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Chapter 688 - 290. The Little Emperor Starts to Strive Again

Chapter 688: 290. The Little Emperor Starts to Strive Again

This was the fifth time this season scoring 40+, just the day before yesterday, playing against the Supersonics, his average score had dropped to 30.8, but today it surged back up to 31.4. Zhang Yang felt pretty great about it.

After the game, back in the locker room, Modu Sports requested a post-game interview, and only then did Zhang Yang realize that the game was additionally broadcast back home. He regretted it.

Although Five Star Sports didn’t have the viewership of the government-owned stations, Beijing Sports in the northern region, and Guangdong Sports with a massive audience in the Guangdong area and at least qualifying as a satellite channel... There he was, Zhang San, yelling and screaming with his teammates in front of the live cameras after the game, completely ruining his image!

That piece of background music started playing in Zhang Yang’s head...

Luckily, Modu Sports had the lowest ratings among the national sports channels, and they didn’t even seem to care much about the NBA; they hadn’t arranged any interviews at courtside, which made Zhang Yang feel slightly better.

After completing the locker room interviews and moving on to physical therapy and icing, Zhang Yang and Felton routinely gathered around the computer to check the news.

Just like the past two or three weeks, they made headlines after every game.

The streak started with defeating the Suns to match the team’s record of eight consecutive victories.

Although their winning streak had been halted at 13 games last month, their popularity hadn’t waned; the media loved to hype them up, and their record remained impressive enough to catch the massive flow of public attention.

The hottest topic tonight was again stirred up by the Royal Media—The Bobcats had surpassed the Mavericks’ 15-2 start in the 02-03 season, becoming the best starting team in the NBA since the turn of the century.

Another "conditional record", limiting the losses to just one, and time-stamped after the year 2000.

Zhang Yang saw in the news comments there’s a piece of trivia; the Mavericks had finished the 02-03 season with a 60-22 record, tied with the Spurs for the top spot in the regular season, but since they lost the head-to-head and were not the division leaders, they ended up third in the West.

Not limiting to the 21st century, but spanning back to the modern basketball era after 1976, the Bobcats’ start ranked fourth. The SuperSonics started the 82-83 season 18-2 but finished 48-34; the Chicago Bulls started the 96-97 season 18-2, ending up 69-13; the Rockets began the 93-94 season 22-2, finally posting a 58-24 record.

Records before 1976 were unclear, as the NBA’s early data wasn’t comprehensive. For example, turnovers were not recorded before 1976, and blocks and steals weren’t thoroughly tracked until after 1973. As for records, only victories were counted before 1969, like the Lakers’ 33-game winning streak which wasn’t initially recorded by the NBA but was documented in newspapers and magazines. Only after detailed records began in 1976 were they included in the official records.

Felton wondered, "ESPN is praising us again, strange, why have they been keeping such close tabs on us lately? Even though we have high traffic, aren’t they supposed to help King James benefit from our popularity as they used to? Now they’re actually leading the praise for us! Have they given up on King James?"

Zhang Yang, keyboard in hand, searched the news: "I saw a piece of news a few days ago, James had hired Worthy as his personal coach... Found it."

Felton: "Is he planning to strive again? I remember after we beat the Cavaliers during our rookie season, the media criticized his shooting, and he also sought a top shooting coach to practice threes. He was pretty good at threes when we first faced him last season, but the second time we met, his threes were off again. It seemed like he was just putting on a show to address media criticisms... I don’t know if he genuinely wants to improve his skills now or is just making a show again to draw media attention."

Zhang Yang: "I hope he’s not just putting on a show. If he could really improve his shooting, his skills, that would be great."

Felton: "Huh? Jack, he’s your strongest competitor of your era! You want him to get stronger?"

Zhang Yang: "Isn’t it good? The stronger he gets, the more satisfying it is to beat him, right? It’s not even interesting playing against him as he is now."

Felton muttered, "It’s not you who’s guarding him..."

Zhang Yang: "What did you say, boss?"

Felton: "Nothing, you’re right, the stronger he is, the more interesting it is to defeat him!"

Zhang Yang nodded in satisfaction.

Felton: Oh no, how do I handle it, this little brother is getting too dominant?

As Zhang Yang was about to close the webpage, he took a second look at the comments under the news ’James hires Worthy as coach’... James’s small but vocal fanbase is really interesting.

Previously adamant in denying James was lacking in skills, defending with stats, claiming James had good threes, a mid-range game, exceptional footwork, they even scoured through all of James’ games during his four-year rookie contract to compile a highlight reel of a few post-up scores... After hiring Worthy as a coach, they shifted to praising James for his love for learning and actively working to overcome his technical shortcomings, isn’t this indirectly admitting that James’s skills were lacking?

...

The next afternoon, Zhang Yang traveled with the team to Salt Lake City for the third stop of the five-game road trip, where the coaching staff didn’t schedule any practice in the afternoon, but Tellem found a private court for Zhang Yang to train on.

He had progressed more than two-thirds of the way through gathering 120,000 shooting value; less than 40,000 was left. The sooner he accumulated it, the sooner he could improve his shooting talent.

He wanted to practice more on his mid-range; his three-pointer had gone from 85 to 86, but his mid-range was still stuck at 88. He needed to step it up.

However, the difference in the rate of improvement between his three-pointer and mid-range illustrated just how much tougher it was to develop the latter, and it was only a matter of time before the three-pointer surpassed the mid-range.