Every year, talented players enter the League, but no other year’s players are as dominant and high-quality as those in 1984.
The top picks, all historically significant players, are the true Golden Generation that supported the prosperity of the NBA in the 1990s.
By 1996, players like Kobe and Allen Iverson had more distinctive characteristics of the time, they were younger, often having played one or two years in college, or even entering the draft without attending college.
In the 1980s, players generally finished college and entered the NBA draft around the age of 21 or 22, with some older rookies at 23.
In photos and interviews, one can clearly see that the 1996 batch were a group of kids trying hard to act like adults, but their attire and behavior still revealed their naivety.
This generation of players is called the "Silver Generation," they are very talented but require enough polishing to truly shine.
Whether they can surpass gold and advance to platinum depends on their performance.
Among these talented young players, Kobe and Little O’Neal are the youngest, but Kobe appears very composed, confident, and calm.
He is always playing with a basketball, rarely speaking to other players, his upbringing differs greatly from that of most African Americans.
In contrast, Little O’Neal is shyer, sometimes unsure of what to say when faced with certain questions, only awkwardly touching his face.
At times like this, Gan Guoyang would always step in to cover for him, while helping to resolve issues, also demonstrating to Little O’Neal how to handle them in the future.
Compared to his sternness and ruthlessness towards Kobe, Gan Guoyang is more gentle and patient with Little O’Neal.
Both are inside players, and outside training, Gan Guoyang spends a lot of time guiding Little O’Neal on basic skills.
For high school players who haven’t been to college, lacking the strict guidance of college coaches and the influence of team basketball, they have many tactical and technical deficiencies.
And these deficiencies may accompany them throughout their career, becoming a major obstacle to their progress, which is a frightening prospect in the long run.
Young high school players will soon realize that the NBA is a job, not a school, and the primary goal of the job is to complete tasks, not to learn skills.
When the tough, long NBA schedule truly gets underway, players almost have no time to engage in systematic, high-quality training.
Game after game, long-distance travel, and the injuries sustained during intense matches will drain most of the players and coaches’ energy.
Summer would be a good period for training and improvement, but young people rarely have a stable environment and team to improve themselves, which is an advantage of college.
Summer leagues and various training camps force young individuals to adapt on their own, with few coaches or veterans overseeing their comprehensive polishing and enhancement.
Such is the nature of work, everyone has their own job to do, and no one is obliged to lead you in learning or assist you in progress.
Most young people’s talents will quickly deplete with the exhaustion of physical energy, as they haven’t found a smart way to maintain and preserve their energy.
Even as strong as Moses Malone, blessed with extraordinary talent and a unique playing style, with a sharp court sense like a beast, saw a significant decline in performance after the age of 30 as his physical condition declined.
He lacked coordination and passing, relying on instincts in defense and offense, but instincts need physical explosiveness to respond, and without explosiveness, he was lost on the court.
His assists per game were pitifully low, and after grabbing the Offensive Rebound under the basket, he missed more and more times, wasting opportunities while also depleting the patience of teammates and coaches.
His stats were still decent, and he maintained considerable on-court intimidation, but his offensive efficiency had greatly decreased, and he couldn’t help the team in other areas.
For the sake of work and earning money, he played until the 1994-1995 season, retiring even later than Gan Guoyang.
However, in all seasons after making it to the Finals with Charles Barkley in 1988, Malone was no longer a strong contender in the League.
In 1988, he happened to be 32 years old.
In comparison, his old rival Jabbar, at 32 in 1980, led the Lakers to the championship and started his second peak period.
Apart from differences in physical condition and playing style, a significant difference is that Moses Malone never attended college, while Jabbar sat a year on the bench at the famous ULCA, played three years in NCAA, graduated after four years of college, thoroughly experiencing John Wooden’s four years of meticulous cultivation, undergoing well-rounded academic basketball training, where even tying shoelaces was something the coach would teach you.
Professional teams evidently won’t teach you how to tie your shoelaces, they’ll hand you a staggering paycheck and then send you onto the court to compete against players bigger, taller, and more experienced than you, to attract more fans to buy tickets and watch the games.
Until amidst numerous collisions and contests, young players grow up and finally climb to the peak of the League, only to look back and perhaps realize that they’ve lost more than they gained, especially in basketball where they lost many opportunities for growth in their effort to compete and work hard.