May 1999

Why am I so impulsive? Larry Bird is still regretting the decision he made on his whim.

"Larry, we're here soon, aren't you excited?"

Asked with his companion, Indiana Pacers' assistant coach B-D McDowell asked with enthusiasm.

"I hope this trip is worth it," he said slowly.

Now, they have just arrived in Moscow, one of Russia's oldest cities.

Excited? It cannot be said that Bird has not been excited for his magnificent first half of his life, that is nonsense. His first half of his life is legendary. The battle with the Magician in the NCAA final kicked off the feud between the two. He was excited for many years with the 76ers led by the legendary Dr.j. He also excited for him; defeating the Magician in the finals also excited him; the thing that excited him the most was when he was successful.

There are many things to be excited about in life, but this one is not.

He really shouldn't have come to Moscow with McDowell, an idiot who likes to praise all the players as flowers after watching a video.

Bird tried hard to recall the videotape he saw. Is the content presented by the videotape worth his doing?

He ponders deeply, he meditates.

Although the video tape was vague and the image quality was worse than all the old videos he had seen, he did see a little bit of the magician's shadow.

His life once enjoyed making magicians sad, which did not mean that he hated magicians.

It is precisely because they can all see each other's greatness that they become their archenemy in their lives.

It is precisely because of this that when he saw a yellow-skinned Chinese (perhaps Korean) playing in the European arena in the form of a magician, he wanted to come and take a look in person.

Many things cannot be seen from the video alone.

Although doing so will delay a lot of work in the team, he still did it.

This young man looks very much like a magician, and this reason alone is enough.

However, when he came to Moscow, not only did the people here not have the attitude of greeting the legend (because no one knew he was coming), but it was a little too cool.

At this time, the average daily temperature in Indiana is 20 degrees Celsius, while the white temperature in Moscow is only 10 degrees Celsius, and it will surge below 5 degrees Celsius at night.

It was already four o'clock in the afternoon when Bird and his team left the Moscow Airport.

They had to rush to the near-game site to eat a few bites of warmth, and then they could enter the Moscow Army Stadium to watch the game with a full spirit.

Tonight is the championship game of the Russian Super Basketball League.

The two sides of the battle were CSKA Moscow and St. Petersburg Wolf Teeth.

The player Bird was to observe was a member of the CSKA Moscow. As far as he knew, it was not the only Pacers who were attracted by the talented defender of the CSKA.

The Spurs and the Trail Blazers who like international players both sent scouts.

Moreover, the young genius announced early that he would participate in the draft after the Super League, but he did not guarantee that he would log in to the United States immediately after the draft was selected.

During this period, Americans still held an arrogant attitude towards international rookies outside the United States.

They always think that only the United States will produce geniuses, and geniuses from other places are just ordinary people when they are put into them.

Fortunately, he is over 30 years old, but his knees are probably over 300 years old. Sabonis, who has negligible athletic ability, has made a world in the NBA with his skills and wisdom, which leads to a long debate among inside fans. If - "If Sabonis can join the NBA at his peak, will he be the fifth center?" To a certain extent, Sabonis' performance made the Americans no longer so arrogant. They barely admit that there are basketball geniuses outside the United States, but few...

Fortunately, basketball geniuses in Yugoslavia have experienced a blowout. After the golden generation led by Petrovic, Divac and Kukoc joined the NBA to play one after another to perform, the Americans had to admit that there are a large number of geniuses outside the United States that need to be discovered.

However, until now, there has not been a yellow-skinned Chinese (or simply, the yellow-skinned Asians have entered the NBA's field of vision - let's ignore Song Tao) into the NBA's field of vision.

Until two months ago, the Chinese defender who joined CSKA Moscow this year scored a thrilling 14 points, 20 rebounds and 10 assists in the Champions League, that NBA began to pay attention to this person.

Since then, a legend related to Arthur can be heard from time to time in the United States on the other side of the ocean.

Arthur was the foreign name given to him by that man. He was more than a tall man and believed that he would become a great emperor like Arthur (because no one told him that Arthur's greatness only lies in fantasy novels).

But he did get into the NBA's sight, and the major draft prediction lists ranked him as goalkeeper in the lottery area.

The emphasis on the draft prediction list is more important than anything else. Bird did not know his existence until he took over as head coach of the Pacers and accidentally watched his game video.

He almost decided to come and see how the young King Arthur played the game.

Now he regrets a little, the damn Russians don't welcome him at all (who told him to be low-key). Not only did he be neglected, he didn't know where there was a delicious dinner, so he could only deal with it casually and then hurried into the gymnasium.

