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Chapter 301 - 148. The preseason should involve more throwing.

Chapter 301: 148. The preseason should involve more throwing.

Other four veteran teammates, Perkins, a beefy high school Center shaping up in the league for his 4th year, just turned 22 in November. Judging from the tests whether he improved or not, even a dog would shake its head in disbelief.

Zhang Yang didn’t shake his head, he complimented, "3K, you seem even stronger."

A smile broke through Perkins’ woeful expression as he flexed his biceps toward Zhang Yang to prove the latter wasn’t wrong.

This summer, he managed to reduce his body fat percentage a bit, yet his weight remained unchanged, slightly over 120 kilograms. No noticeable progress could be seen in his mobility, but his stamina was definitely better.

3K is Perkins’s nickname, with two meanings; one is that Perkins’s name contains three Ks, and the other is that 3K itself refers to someone who does dirty, dangerous, and demanding jobs.

Jumaine Jones and Matt Carroll, sharpshooters who were already accurate from the three, showed no obvious improvement. However, the lack of decline meant that they hadn’t been playing around all summer—they must have at least maintained their foundational training or practiced seriously before joining the team.

Alan Anderson, having displayed a decent three-point shot and defense at the end of last season and in the playoffs, secured a 2-year, 1.84 million US dollar fully guaranteed contract right after getting knocked out of the playoffs. Even after taxes, he was left with around a million dollars, and although he was still at the bottom of the NBA, he had found a steady foothold.

Compared to the other two backup shooters, Alan Anderson’s improvement in three-point shooting was more noticeable because he had much more to improve on. Even with obvious progress, he wasn’t as accurate as those two.

However, at the young age of 24, he had more potential than Matt Carroll, who was 26, and Jumaine Jones, who was 28.

In addition to his three-point shooting, Alan Anderson also bulked up a bit, jumping from around 95 kilograms last season to about 100 kilograms. With his decent athleticism, he might be asked to defend multiple positions in the new season, and the weight gain was surely aimed for that purpose.

For the new teammates, Zhang Yang, after seeing the tests, found it difficult to judge their performance for the upcoming season without a point of reference.

Take Herrmann, for instance. He shot impressively during practice, but without actual game experience, who could say how he’d perform under real game pressure.

He was able to judge the improvement of Felton, Okafor, and Gerald Wallace because he had watched their training countless times, played many games together, and could reasonably guess how their practice performance would translate into game scenarios.

However, in conversations with the coaching staff, Zhang Yang learned that the coaches were quite satisfied with the athletic condition of the veteran players, Derek Anderson, and Othella Harrington.

Bickerstaff told Zhang Yang this, "If Alan, Rajon, Jumaine, and Paul don’t play well, there’s a good chance they’ll be replaced by Derek and Othella."

Zhang Yang understood Bickerstaff’s intent; he wanted to create a sense of urgency among the shooters and rookies through Zhang Yang.

Currently, the team had 14 players, and the active roster included 12, which meant two would have to suit up.

Used as a tool, what could he, the youngest and most helpless player in the entire league, possibly do? His only option was to seek out the lead of the Big Brother Group.

That afternoon, Felton, the leader of the Big Brother Group, urged his four teammates to step it up, mentioning that the two veterans were in good shape and that the coaching staff considered including them in the active roster. He wanted the four to work harder so they wouldn’t lose their spots to "outsiders."

Rondo and Millsap were rookies picked by the team, while Alan Anderson and Jumaine Jones were old teammates—both considered part of the in-group. The two veterans, having come from other teams, were still "outsiders" in Felton’s view.

Felton wasn’t completely naive; he knew that the two veterans, with a decade of experience, were unlikely ever to become his subordinates.

Not to mention those two, even Perkins, who entered the league in ’03, had started hanging out with Gerald Wallace from the ’01 draft class.

...

On the 28th, the team moved into the individual training phase.

The coaching staff assigned different training tasks to each player based on their test performances.

Shooting was led by Ingles.

Techniques were overseen by Randy Brown.

Zhang Yang’s primary focus was on three-pointers and attacking the basket. With about a month until the season opener on the 30th, after resting for over ten days, he resumed his efforts to reach 75+ in three-pointers and break 90 in layups.

Ingles was helping Zhang Yang with his three-pointers, while Randy Brown assisted with his layups.

Randy Brown was a mediocre player at best. Although a key substitute during the Bulls’ second dynasty, he averaged about 15 minutes per game over those three years, with a career-best season averaging 8+3+3—purely a role player.

His basketball skills were average, but he had wide exposure, was excellent at observing technical details, and had a wealth of experience in winning games, knowing the right choices to make on the court.

Though they had been working together for a year, Zhang Yang hadn’t known or been particularly interested in Randy Brown before. However, his childhood friend Tyson Roy told him something that piqued Zhang Yang’s curiosity about this assistant coach.

Randy Brown might not have been great on the court, but he was successful in fathering a child. At 38, his son was already 19... which meant he had him just as he entered college.

His son, Justin Brown, was a top-ranked high school athletic prodigy. He graduated this summer, ranked 46th among high school basketball players nationwide, 97th in baseball, and 40th in football, attracting multiple universities that offered him scholarships for all three sports.

Eventually, Justin Brown gave up continuing to play basketball and joined the Trojan Football Team at the University of Southern California, where Tyson Roy was.

During his rest period, out of idle curiosity, Zhang Yang did some research and found that this assistant coach was also a major shareholder of a small real estate firm...