120: 88.
The Rookie Season is Here 120: 88.
The Rookie Season is Here Mid-September marked the beginning of the team’s joint training sessions under Bickerstaff’s leadership.
Each strong team in the NBA has its own strengths: the Spurs are known for stability, the Mavericks for their wealth, the Suns for their flamboyance, and the Miami Heat for their ruthlessness…
and the weaker teams, well, they each have their own unique kind of weakness.
The Bobcats, for example, were weak in a very distinctive way, with the team resembling a motley crew.
In this small team of 14 players, there were actually four separate cliques!
So players got along well with Brevin Wright, mainly those who ran with him during the last season to pad their stats.
These guys were always laughing and joking, hardly distinguishable from the hustlers hanging out on the streets of East Charlotte.
Several ambitious players—Brezec, Karim Rush, and the newcor Jumaine Jones—gravitated toward Gerald Wallace, who was passionate even in training.
Wallace may not have loved the ga, but his enthusiasm matched any other player’s.
He led his few followers, striving to improve themselves.
Then there was a trio of rookies.
Felton was the leader of this small group.
Influenced greatly by Zhang Yang, whom he t early in his professional life, Felton deeply despised Brevin Knight and his crowd.
He knew that the Bobcats had drafted him to replace Knight; it was only a matter of ti before Knight would be traded away or discarded.
Like Zhang Yang, Felton disregarded Knight’s provocations with contempt, but unlike Zhang Yang, who would insult subtly, Felton would retort with direct insults since he believed Knight wouldn’t understand subtleties…
mainly because he himself wasn’t good at them.
Also influenced by Zhang Yang, Felton was drawn to Wallace’s fiery enthusiasm, shifting his focus from Okafor to his teammate.
But he didn’t choose to join them—he was determined to be the top dog himself!
Felton competed with Wallace in training, learning techniques, and even when eating, to see who could eat more.
Wallace was a competitive guy.
He would give way to the 17-year-old Zhang Yang, but when it ca to the provocations of Felton, only two years his junior, he had to outdo him in every respect.
Felton may not have had much else to say, but his ambition to be the leader was incredibly strong, and the two of them clashed fiercely.
The last ‘team’ was just Okafor, who kept to himself, forming his own clique…
If you go by how much they ate, he alone could match the entire group of rookies.
Why didn’t Wallace and Felton think of competing with Okafor?
Okafor was stronger than the two of them, his attitude in training was no less, and when it ca to food, he ate more than the both of them combined…
As for Zhang Yang, he trained when it was ti to train, read when it was ti to read, and stayed out of conflicts…
mainly because no one took him seriously.
Having his own ‘boss’ had its benefits.
With Felton coming from a championship team in North Carolina and carrying the deanor of soone who expected to lead in the NBA, teammates naturally treated Zhang Yang as Felton’s bag-carrying junior, sparing him from nial tasks.
Other ‘bosses’ had their own designated bag carriers: Brevin Knight’s was Matt Carroll, a sieve of a shooter who was adept at catch-and-shoot, undrafted in ’03; Wallace’s was Karim Rush, a left-handed 3D player passionate about defense and capable of shooting, a first-round pick in ’02 with finals experience.
Most Bobcats players had been at the bottom of the roster on other teams and understood just how cutthroat the NBA could be.
They knew what it ant for a newly established team to have a 5th overall pick, a 17-year-old high school lottery pick—any conflict would surely not result in the rookies leaving.
In addition, Zhang Yang knew his place.
He mainly challenged Felton and Anderson one-on-one, occasionally Gerald Wallace or Karim Rush for a tougher test, always politely asking for advice; his teammates saw him as a polite, studious 17-year-old kid…
Felton once asked why only he had to endure the sa treatnt as Jordan, and not even Anderson was subjected to it.
Zhang Yang answered, “Because you’re strong!
And you’re not going to beat up over it, but what if the others wanted to?
I’m afraid I might accidentally kill them.
Plus, you’re my big brother!”
Felton thought there was sothing off about that response, but hearing “big brother” cleared away any doubts.
As for Zhang Yang’s fighting ability, Felton had just asked casually at the beginning, only to find out that his little brother indeed knew kung fu.
Earlier in the month, he accompanied Zhang Yang back to school to pick up textbooks.
Zhang Yang said that he’d already completed three years of university, and he might as well get his degree to not waste the effort he put into not failing his courses over the last three years, which Felton found reasonable.
When they were back at school, Felton watched Zhang Yang join the University of North Carolina’s Jeet Kune Do club and witnessed Zhang Yang subdue and pound several senior mbers who had won state competitions into acknowledging defeat.
That was when Felton learned that Zhang Yang had been the captain of his high school club at 14.
Now, Zhang Yang had grown over a dozen centiters taller since the 9th grade and bulked up from 75 kilograms to nearly 90 kilograms, mastering the techniques of Jeet Kune Do and possessing much more strength than others his age with a similar build…
He was indeed a worthy little brother!
After more than two months with the team, Zhang Yang had perfected “Big Bird’s” post-up Zhang San moves.
Post-up turnaround jump shots, fadeaway shots, post-up step-back jumpers, post-up turnaround drives…
His high-post back-to-basket skills were comprehensive, and it was ti to enhance his training and test his abilities in actual gas.
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