One Year Left to Play-Chapter 302 - 101: Returning to Los Angeles

Kupchak was thinking—absolutely must not let this kid have too much contact with the Magician, lest he pick up bad habits.

He wasn’t prejudiced against the Magician; in fact, he had a pretty good relationship with him. They had won a championship together, and he even made the winning shot.

On a personal level, he was happy to see the Magician healthy and making a comeback, but from a business perspective, he felt it was quite terrible for their Lakers.

...

Arriving in Los Angeles, having met Aprile Clark at the airport, Kupchak arranged for a car to take Aprile Clark back to the apartment.

There’s plenty of time to catch up, no rush for now.

After picking up Zhang Hao, Kupchak didn’t immediately take him to the arena for a look; instead, he sent Zhang Hao to the hotel Pelinka had booked and agreed on the reporting time for tomorrow.

After the Lakers played against the Grizzlies on the 30th, their record became 10 wins and 5 losses, ranking third in the West, an impressive start.

At this point, they suddenly dismantled two starters, one of whom was a tactical core, to trade for a high school student. Zhang Hao could imagine if his debut performance for the Lakers wasn’t good, what reaction the Lakers fans would have.

Luckily, the next game is on December 3rd, giving time to prepare.

Meet new teammates... New teammates might also be unhappy with him, this rookie...

After dinner, Zhang Hao, while Pelinka and Henry Thomas discussed ways to better cultivate commercial value, felt a headache coming on.

The attention of the two partners was all on coming to a big city and developing commercial value. This was understandable and made Henry Thomas seem professional, but the headache was something he had to figure out himself.

...

December 2nd, the second day of the last month of 1995, began.

In one day, Zhang Hao’s mood had calmed down.

It’s not that he’s cold-blooded or overly calm, but he just didn’t have that much time and had to be this way.

He even used a study mode last night, analyzing his play style well in the training room, and immediately got into the rhythm of joining a new team.

At 6:15, Zhang Hao opened his eyes on time, seeing 474 days of life remaining...

"Keep pushing, aim to quickly accumulate to 500 days of life, and maybe win a prize!

Even without Eddie Jones and Divac, with me joining this team, it’s surely stronger than the Brooklyn Nets, and the chances of winning have increased.

Let me see, playing against the Bulls on the 16th... forget it, take care of the present first, not sure if the Lakers players are easy to get along with.

What a hassle, took over two months to get familiar with the Brooklyn Nets teammates, developed a deep understanding, and now everything has to start over from scratch..."

Putting the team handbook given by Kupchak back on the bedside table, Zhang Hao got up and washed.

The climate in Los Angeles is much better than Jersey City; quite cold at night, but once it gets light, it warms up gradually. Zhang Hao really liked this climate.

In the restaurant, Zhang Hao picked up a newspaper and read it while having breakfast.

Reading the newspaper during breakfast has become a habit.

Holding a basketball newspaper, in the NCAA section, on December 1st, just yesterday afternoon, Duncan faced off against the Virginia Cavaliers, delivering a performance of 19 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, and 4 blocks, helping the Demon Deacons defeat the Cavaliers 72 to 67, raising the Demon Deacons’ record to 6 wins and 3 losses.

This was not important; what mattered was Zhang Hao scoured through this newspaper and then got another from a different agency. There was news about Duncan leading his team to victory, but not like before, where Duncan, just by playing a game, could easily overshadow even the NBA games.

It seemed, quite suddenly, the media’s hype about Duncan had diminished significantly.

Duncan was still immensely popular, still a subject of national discussion, but there was much less news that appeared to be artificially pushed if you think carefully.

What Zhang Hao didn’t know was that, earlier, much of the hype about Duncan didn’t start with mainstream media but was stirred up by some second and even third-tier media in major cities. Because Duncan was striking enough, those top media had to follow the trend, ultimately making Duncan a nationwide topic.

For the sake of hype, much like future endeavors for web traffic.

But a suspicion popped into Zhang Hao’s mind: "Is someone deliberately promoting Duncan? Who would be so idle... Duncan, this introverted guy, self-promoting? Impossible! As long as he entered the draft, he’d be the surefire number one pick, why bother..."

Unable to figure it out, but it didn’t matter. After breakfast, Zhang Hao pushed this thought aside.

In the newspaper, Zhang Hao also noticed something mentioning Mr. Zhang—a news piece about Anfernee Hardaway winning November’s Player of the Month, outranking Jordan, because Zhang Hao’s buzzer-beater turned Jordan’s 51 points into a mere background.

The hotel is not far from the Lakers’ training facility, the Time Warner Arena, and after breakfast, Zhang Hao walked to the arena.

Standing right in front of the arena’s main entrance, Zhang Hao’s memories drifted back to more than half a year ago, when he stood here with Pierce, listening to Pierce talk about his Lakers dream, how much he wanted to train here...

"Never thought it’d be me playing for this team."

No more time for Zhang Hao to linger in sentimentality, suddenly he saw a large group of people running towards him, scaring him into rushing inside the training arena.

The reporters hurriedly chased after him; they hadn’t expected Zhang Hao to arrive so early, hoping only to stake out favorable spots by coming early.