Gan Guoyang spent the last few days of 1996 in Los Angeles.
After playing against the Lakers, the Trail Blazers stayed in Los Angeles to continue their away games against the Clippers, then headed to San Francisco to face the Warriors.
On the first day of 1997, they played against the Phoenix Suns, ending their road trip and returning to Portland for a break.
Gan Guoyang was suspended for these three games, so he simply stayed in Los Angeles, not traveling around with the team.
As a veteran, he could avoid some of the traveling hardships and take advantage of the suspension to recover and build up his stamina.
He rented a gym and a fitness center to train and stay in shape every day.
Because once his suspension ended on January 4th, the Trail Blazers would face the Chicago Bulls at home.
Another highly anticipated Gan-Joe showdown was waiting for him, and the suspension gave him an opportunity to prepare carefully.
Secondly, Gan Guoyang had to discuss movie collaborations with Hollywood producers and directors.
A film company was planning to shoot a basketball movie based on his story, telling the legendary tale of how he led the Shui Zhong Team to victory in high school.
Thirdly, Gan Guoyang wanted to meet some old friends and catch up with them.
The day after the game against the Lakers, Gan Guoyang joined his teammates for shooting and tactical training in the morning.
Even though they lost the game, the Trail Blazers were in high spirits, and the players kept talking excitedly about Ah Gan’s two punches.
Young players like Kobe, Little O’Neal, and Ben Wallace looked at Gan Guoyang with even more admiration and aspiration.
He knocked down the league’s top beast, O’Neal, with one punch, and it was so effortless that no one doubted he could take down a bull in one strike.
Gan Guoyang didn’t feel proud; instead, he reminded everyone during the tactical meeting not to fight, not to act impulsively, as impulsiveness is the devil.
Kobe, feeling unconvinced, asked, "You fought, and you tell others not to?"
Gan Guoyang replied, "I’m Ah Gan, I know how to fight. Do you, Little Kobe?"
Kobe didn’t say anything. While he was competitive on the court, he really didn’t know how to fight.
At most, he would secretly elbow his opponents a couple of times, and even then, his technique was rough.
The NBA’s basketball level improves with each generation, but the level of fighting is clearly declining.
In the ’80s, most fights were more like soft shows, now considered iron-blooded by later fans.
But in reality, they were nothing compared to the ’60s and ’70s, a time when there were fewer video recordings for fans to see.
Gan Guoyang is considered the last grandmaster of the NBA fighting world; after him, no player, especially not stars, would engage in major fights on the court.
By the ’90s, while the confrontations became intense, violent incidents on the court became increasingly rare, and the days of daily violent clashes were gone.
The main reason was that everyone’s identity had changed; even role players earned hundreds of thousands of US Dollars a year, a high-income bracket in the ’90s.
A bunch of wealthy people playing on the court, fighting would be beneath their status, and it could affect their income. What if they lost their job?
In 1996, the average annual income of urban residents in China was over 6,000 RMB, which was roughly equivalent to 700 US Dollars at the exchange rate then; it would take hundreds of years to earn what an NBA role player made in a year.
Even in the higher-income American society, NBA players were no longer the "working class" they once were; through repeated labor negotiations, they had become a wealthy class sharing profits with capitalists.
Superstars had their own brands and companies, mingled in high society, and enjoyed extravagance, so just playing basketball well was enough—why fight?
For a superstar like Gan Guoyang, who had reached such heights and gained so many honors, to still fight on the court, he truly stayed true to his original intentions and mission.
After training in the morning, Gan Guoyang drove to an apartment building in the Inglewood District at noon to visit Hu Weidong, who was recuperating there.
In the summer of ’96, Hu Weidong officially joined the Los Angeles Lakers, becoming a member of the Purple and Gold Legion and the third Chinese player to enter the NBA.
In 1992, Jerry West had noticed Hu Weidong’s talent during a training session with the Chinese National Team and couldn’t forget about it.
Back with the Lakers, West felt the team lacked a potent Shooting Guard with long-range capabilities on the bench.
So they picked Hu Weidong in the draft, and after more than a year of negotiation, finally brought him across the Pacific Ocean.
However, in 1992, Hu Weidong was 22 years old, barely having potential and value for cultivation, but by 1996, Hu Weidong was already 26 years old.
Moreover, China’s basketball scene has long had a bad tradition of altering ages; Hu Weidong’s birth date had been changed to 1972 during youth competitions, making him appear 20 years old in 1992.
But he was actually born in 1970, and after correcting it, he was already a mature player by the time he joined the Lakers, making it challenging for him to make significant breakthroughs.
Even so, Los Angeles fans showed tremendous enthusiasm, and Hu Weidong’s No. 8 jersey sold well in Los Angeles.
In a summer league game between the Chinese National Team and the Lakers, Hu Weidong performed excellently, scoring 30 points, sparking many imaginations among Lakers fans.
After the Olympics, Hu Weidong stayed in Los Angeles and officially became part of the Lakers to participate in the preseason and regular season, and fans realized that not every Chinese player was Ah Gan.