Chapter 926: Chapter 3 IOU
Gan Guoyang certainly didn’t really want to play until he was fifty years old; that was merely a joke Jack Ramsey often made with him.
Although he had a remarkably strong body, Gan Guoyang knew he was not immune to aging or pain.
He was simply free from major injuries, but minor injuries had never ceased since the first time he stepped onto the basketball court.
His hands were covered in calluses, wrapped in layers of tape, and his toes had become deformed from years of sprinting and abrupt stops.
Almost every muscle in his body had felt sore at some point—except for those on his face, as he wasn’t much of a talker.
Slight muscle pulls, bruises, and the pain in his elbows and fists after striking someone always accompanied him.
On the court, he was like an iron robot, but occasionally he would also feel fatigued, feel truly exhausted.
Especially after having a son, he often felt that time passed rapidly. His son could lift his head, his son could roll over, his son could talk, his son could walk...
With each milestone in his child’s growth, Gan Guoyang felt himself aging a little more. Time moved slowly but resolutely, more determined and unstoppable than anything else.
By 1991, Gan Guoyang had been in this world for exactly 10 years.
From 17 to 27 years old, there hadn’t been a single day he truly distanced himself from basketball. Was he satisfied?
He was both satisfied and unsatisfied. Satisfied with the accomplishments he had achieved, yet unsatisfied because he still hadn’t played enough basketball.
Would there ever be a day when he’d feel he had played enough? Maybe there would, maybe there wouldn’t.
If there was, that day would likely be the moment he retired.
If there wasn’t, Gan Guoyang would play until he was physically incapable of continuing.
But when would that day come? At 35 years old, or perhaps 40?
Gan Guoyang himself did not know. The goal he set for himself was to at least play until the 21st century.
That left 10 years ahead, and as for what things would look like by then, Gan Guoyang had some idea, but not much.
This world was still relentlessly forging ahead according to the memories he once held.
Soon after the finals concluded, the Yugoslav Wars broke out.
On June 25th, Croatia declared independence, and the conflict escalated from sporadic skirmishes into fierce battles, eventually culminating in full-blown war.
Under Gan Guoyang’s persuasion, Petrović and his family stayed in America. Over the ensuing months, Petrović was plagued by sleepless nights, constantly glued to the television to follow the developments of the war.
By September 22nd, the Yugoslav Federal Army had begun its assault on Croatia’s capital, Zagreb.
The fiercest fighting occurred in Slavonia, an area predominantly inhabited by ethnic Serbs near Serbia.
This region saw neighbors turn against each other instantaneously due to ethnic differences, armed households attacking one another.
Among these conflicts, the Battle of Vukovar erupted between Slavonia’s Vukovar and Vojvodina on the opposite bank of the Danube River. The urban warfare lasted 87 days, claiming nearly 3,000 lives.
Longstanding ethnic animosity fueled extreme brutality in the war; some areas devolved into ethnic massacres.
By the time the new season began, the flames of war were still spreading in Croatia and growing more intense, preventing Petrović from undergoing systematic training during the summer.
In August, he traveled to New York Times Square to join a group of sports stars of Croatian descent, raising their voices on behalf of their nation and ethnicity, hoping to draw international attention to this ethnic war.
But matters of war, ultimately, must be resolved on the battlefield.
In early November, Petrović performed poorly in several games, and his emotions seemed to be influencing him.
During June’s finals, Petrović had been the brightest star on the Trail Blazers roster aside from Ah Gan.
But by November, his touch had gone cold, far from resembling the "Microwave," prompting Beelman to criticize him, saying, "Did you spend your off-season in the southern hemisphere? Your hands must have frozen stiff!"
The Trail Blazers also experienced some turbulence in their record, as the third year was always the hardest for a team chasing a three-peat championship.
Unlike in 1988, the team didn’t encounter interpersonal issues internally. After all, Drexler was no longer part of the roster.
The locker room no longer had any troublemakers; even if there were, they had long been dealt with by Gan Guoyang.
The challenges lay with injuries. Sabonis, after playing two relatively healthy seasons, finally began to feel the wear and tear in his third year.
Due to knee effusion and ligament bruising, Sabonis missed all games in November and December, leaving the heavy responsibility of soloing the inside line back on Gan Guoyang’s shoulders.
However, Bobby Beelman was unwilling to let Gan Guoyang return to the 1987 style of endlessly pounding the low post for 40-plus minutes each game.
He kept Gan Guoyang’s playing time under 40 minutes and began to rely more heavily on Antonio Davis and Cliff Robinson.
Especially Cliff Robinson, whose versatility earned Beelman’s trust. He could shoot from the outside or bang in the paint, showcasing his all-around skills as a perfect utility player.
On the perimeter, with Petrović struggling, Reggie Lewis ascended as the Trail Blazers’ primary weapon on the outside.
After a championship season to acclimate, Lewis had fully adjusted to the Trail Blazers’ system and atmosphere.
Rick Adelman believed Lewis’s talent should no longer be suppressed, relegating him only to defending Jordan.
Lewis’s offensive workload grew heavier, and he began to show flashes of emerging as the second-most important player on the team—he had always possessed the ability.
Compared to the 1980s, the Trail Blazers had successfully transitioned from a "forward-centric team" to a "guard-and-center-based" 1990s lineup.
Gan Guoyang had transformed from a daring cavalryman charging into battle to a central commander orchestrating the fight from within the ranks.
