One Year Left to Play-Chapter 193 - 63: When Dreams Become Reality

At the first second of the next day, Zhang Hao entered learning mode again.

He directly went to the training room, this time, he was going to start simulating training for turnaround fadeaways.

With a thought, a 3D hologram of Jordan appeared beside him, slowly catching the ball and shooting with a turnaround.

Unlike the pure movement practice during the day, the training here not only involved practicing movements but also remembering the details of Jordan’s turnarounds.

Learning a new skill, especially one that will undoubtedly greatly benefit him, Zhang Hao always felt the time was too short.

Soon, 4 hours passed, and Zhang Hao "slept" again. When he woke up again, it was already 6:30 in the morning.

"Remaining lifespan: 232 days, usable lifespan: 231 days..."

After washing up and having breakfast, Zhang Hao arrived early at the Continental Airlines Arena. There was a game tonight, so the training volume wouldn’t be large. First, with the help of the trainer, he completed 200 catch-and-shoot turnaround fadeaways, still practicing the moves as per the "dream" training experience. Compared to the first day, the movements now looked noticeably more convincing.

Every 100 shots were a set. For the first 50 catch-and-shoot turnaround fadeaways in each set, he purely focused on practicing movements. For the latter 50, he started trying to set his aim during the catch-and-shoot turnaround fadeaways.

Having a solid mid-range shot foundation at a top-tier level brought quite a few benefits. Although he hadn’t started honing the details yet, when Zhang Hao tried to set his aim, he found that his accuracy wasn’t bad! The outcome of the first set of training was better than expected.

He believed that as he deepened learning the technical details of catch-and-shoot turnaround fadeaways, he could soon bring out his top-tier mid-range shooting skills with this move.

When Zhang Hao finished the second set of training, a notification came!

"Special contracted player Zhang Hao: Catch-and-shoot raised from 87 to 88..."

"Just as I thought!"

Zhang Hao had analyzed before that once catch-and-shoot reached a top-tier level, regular training improvements would be difficult. So, he was always looking for ways to expand his shooting methods, and now, it proved that his thinking was correct!

Fortune favors the cheerful, and Zhang Hao was in a good mood.

But one of the onlookers felt extremely conflicted.

Kenny Anderson left home very early today, and just as Zhang Hao was entering the arena doors, Kenny parked his car and headed to the training ground. He chose to watch Zhang Hao’s training first.

As a player close to top-tier level, with three-point, mid-range, and under-basket attack skills that were not weak, Kenny Anderson naturally also had a period of technical polishing. He naturally knew the difficulty of developing a new skill.

The process actually sounds simple: mimic, think, improve, and then rely on actual combat to further solidify. But it usually takes a long time, and the most troublesome part is from mimicking to having a certain combat foundation, which usually takes the longest. Whether you have the talent and if you are hardworking plays a part.

In terms of shooting, Kenny Anderson knew from the first time he met Zhang Hao that Zhang Hao was talented, but this talent was too good, wasn’t it!

In just a few days, Zhang Hao’s catch-and-shoot turnaround fadeaways were already taking shape!

Kenny Anderson couldn’t help but approach after Zhang Hao finished the second set of catch-and-shoot turnaround fadeaways to ask, "Aix, how exactly do you train? How did you learn so quickly?"

Some things are hard to explain clearly, Zhang Hao thought for a moment, then said to Kenny Anderson, "Just like this, watch it once, and then as I keep practicing, I learn it."

"..."

Kenny Anderson is asking online: "The team has a genius rookie, still my little brother, and I’m the team leader. I want to beat this little brother; how can I do it without affecting this genius rookie from being my assistant?"

...

That evening, in the game between the Brooklyn Nets and the Magic, Kenny Anderson played exceptionally hard.

His all-out effort made the players on the Magic side suspect someone on their team had done something unspeakable to provoke this top point guard last night.

Without Anfernee Hardaway and O’Neal, the Magic’s overall strength indeed couldn’t be considered a strong team. Brian Shaw, Nick Anderson, Dennis Scott, Horace Grant, Joe Wolf, the Magic’s starting five tonight, were all quite outstanding starters or quality role players. With Anfernee Hardaway leading, they were definitely playoff-level, and with O’Neal, they were championship-level. But without these two, the Magic were far inferior to the Brooklyn Nets, who had Kenny Anderson and Almon Gilliam.

By the latter part of the third quarter, the Magic players’ desire to win had already faded. To them, it was just a preseason game.

In the end, the Brooklyn Nets defeated the Magic 103 to 87.

The Magic players didn’t mind the win or loss, but the Brooklyn Nets players were all quite happy... the players who got the chance to play were happy, those with guaranteed contracts and didn’t play accepted their fate, but the players without guaranteed contracts felt very uneasy because yesterday, all the training camp contract players had already left the team.

Kenny Anderson played 26 minutes tonight, scored 20 points with 8 assists, and Chales played 22 minutes, scoring 4 points with 7 assists, organizing the team’s offense very well.

Chales has always been working very hard, regardless of how much playing time he gets, trying to seize the opportunity to stay in the NBA, and the coaching staff always sees this effort. So even during a rebuild, they retained Chales instead of trading him for draft picks.

But the recent changes in Kenny Anderson indeed delighted Butch Baird and Randy Whitman.

They wanted to develop Zhang Hao. The basic condition was having good passers on the team, otherwise, they just had to forcefully develop him.