On Sunday, the weather was fine and the sun was shining brightly.
2 p.m., Ruixing Cafe on the ground floor of the Tianxing Basketball Stadium in Zhongnan City.
A man wearing a peaked cap was sitting on a wicker chair in the open air, drinking coffee and scrolling through the screen of his mobile phone.
On the peaked cap, there is a golden tiger roaring up to the sky.
His name is Zhai Haihua, and he is a data analyst and scout for the Nanguang Golden Tigers, a professional basketball team in Longguo.
Yi Li, the captain of the Zhenzhong school team who dominated the high school league last year, was signed by him and brought to Nanguang to play.
The Nanguang Golden Tigers are the dominant team in the Dragon Country Professional Basketball League. They have won the league championship eleven times and created an unprecedented legend of seven consecutive championships.
As a data analyst and scout for the Golden Tigers, Zhai Haihua is known in the industry for his unique vision and keen sense of smell.
While he was leisurely basking in the sun, a tall man wearing navy blue sportswear walked towards him.
On the back of the sportswear is a cheetah running fast.
"Brother Zhai, the game doesn't start until 4 o'clock, what are you doing here so early?"
The man sat down opposite Zhai Haihua and greeted him with a smile.
His name is Guo Dongqiang, and he is also a scout, but for the Northeast Cheetahs.
The Northeast Cheetahs are also a veteran team in the Dragon Country Professional Basketball League.
I have experienced more than ten finals.
But it is a pity that many times before, it was a failure and only won the runner-up.
Before winning the championship a few years ago, he was nicknamed the "Millennium Number One" by fans of the Dragon Kingdom.
Since breaking through and winning the championship, the Northeast Cheetahs have maintained a very high level and strong competitiveness in the past few years.
The players of the Northeast Cheetahs are always habitually called "Guo Jiajun".
Guo Dongqiang is a member of Guo Jiajun.
The Nanguang Golden Tigers and the Northeast Cheetahs have been rivals for many years.
"Qiangzi, didn't you come so early?" Zhai Haihua chuckled and put down the coffee cup in his hand.
He and Guo Dongqiang are old acquaintances. Both of them were professional players in the professional arena.
But it's a pity that neither of them achieved any fame when they were playing on the court.
When they were playing, it was still an era in China when Yao could only cover the sky with one hand. Many children watching football today were not born at that time.
"The first game of the league is a head-to-head match between the two top eight teams last year. I have to say that the tournament organizing committee will really make arrangements."
Guo Dongqiang chuckled, took out a document from the backpack he carried with him and looked through it.
"The Hongyuan school team retains all the main players from last year."
"The Zhenzhong school team has gone through a major change."
"Brother Zhai, who do you like?"
What Guo Dongqiang holds in his hand is the information of each team participating in this year's competition.
They are scouts and are very sensitive to all kinds of data.
I came to the basketball stadium in advance just to go in early and watch the pre-match training of the two teams.
Zhai Haihua smiled slightly when he heard Guo Dongqiang's question.
"Who do I like?"
"Last year's Zhenzhong, as long as Yi Li is on the court, he dominates the basket and gets everything he wants."
"In the end, they fell in the semifinals of the four-to-two semifinals. There was nothing they could do about it. Who made them meet the Tsinghua Affiliated High School?"
"Without Yi Li this year, Wei Xiaotian is the only point guard left on the main roster."
"Facing the Hongyuan school team with a full lineup, how can Zhenzhong win?"
Guo Dongqiang nodded in agreement.
"Brother Zhai, you are right."
"Yi Li is really talented."
"For a high school student, his plus-minus value and efficiency value on the field are ridiculously high."
"If Brother Zhai hadn't taken the lead, he would have been a substitute for our Cheetahs this year."
When the league ended last year, Nanguang Golden Tigers was naturally not the only team competing for Yi Li.
Many professional teams, including Northeast Cheetahs, Imperial Steel, Beijiang Guangyuan and other teams, have extended an olive branch to Yi Li.
But in the end, Yi Li chose the Nanguang Golden Tigers.
Because there are his family and idols.
"But Brother Zhai, this year's Zhenzhong is quite mysterious."
"It wasn't until the day before the start of the game that the roster and main players of their school team were announced according to the timeline."
"Even we were not able to obtain any data on their school team members in advance."
Guo Dongqiang looked through the information and felt a little strange.
Zhai Haihua chuckled, "Isn't this a normal thing?"
"Zhenzhong is also a veteran team in the domestic high school league."
"Without Yi Li this year, they probably don't have much confidence."
"I think their goal this year is to keep their place in the top eight, which is already extraordinary."
"Let's go in and see their pre-match training later. We can probably see how far they can go this year."
Guo Dongqiang also fully agrees with Zhai Haihua's point of view.
Last year, Zhenzhong relied on Yi Li to reach the top four in the country for the first time. It is already very strong.
But this year?
The strongest strikers in Zhenzhong have all graduated and entered higher-level college leagues and even professional leagues.
Who will be the winner this year?
Point guard Wei Xiaotian?
Or those substitutes from last year?
Not only scouts from professional teams like Zhai Haihua and Guo Dongqiang didn't believe it, but Zhenzhong's old rivals didn't believe it either.
…
At 3 o'clock in the afternoon, the Hongyuan Middle School team entered the Tianxing Basketball Hall first and began pre-match preparations and warm-up training.
The head coach Li Chunqiu is a middle-aged man in his forties.
He is a physical education teacher at Hongyuan Middle School, but unlike Xu Jie, Lin Lei and others, they have a background in sports.
Li Chunqiu is a rare math teacher turned physical education teacher.
Although he is not a sports student, Li Chunqiu has his own way of leading a team: digitizing all members.
Just like the militarized management of Beimen Middle School's school team, the digitization of team members is the most talked-about feature of Hongyuan's school team.
Li Chunqiu, a physical education teacher, relied on his mathematical ability to create a set of mathematical modeling for the Hongyuan school team.
The Hongyuan school team is also the team that pays the most attention to player plus-minus and efficiency values among the powerful teams in Central and South China.
In the high school league, the competition of personal strength is actually greater than the competition of teamwork.
Just like Zhenzhong last year, relying on Yi Li's inability to solve the problem in the paint, he could easily overwhelm most teams.
Only a few, like Beimen and Hongyuan, have very different ways of leading teams.
This is a good thing, it can be said to have fundamentally raised the lower limit of the team.
But in any sports competition, in the final analysis, the competition is talent.
This is reality, a reality that no one can deny.
Therefore, although the results of schools such as Hongyuan and Beimen have been very stable, they want to reach the top?
Militarized management and digitalization of all employees are not enough.
Li Chunqiu looked at the time, then turned to look at the players' tunnel, filled with doubts.
Why haven’t the people from Zhenzhong arrived yet?
Do you know that they can't beat Hongyuan this year and are starting to lose their performance?
If this is the case, then today's game will be meaningless!