The eyes of the two die-hard Lakers fans suddenly became incredibly intense, nodding at Zhang Hao like pecking chickens.

Zhang Hao also nodded, stood up, and prepared to continue training.

Pierce nearly spat out a mouthful of old blood—such happy news, and no more to say about it? Thinking of that, he got even more frustrated. This friend has no idea how many times he’s been on the Lakers’ chartered flight!

Jealousy! Envy! Resentment!

Seeing Zhang Hao about to train again, Pierce recalled Zhang Hao’s post-up move earlier and said, "Aix, your post-up needs some work!"

Zhang Hao stopped in his tracks: "Tell me what you saw."

Zhang Hao had no doubt Pierce genuinely spotted an issue. Because Pierce’s post-up technique was comprehensive, although Mr. Zhang was stronger now, Pierce had more technical skills.

"Beg me, beg me and I’ll tell you... Hey, don’t leave! Cough, cough, it’s about the timing of your spin during the post-up. Earlier, when you posted me up, you clearly created an opportunity to spin and cut in, but you chose a more troublesome spin to step back and break through..."

Pierce came to the court, explaining while mimicking the moves similar to Zhang Hao during their one-on-one earlier...

After demonstrating, seeing Zhang Hao’s enlightened expression, Pierce curiously asked, "This is basic for post-up! How come you don’t seem to know it?"

Zhang Hao shrugged: "I only learned the post-up turnaround fadeaway."

It’s true, when learning the turnaround fadeaway in learning mode, there were lessons on using the post-up threat to create spin opportunities, but not the spin techniques or insertion methods... etc.

He had a lot to learn, and if it wasn’t directly learnable, he would set it aside and first learn what he could master more quickly in learning mode.

Pierce was speechless: "That’s really weird! You learned the challenging turnaround fadeaway but not the basic post-up spin... Do you want me to teach you?"

Zhang Hao noticed the expression change on Pierce, a bit annoying, but still nodded: "Please teach me."

"Beg me... hey, hey... I’ll teach! Don’t leave! Can’t you let me feel a bit accomplished?"

"The person who usually teaches me is James Worthy."

"..." Pierce felt a heartache: "Aix, I challenge you to a duel!"

...

...

"Special Contract Player: Zhang Hao.

Age/Birthdate: 18 years old/January 7, 1977.

Height: 208 cm, Wingspan: 220 cm

Weight: 98 kg.

Position: Forward

Current Team: Los Angeles Lakers.

Ability Evaluation: 74

Physical Attributes: Speed 90, Strength 90 (Explosiveness 84), Jump 94, Agility 95, Stamina 92...

Shooting: Three-point shot 65 (80 from the top arc, 63 from other positions), Mid-range shot 91, Layup 90...

Skills: Dribbling 63, Passing 68, Catch-and-shoot 91, Catch and turnaround fadeaway 67, Post-up turnaround fadeaway 65..."

On January 3rd, learned post-up spin-in techniques from Pierce in the morning and practiced passing and shooting in the afternoon.

On January 4th, continued learning defensive footwork with James Worthy and Magician in the morning, and conducted pre-game training with the team in the afternoon for the upcoming game against the Heat.

On the morning of January 5th, the day of the home game against the Heat, Zhang Hao practiced post-up turnaround fadeaway and post-up spin-in. While practicing, the post-up turnaround fadeaway broke through 65, and with the layup finally improving to 90, the system notification came! Ability evaluation improved to 74!

"Another small bottleneck... why did I grow taller again, no... I must stay 206 cm tall! No more growing! Gained a kilogram in weight this month... luckily, it hasn’t yet affected my speed and agility, must be because the weight and height increase hasn’t reached the point of affecting speed and agility..."

With a gradual improvement, Zhang Hao wasn’t too excited about reaching the small bottleneck of 74 ability evaluation.

"My ability evaluation doesn’t consider defense; the subjective consciousness is critical, the ability evaluation only includes skills, physical attributes, shooting, and with my positional knowledge, etc., compared to other similar players, my strength should exceed an 80 ability evaluation... My playstyle should have a stronger influence in suitable environments than a player with an 80 ability evaluation as a core style!"

"But still not enough, I need to be patient in training and learning, and come playoff time, if we play a series against a team like the Utah Jazz, our Lakers almost have no chance of winning, adding O’Neal wouldn’t even guarantee victory, I need to get stronger... luckily, I’m still young..."

Seeing 595 days of life remaining, Zhang Hao got more confident in living longer, not as anxious as when the regular season started with only over 200 days left.

Staying true to oneself! Aim to live until death by old age!

...

"Jason, let’s try again..." 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"I won’t!"

"Come on, I promise I won’t use too much force this time."

"No way! I absolutely refuse!"

Jason Williams decisively rejected Zhang Hao’s request to practice confrontation.

This guy, after going against Malone, suddenly fell in love with the iron-elbow style!

Jason Williams had no objections to Zhang Hao wanting to develop an iron-elbow offense, since it didn’t concern him, he’s just a rebounder, only a rebounder,

But Zhang Hao wanted to train with him!

Recalling getting smacked in the chest by Zhang Hao’s elbow yesterday took a while to recover from, Jason Williams felt hopeless—alright, I don’t need those 500 bucks... well, actually, I do!

Jason Williams could avoid it, but the Magician couldn’t "avoid".

Logo Man spent a fortune bringing back a talent, a true talent, the future superstar of their team—that’s how the Magician assessed Zhang Hao’s talent.

But this genius who was supposed to succeed him in his mind was nothing like him!

Instead, he was more like his lifelong rival Larry Bird and the player he currently disliked the most, Malone!