On November 8th, the 1992-1993 NBA season officially kicked off.
Gan Guoyang officially entered the ninth season of his career, and it was also his 12th year being involved with the NBA.
In 12 years, the world of the NBA has changed a lot, from being an unnoticed, precarious fringe event, to becoming a hotly sought-after professional league globally.
Among the major professional leagues in North America, the NBA, historically the shortest and once at the bottom in terms of ratings and attention, started to make a comeback.
In this late autumn, the NFL was on the verge of a shutdown. As early as 1987, the NFL adopted the same strategy as the NBA, dissolving the Players Union to force the NFL side to reach a new and more favorable labor agreement for the players.
But unlike the struggle led by Larry Flesher, the NFL side did not compromise. The players and the league did not reach a consensus, leading to the absence of a new labor agreement from 1987 until now, with only a free agent system known as the "Plan B."
By 1992, players were unwilling to tolerate the situation without a stable labor agreement any longer, and started to file a class-action lawsuit against the NFL to overturn Plan B and sign a new labor agreement.
On September 10th, the jury overturned Plan B, and simultaneously players began to form a new union to negotiate with the NFL. This long tug of war would start in the fall and continue until the following spring.
Similar to the NFL, baseball MLB had its issues. President Phil Vincent, who had been in office for less than four years, was given a vote of no confidence by the owners. Vincent chose to resign in 1992. After the major strike in 1990, MLB started facing operational challenges.
The doping scandal among baseball players tarnished what was once America’s leading sport.
More importantly, the development and proliferation of television broadcasts were not favorable to baseball, a turn-based, slow-paced sport.
Baseball once had such a pervasive influence across all of America and became the national sport partly because it was very suitable for radio broadcasts.
Listeners could understand what was happening on the field just by hearing the play-by-play commentary on the radio.
Basketball and football were different; no matter how eloquent the commentary was, it was hard to truly reflect the situation on the field.
In the era of television broadcasts, baseball’s advantage of being easy to listen to disappeared, while its disadvantage of not being suitable to watch on TV was fully exposed.
Jeremy Handelman, President of CBS Television, warned MLB: "They must work hard to re-engage young audiences and must undergo a thorough transformation to return to its former position."
In contrast, basketball’s vibrant live broadcasts allowed audiences to appreciate the players’ amazing skills and agility without being at the stadium.
And compared to football and ice hockey players with thick masks and gear, basketball players were more recognizable, which was better for establishing the image of sports idols.
With the confluence of several factors, including the right timing, favorable geography, and harmonious people, the attention paid to the NBA was rapidly climbing.
In a Gallup poll, in 1992, 16% of Americans listed baseball as their favorite sport, while 12% put basketball first.
Back in 1960, 32 years ago, the percentage for baseball was 34%, and basketball was only 9%. The situation had undergone significant changes.
On the night of the 8th, at the Rose Garden Arena, the Trail Blazers welcomed the opening game of their new season at home, raising their championship banner for the third consecutive year and receiving their championship rings.
Having completed an astonishing second three-peat, this time Tang Jianguo embedded six huge diamonds into the ring to represent the Portland Trail Blazers’ great achievement.
Gan Guoyang personally hoisted his sixth championship banner up to the ceiling. Amid the cheers of thousands, he looked at the victory symbol fluttering in the sky and thought to himself that it still felt somewhat empty.
Although he thought this, Gan Guoyang did not say anything. From the preseason training camp to the official start of the regular season, Gan Guoyang never mentioned the term "four-peat."
Not only did he not mention it, but neither the team owner, management, nor coaching staff brought up the "four-peat" either.
Is it because they don’t want it? Definitely not, no one would refuse a championship just like no one would refuse success.
But having already won six championships, they clearly understood the price that must be paid for a championship, or success.
In 1992, a film was released, starring Al Pacino, called Scent of a Woman.
But this movie was not about women or love. In the end, Pacino’s blind character rants at the inquiry:
"I know which is the right path, without exception, I just know, but I never take it, you know why? Because it’s so damn hard."
A team that has won six championships certainly knows how to walk the championship road: rigorous training, monastic discipline, struggling fiercely on the court, never giving up, enduring injuries, loneliness, vomiting, insomnia, monotony, etc.
This applies not only to the players but also to the coaching staff, management, and even the team’s security, logistics, and clerical work. They all strive to do their best, providing high-intensity service to the players, uniting against the world.
The Trail Blazers’ scouting and medical teams are the most overworked and the hardest-working positions in the entire NBA, with the quality drafting and transactions by the uniformed group and the quality medical services as invisible guarantees of their championship.
All this costs; time with family, loss of physical health, enormous mental pressure, the tedium and confusion of repeating a lifeless routine day after day...
Even the traditionally ambitious, vanity-loving owner Tang Jianguo doesn’t talk about "making the Trail Blazers greater" or "winning another championship" anymore, as he feels very tired; after all, he is not a basketball fanatic like Ah Gan.