The day after the game against the Spurs, Zhang Yang returned to Charlotte with the team at noon.
He heard that Los Angeles media had praised him, so as soon as he got home, he immediately went to his study to check the news... After reading, he felt a bit odd.
The accompanying image in this "Shooting Value" report was indeed of him, Zhang San, without a doubt.
The content also praised his shooting talent, saying that players with good shooting value have an easier time against the Texas Big Three.
But the examples cited mostly revolved around that iron smith from Los Angeles! Were they riding on his, Zhang San’s, popularity?
Was this a distortion of human nature or a decline in morality?
You should know that last season it was all the media from the Carolina region hyping up Iverson, Kobe, James, and Duncan to praise him, to praise Okafor.
Now it’s the other way around.
Zhang Yang thought about it and opened up the NBA official website to check the standings... Sure enough, the Lakers had a rough start.
To say it was rough was an understatement, it should be said that it couldn’t get any worse. A three-loss streak to start the season, ranking last in the league, the Lakers were the only team that had played three games without a win.
Zhang Yang glanced through the Lakers’ game reports.
In the opening game against the Suns, Kobe went 7 for 13, scoring 20 points with 6 rebounds and 10 assists, but the Lakers lost 101 to 117.
In their second game against the Chicago Bulls, Kobe went 8 for 15, scoring 19 points with 7 rebounds and 9 assists, but the Lakers lost 97 to 104.
In the third game against the Timberwolves, Kobe went 5 for 9, scoring 16 points with 8 rebounds and 12 assists, but the Lakers lost 95 to 104.
Zhang Yang had a head full of question marks. What was the iron smith brother doing?
These shooting percentages, these assist numbers, were excessively reasonable!
If his teammates were Gasol, Odom, and a maturing Bynum, then it would make sense, but with the Lakers’ poor lineup, Kobe should be scoring heavily, not playing reasonably, right?
Zhang Yang, out of curiosity, looked up some news related to Kobe and quickly understood the reason.
A few days before the regular season started, ESPN harshly criticized Kobe’s high-scoring tactics from last season, claiming that the Lakers’ playoff debacle against the Suns was due to Kobe playing too selfishly.
After reading various critiques by ESPN, Zhang Yang wasn’t surprised at all when looking at the rational Kobe’s stats.
You think we lost because I played too selfishly? Then I’ll show you what our team looks like when I don’t – that’s the kind of thing Zhang Yang knew the iron smith brother was capable of doing.
But would ESPN let him off the hook just because he changed his style? Zhang Yang felt the iron smith brother was still too naive.
In the last two days, ESPN began to fiercely criticize Kobe for negative attitude, reducing shot attempts, and stat-padding assists... as if they weren’t the ones criticizing Kobe for taking too many shots just a week ago.
Zhang Yang could vaguely picture the iron smith brother, powerless and enraged...
After the three consecutive away games in Texas, the Bobcats had two days off. On their return to Charlotte that day, Zhang Yang took some rest.
The next morning he went to Tuhang Stadium for team practice, and in the afternoon, while the team rested, he stayed to practice shooting.
After two hours of extra practice, the "Gate of Trials" appeared before him, task completed! Random reward: Shooting value upper limit +1!
But this time there was an additional prompt.
"Your shooting value upper limit has increased to 94, just one point away from historical-level shooting talent."
Zhang Yang looked at the talent bonuses he had already received; his shooting value had increased by 4 points, meaning his original shooting talent was 90.
is considered a historical-level shooting talent, so 90 should be considered top-level shooting talent, right? His original shooting talent was quite good.
The new tasks arrived: 100,000 shooting value for a random physical fitness talent +1, 20,000 shooting value for Long Pass Fundamentals.
Zhang Yang’s enthusiasm for extra practice surged when he saw the new tasks.
He had many weaknesses in passing, and long passes were one of the passing styles he was not good at.
He couldn’t deliver the ball to his teammates hands from a long distance with precision like Felton or Rondo... Forget about precise delivery, most of the time he would make mistakes with such passes while moving, so during fast breaks, he basically didn’t make long passes. He’d rather miss the opportunity than make a mistake and lose possession.
For a scoring guard like him, even if he needed to undertake the task of pushing the counter-attack, spending time training long passes didn’t seem to be cost-effective, as his primary goal was to score quickly.
But if he could lay the foundations quickly, that would be different.
Keep shooting and keep scoring! Earn those 20,000 shooting value points quickly and claim that reward!
With the shooting talent increased to 94, and only a thin line away from historic-level talent, the new task rewards were exactly what he needed now, double happiness. On November 7th, after the morning pre-game meeting, another piece of joy came knocking.
The Bobcats received a notification from the league; Zhang Yang won the first Eastern Conference Player of the Week award of the season, thanks to his first-week averages of 28.3 points, 4.6 rebounds, 2.3 assists, 1.3 steals, a shooting percentage of 53.9%, a three-point percentage of 37.5%, and a free-throw percentage of 83.3%, along with the team’s record of 2 wins and 1 loss.
Over in the West, the award was shared with Nowitzki.
Zhang Yang checked Nowitzki’s performance from the previous week, What a beast!
The Mavericks had games starting from Tuesday that week, four games in six days, including a back-to-back, with all wins. Nowitzki averaged 26.8 points, 8.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists, with a shooting percentage of 53%, a three-point percentage of 46%, and a free-throw percentage of 93%.
Zhang Yang remembered that the Silver Horned King would enter the 180 club once, probably this season.
Too bad, Old Nelson had gone to coach the Warriors.
The impact of the Rockets’ collapse was beginning to show. In the evening, when Zhang Yang and his teammates entered the stadium, they saw many Chinese advertisements, and even the seats on the bench and the floor in front of them were covered with ads, none of which had been there during the preseason.
However, these ads were not present anywhere else in the arena; they were advertisements specifically placed by domestic sponsors for broadcast in China.
Zhang Yang heard from Tellem that Joe was originally envious of Aleksandar raking in tens of millions of US dollars in sponsorship fees every year. He wanted to do like the Rockets and brag in China to get some of that money, but after seeing the collapse of the Rockets, he shelved the idea.