Chapter Ninety-Two: Unfathomable on the Foundation

“Hold it, hold it.”

Inside the training base in Urumqi, Wang Lei called a halt to the team’s ongoing scrimmage. The mixed lineup of starters and reserves had been split into two sides for a full-contact contest, and the losers would naturally be punished with a string of merciless chores, from scrubbing the arena floors to cleaning the toilets.

Wang Lei had insisted on training like this since the team was first formed. To a certain extent, it greatly improved their cohesion, because the players knew one another extremely well and understood each other’s strengths and habits. Wang Lei also often analyzed his players’ teammates for them, pointing out their customs and traits.

On top of that, the seriousness demanded in this kind of training also helped improve the players’ physical conditioning.

Basketball in the Republic had developed quite well, but it still had its own shortcomings. Because the prevailing style favored the interior game, most teams paid relatively more attention in training to half-court tactics and individual skill development. It was still uncommon for someone like Wang Lei to have players learn the game and hone their skills through direct opposition, and even players on national teams rarely reached the level of seriousness Wang Lei’s men showed in training.

What was even more unusual was that Wang Lei had both sides put eight players on the court in practice games, while also requiring that each possession last only fifteen seconds and that every one of the eight players must touch the ball at least once.

Wang Lei only set the demands; how to solve them was left entirely to the players themselves. The reason he had recruited so many young coaches was largely to have people supervising. As long as no foul was committed, he approved of any method.

What seemed at first glance to be a wildly unreasonable training method actually greatly increased the players’ initiative and their ability to adapt on the court.

After stopping the scrimmage, Wang Lei called the players together.

“How do you think you played just now? Did anything feel uncomfortable?”

Wang Lei rarely pointed out the players’ shortcomings directly. More often, he would ask questions to prompt them and let them discover their own flaws.

“Pretty good. Everyone was running fast, every possession was exciting, and I felt great.”

Hawu’er was the first to speak, still as straightforward as ever. He really did feel good playing. Though he was constantly running end to end, it had, to some extent, increased his rebounds. He had no other thoughts in mind; he only wanted to grab more boards.

This fellow, originally brought in just to make up the numbers, loved basketball very much, but in the past he had received mostly ridicule and discrimination from it. Strong and broad-shouldered, Hawu’er had even been called a shot-putter by many school-team players, not a basketball player.

But since coming to the provincial youth team, Wang Lei had unlocked his rebounding ability, and Hawu’er had found his confidence in that area. Every rebound became, to him, a badge of honor.

“Coach, I think we played too fast. That makes it hard to keep turnovers low,” Cai Aihong said, giving his own opinion. He felt the team should play a bit more steadily. Though he had a rather impatient temperament, he was relatively calm when it came to actual games.

“I think turnovers aren’t really the issue. Speed is our usual style, but keeping that kind of high-speed operation going all the time does feel a little uncomfortable. Maybe we should slow it down a bit,” said the captain, Wang Chaohui. He was balanced in almost every respect, but when it came to basketball intelligence he was outstanding. He had a strong sense of the big picture; otherwise Wang Lei would not have had him play point forward in the previous game.

“Fast—that’s what I want from you. But I hope you also understand that fast and slow are only relative states. Compared with me, a cripple, you run much faster, but if you compare yourselves to professional sprinters, then you’re no match at all. And I never intended to train a group of sprinters, haha.”

Wang Lei’s words drew laughter from everyone, though they still hadn’t fully grasped what he meant.

“What I mean by fast is more about quick thinking and quick basketball awareness—fast reactions, fast adjustments, even the ability to slow down quickly.”

“In the end, basketball is about who scores more. Limiting the opponent’s scoring is one side of it; scoring yourself is the other. If you can make accurate judgments faster, make open passes faster, and realize faster what your teammates’ movements are trying to achieve, then I dare say this year’s final championship will definitely be ours.”

“So right now, blindly pursuing speed in the physical sense is indeed a bit misguided. You are faster, yes, but compared with top-tier players, that means nothing. A top-class inside player alone can drive our tactics into a dead end. I’m not afraid of being laughed at. My aim is not merely to play in the youth competition at the National Games. I also hope you’ll set your sights higher. Don’t be afraid. You are all excellent.”

Call it brainwashing, call it incitement—either way, the idea Wang Lei kept instilling in this group of young people was confidence, confidence, and still more confidence.

“Turgon, you’re the team’s first point guard. I want you to take on more responsibility and control the team’s tempo. You don’t have much experience, but your reaction speed is the fastest, so you need to read the game as much as possible, read the opponent and your teammates, and then decide whether you should play fast or slow.”

Though Wang Lei kept saying the players were all very good, in his heart the one he valued most was Turgon. This was not favoritism. The talent was simply there. Turgon was only sixteen, yet he already had such an outstanding feel for the game—an ability some veteran players still did not possess. As for the others, it had to be said that talented players did exist among them, such as Cai Aihong and Hawu’er, but they had met Wang Lei too late. If they had come to him three or four years earlier, Wang Lei was confident he could have trained these young men into first-rate stars.

“No team’s tactics in a game are set in stone, and every change on the court is also a matter of the players’ own initiative. The tactical trend in basketball today is to let players exercise that initiative within a limited framework as much as possible. After all, five people can’t all think exactly alike, so you choose the person closest to the basket to determine the team’s approach. We’re different. What we need to do is make ourselves impossible to predict from the foundations up. Everyone assumes five people can’t have one mind, but I believe it can be done. In fact, it can even be done so that each of the five players becomes a tactical core, each capable of forming a style centered on himself. But to achieve that, what I just said is essential: your thinking must be fast, and your reactions must be fast.”