Back in Jordan’s rookie days, wherever he went the streets would be packed, countless fans surrounding him to watch him play, going absolutely nuts for him.
The two of them are both born for the big stage: the bigger the occasion, the more hyped they get, and the better they play.
With just this little crowd in Milwaukee, there’s no way they can get into peak mode; they can only warm up bit by bit.
Before the game even started, some Bucks players ran over to the Glory Team side, asking to take a group photo with Gan Guoyang and Jordan, and get their autographs.
The two didn’t turn them down; in a single game, getting a joint photo and signatures from both of them is worth quite a lot.
Bucks head coach George Karl couldn’t stand watching it anymore and issued a strict order forbidding the young players from doing this, not allowing them to ask the Double Gods for photos or autographs.
"George’s temper is still that bad, that nasty," Gan Guoyang said with a grin.
Gan Guoyang and Jordan could be considered the biggest nemeses of George Karl’s career; he’s never beaten these two in the playoffs.
In the Western Conference, his teams got their heads bashed in by Gan Guoyang and the Trail Blazers, and when he finally made the Finals, he got pounded by Jordan and the Bulls and painfully lost the championship.
After coming to the Bucks, he made some noise with a lineup of Cassell, Ray Allen, and Big Dog Robinson.
In the 2001 season, with Duncan out for the year, they battled the Philadelphia 76ers in the Eastern Conference Finals and almost made the Finals.
But once Duncan came back healthy, the Eastern Conference became the Celtics’ world.
This season two old punks team up again, and it’s enough to piss George Karl off to death.
Right when Karl banned his players from taking photos with Gan Guoyang and Jordan, Ray Allen deliberately jogged over and started chatting with his two idols.
Then he moved to the sideline and had a reporter take a commemorative picture of the three of them, and this move made George Karl absolutely furious.
Back on the bench, Karl questioned Ray Allen: "I said no photos, no pictures with them. We’re opponents!"
Ray Allen said carelessly, "That’s my freedom, the game hasn’t even started yet."
Karl practically wanted to strip Ray Allen of his starting job, but this was the season opener, there were 20,000 fans in the arena, and the opponent was the Glory Team.
If the head coach inexplicably DNPs his number one star, it’ll definitely cause a fan backlash, so Karl could only swallow his anger.
Meanwhile Ray Allen was sneering inside; this Karl guy had gotten more and more unreasonable the last two seasons.
Karl is always like this: when he first arrives at a team, he uses his passion and craziness to infect everyone, lighting a fire under a lifeless squad and driving them forward.
From the Knights to the Warriors, from the Supersonics to the Bucks, Karl has always been this kind of basketball lunatic, an arrogant maniac who fears no one.
But as time goes on, Karl’s passion and craziness morph into an irrational need for control and a Dictator’s style, especially after the team achieves something; then he becomes even more unbearable.
When it comes to control, he’s nothing like Gan Guoyang, who knows when to tighten and when to loosen; Karl just keeps piling it on layer after layer until the team chemistry blows up under his manipulation.
This time with the Bucks was no exception. In the 2001 season Karl led the Bucks’ Big Three to a successful year and he was praised for it.
But right after that, in a Sports Illustrated feature interview with Ray Allen, he publicly criticized Ray Allen, saying Ray cared too much about his style, played too much like a gentleman, not wild or crazy enough, and that he didn’t like Ray Allen smiling during games.
This public swipe infuriated Ray Allen and their relationship nosedived.
After that, Ray Allen discovered that George Karl had forbidden assistant coach Stotts from playing golf with him, saying it would soften Ray Allen’s on-court style.
In Ray Allen’s eyes this was outright insane: what does me playing golf have to do with you? What does it have to do with my playing style? Jordan loves playing golf too.
From then on, their relationship steadily deteriorated.
In the 2001–2002 season, in free agency, the Bucks signed Anthony Mason, who had once been Gan Guoyang’s little brother on the Trail Blazers and had now made a name for himself in the League.
After bouncing around several teams, this musclebound bruiser had somehow developed some playmaking and facilitating skills, and people figured his arrival would boost the Bucks’ offense and defense.
Who knew this veteran would wreck the team instead; on the floor he was constantly yapping, complaining the ball wasn’t in his hands enough.
In the locker room he refused to listen to the coach; when George Karl was drawing up plays, he’d turn his chair around to show "I’m not listening."
If Karl called him out, Mason would snarl, "Shut up, you fat pig."
Anthony Mason was this out of line, yet George Karl, this bully-who-fears-the-tough guy, didn’t dare talk back.
This made the Bucks’ locker room situation deteriorate even further, and they ultimately fell from last season’s Eastern Conference Finals to the lower-middle of the East, with no strength at all to challenge the Celtics.
The team was a pile of loose sand, and the way the Bucks chose to solve the problem was to trade away Glenn Robinson in exchange for Toni Kukoc and a 2003 first-round pick.
The front office clearly had no more patience with this roster; it was the prelude to a rebuild, and Ray Allen knew his time in Milwaukee wouldn’t be long.
So he didn’t indulge George Karl at all. You won’t let us get autographs and photos? I’ll do it anyway. These two are my idols, and chances like this are rare.
The game began in this kind of atmosphere: the Glory Team was united from top to bottom, while the Bucks only looked like a team on the surface; in reality they were split apart inside and already not far from breaking up.
The Bucks’ starters were Sam Cassell, Ray Allen, Jason Caffey, Dan Gadzuric, and Tim Thomas.