complex tactics?

We haven’t even played a game yet; knowing better tactics is useless. We don’t know how to adjust the details because our lineup is not strong enough, which you should have noticed. Apart from Kenny and Chris, no one is better than you.

Therefore, we certainly won’t practice complex strategies for now. We need to practice strategies tailored to each player’s characteristics to maximize our current roster. This is the best fit for us, and we need more training and games to gather experience and make adjustments.

You should have confidence that the things you know will eventually be useful; it just might not be the right time yet.

It’s like when I watched movies as a kid, I can now use all those stances."

Hearing this, Zhang Hao suddenly realized... mostly because of the last sentence.

He already knew these things, but hadn’t connected them. This is the difference in experience!

His teammates simply cannot embrace more complex strategies or possess better on-the-fly decision-making abilities.

He now understood what Randy Whitman had told him before.

He had better awareness personally, but the team didn’t give him the opportunity to showcase it.

Understanding this, Zhang Hao made sure of one thing: what he needs to practice is the tactics in the team’s tactical manual.

He realized what he needs to do now is to practice hard, forcibly ignore his own ideas, and first memorize the team’s tactical routes flawlessly. After all, he is playing in this team, not here to "correct" anything.

Once the goal is clear, it’s actually much easier to handle.

At this time, Zhang Hao also noticed the benefit of his extensive positioning route library. For what he needs to do in the team’s tactics, he can understand almost everything merely by looking at it; he knows what to do. Previously, he just couldn’t help but "nitpick."

But he quickly and genuinely understands the off-ball shooter’s positioning routes in team tactics. Now, what he needs to overcome is his instinctive "nitpicking" thoughts.

After some comprehensive analysis, Zhang Hao felt that he might not be any slower at learning tactics than other high schoolers entering the league. He also has his advantages, knowing more. At first glance, it seemed to bring him a lot of trouble in practical learning, but as long as he starts learning and practicing smoothly, gradually, his advantages in this area will become greater!

It’s just a lack of practical experience. As his practical experience increases and his ability to make choices gets stronger, this advantage will be revealed.

Having determined the direction, Zhang Hao practiced two more sets of catch-and-shoot drills. This kind of thing, aside from developing new shooting methods, can only be perfected through hard practice; practice makes perfect.

He trained until past nine in the morning when his teammates were all present, and some reporters had already started filming. As for the media filming, Zhang Hao was too familiar with them, Imperial Sports Channel...

But this time, it was not a joint effort of Imperial Channel and Xinhuanet, but Imperial Channel sent a team, several cameramen and reporters, to interview not only Zhang Hao. In fact, there wasn’t much left to interview Zhang Hao about; he had been asked too much in the summer. Since arriving in Rutherford Town for half a month, he had had two interviews, mainly interviewing Zhang Hao’s teammates.

Players who had been with the Brooklyn Nets for a few years were experiencing such a scene for the first time, very excited, but the questions asked didn’t sit well with some players, because they almost all revolved around Zhang Hao.

Talking about topics related to Zhang Hao was quite challenging indeed, because even the longest interaction was just half a month, and some had only known him for two or three days.

These days, the Chinese market doesn’t carry any concept in the minds of NBA players, unlike a decade from this timeline when agents would require players to memorize standard answers for interviews with Chinese journalists.

Faced with this situation, Brooklyn Nets players who were on good terms with Zhang Hao would praise his talent and effort.

During this period, regarding his persona, Zhang Hao had established a solid image.