What made him even more angry was that when he entered the gymnasium with a swagger, the audience here still did not recognize him. It was not until the director on the scene pointed the camera at him and his face appeared on the big screen. The Russians who knew it later let out a burst of praise with tongue-flapping sounds.

That's enough!

At the same time, Bird also looked at the Chinese who looked tall and not like a defender from a distance.

The distance was too far, and he really couldn't tell that this guy was a yellow man.

He is only 19 years old, but his figure is extremely strong, with wide shoulders and long arms. He is obviously a good seedling for playing basketball.

"here we go!"

McDowell said excitedly.

"Hmm..." Bird tried hard to keep himself from being influenced by this pig teammate, and he wanted to concentrate on watching the game.

The height of the CSKA was far stronger than that of Wolf Teeth. The shortest man on their field was a tall defender from Greece, 202 cm long and pushed him on his own when he received the ball.

Bird and McDowell's eyes were always on the man named Arthur.

As a result, Arthur did not stand at the top of the arc like the commander, commanding Fang Qiu as they thought.

"Strange, this young man doesn't look like a magician." As soon as McDowell finished speaking, Arthur received a Greek pass and shook his shoulders with his opponent, and turned over and hit a jump hook.

The magician in most people's memory is the one who lives in the collection, holds the ball in his hand anytime and anywhere, pushes his butt to the opponent's belly from the midfield, and then suddenly exerts force and accelerates. He steps forward with his fierce figure in the same position. Once he breaks down his opponent's defense, the opponent will be finished.

That was the magician in the late 1980s.

As his lifelong enemy, Bird knew what the magician looked like.

He has the talent for possessing the ball, but at that time, we couldn't accept Stephen Curry's approach of throwing a "this is OK" three-pointer while transporting.

From coaches to fans, they cannot accept such a tall ball handler. Therefore, the Magician's talent was suppressed and occasionally a flash of inspiration appeared until Pat Riley took over and sent the team's meritorious Nom Nixon away, establishing the Magician's position as the core of the ball, and thus opening the show      time era.

As strong as Chamberlain, he also has to learn to share the ball under the Vulture Hannam before he can win the Champions League; if Stephen Curry doesn't meet Cole, he may not be the son of the era that started the small ball era.

There are often geniuses, but there are very few men who can see the light of genius and stimulate the potential of genius.

Arthur played the second position and the third position. Although the overall height of the Wolf Tooth Team was not as tall as CSKA, it played like a small ball team twenty years later, and rushed to the penalty area with speed. When CSKA Kirillenko was hit in a foul crisis, they suspended the 19-year-old Arthur to the fourth position.

"That young man named Andre is very good." McDowell exclaimed, "He has scored 8 points, 8 rebounds, 4 assists and 4 steals. If he can control the turnover, he is really a dominant player?"

"Very dominant?" Bird smiled sarcastically.

Indeed, Kirilenko was an accidental discovery.

However, he felt that this trip was getting more and more worthwhile, because he really saw a genius who looked like a magician.

When he was helped by the team to the fourth position, he had more opportunities to touch the ball. Of course, he still had many shortcomings, such as he had never even made a three-pointer from fiba distance, which means he does not have the threat of three-pointers at the moment; he dared to take the mid-range distance. Although he had not scored one tonight, Bird believed that he was confident in making the shot, otherwise the Wolf Tooth would not be nervous.

Swing to the fourth position, other problems also arose.

In confrontation, he is only 19 years old. Although he looks strong, he has no advantage compared to the inside. He can only rely on the length of his arm to interfere with his defensive end and cannot jump up if he is hit.

His single defense can even be called a loophole.

But he is an outstanding team defender. He can defend with his arms length, block blocking by predicting the block, and his sense of smell on the rebound is even more amazing.

Although he could not stop the opponent's attack alone, he could just grab the defensive rebound and make an accurate counterattack.

He swung to the fourth position and got more ball rights and played more efficiently. Before the end of the third quarter, he scored the most like the Magician.

He stuck his opponent 20 kilograms heavier than him and took the ball with one hand. He shouldn't see the movement behind him, but when his teammate cut to the basket, he turned around and threw it straight with one hand. The ball was in place like lightning, and his teammate made a layup with his backhand.

In the fourth quarter, the score gradually widened and the CSKA laid the victory.

"His game is really hard to describe." McDowell found out that the words were exhausted.

"He has mature low-post offensive skills, the possibility of swinging four positions, a reliable team defender, a stable counterattack instigation machine, an offensive potential to be the core and a great future."
Chapter completed!