Gan Guoyang, like Bird, despised those who were late to the training camp.
Being able to arrive at the training ground on time is the most basic display of a team’s unity.
He still remembers when he first joined the Trail Blazers in 1984, on the first day of official training, Drexler was late.
Drexler was frequently late during his rookie season, which made head coach Jack Ramsey very dissatisfied.
Gan Guoyang immediately shut down Drexler during the scrimmage, and in the end, he even hit a mid-range shot to clinch victory for the starting team.
Gan Guoyang explicitly told Adelman that he targeted Drexler because he was late, and as long as he continued being late, he would keep targeting him.
Since then, Drexler never arrived much earlier, but he was no longer late. He genuinely feared Ah Gan.
For different people, Gan Guoyang always had different strategies to deal with them, like using threats and incentives or playing on emotions and reasoning, even offering lofty promises.
His goals were often simple—hoping everyone would unite and play well together, not for his personal gain, making his strategies effective.
Because ultimately teammates would find that playing well under Ah Gan’s leadership truly brought rewards and led to victories.
Larry Bird was amazed that everyone was punctual on the first day of training camp, faintly feeling that Bobby Berman’s words might be correct.
Everyone is caught in Ah Gan’s web, it’s just that it’s hard to notice, and you unconsciously fall under his control.
However, Bird instinctively did not want to believe this; he believed that his own charisma was one of the reasons everyone arrived on time.
Training started at 7:30, which was indeed quite early. According to the Trail Blazers’ usual training mode, after three continuous hours of practice, training ended by 10:30 in the morning.
This also meant the players had more time to manage on their own from 10:30 to 12:00 in the morning. Before lunch, they could do strength training or practice on their own.
In the afternoon, they could choose to rest or continue to improve themselves in the gym. In short, moving the training time forward allowed for a more abundant time allocation.
"From now on, our training will start at 7:30 in the morning, earlier than most teams, which also means we will have more training than most teams. Don’t say a day is 24 hours; you know very well that the time available for work is different between waking up early and waking up late. I don’t believe most of you would choose to train instead of going to a bar for a drink at the listless dusk... Kobe, don’t raise your hand, I’m talking about most of you. Sonny, put your hand down too; you’re not human."
In his opening speech, Bird made it clear that no lateness was allowed, and the rule that training started at 7:30 every day was the most important discipline he emphasized.
Bird is not someone who likes to ramble on endlessly, not as a player, nor as a coach; he likes to hit the nail on the head.
As for things like welcoming Ah Gan back to the Trail Blazers, welcoming two new high school rookies to the Trail Blazers’ training and asking everyone to take care of them—he wouldn’t say a word of those.
"Besides not being late, the second thing is you must run more during training, keep running, to enhance your conditioning. I understand this isn’t a high school training camp, the importance of conditioning needs no emphasis. But I want to make it clear, during the 1995-1996 season, the Trail Blazers lost many games in the fourth quarter. According to the data, we often stayed close in score during the first three quarters, or even took the lead, but in the fourth quarter, the team’s performance would decline, leading to reversals and losses. There were at least 6 to 7 such games, games that you... we could have won."
Bird originally wanted to say "you," as last season’s Trail Blazers had nothing to do with him.
But then he thought about it and decided to say "we," as now everyone was one unit.
"If I remember correctly, the former Portland Trail Blazers was one of the fittest teams in the entire league, relying on strong conditioning to outlast opponents. Maintaining competitiveness in the most brutal, intense games, that’s the confidence of seven championships. I didn’t expect conditioning to become a problem for the team, which is the most fundamental thing, so I tell you, in my training camp, you will keep running, always run. Whether in defense training or offense training, give it your all, and fully develop your cardiopulmonary function."
After saying this, Bird didn’t ramble on because he knew few basketball players liked listening to coaches’ long lectures—they needed to move.
Discover problems in training and scrimmages, solve problems, and then guide players. Coaches who have played professional basketball and those who are academic tend to differ in this respect.
Just like at rookie training camp, the first day’s first training session was a conditioning class, and the players began various conditioning exercises under the whistle’s command.
"Correct your running posture, run back and forth with full effort! At first, you might feel some discomfort in your groin, but that’s okay, overcome it. When you feel the pain is too much to bear, try running faster, and you’ll adapt, then get into the groove. Next, we’ll do other activities: running, jumping, and shuttle runs. It’s best to eliminate all groin discomfort in three days because the intensity of training will keep increasing, and the content will keep expanding. Every piece of training is linked to your fitness!"