pjbooks Chapter 73 The Future of Basketball
Chapter 73 The Future of Basketball
Song Jun's video arcade reopened.
The money borrowed from Xu Dalong.
Upon receiving the news, Xu Kai knew that Song Jun was finished, and now it was time to see just how ruthless Xu Dalong would be.
By threatening Xu Dalong to borrow money, Song Jun committed a grave mistake. This guy had gone mad, completely blinded by greed, and was utterly reckless.
Xu Kai offered Xu Dalong some money, but the latter refused, making his stance clear: "Even if I, Xu Dalong, am at my worst, I will never betray my teammates. What happened between us and Song Jun is in the past, and it has nothing to do with you now. That bastard dares to threaten me? I must have been blind. I'll handle this myself, and this will also show you that we're partners."
I made a mistake once, but I won't do it again.
Xu Kai didn't insist any further. He saw the change in Xu Dalong. Whether it was fear or something else was unknown, but at least one thing was clear: in Xu Dalong's view, Xu Kai had completely aligned himself with the identity of a partner and a relative's child.
Not long after, I learned from Ma Xin that he had also learned about it from the children playing in the market near the No. 2 Middle School.
Xu Kai's video arcade is running non-stop, cramming in as many people as possible as long as it makes money. They'll show any kind of movie, day or night, they're obsessed with money. I heard he's recently gotten into gambling, and he's betting big...
Upon hearing this news, Xu Kai roughly understood that Xu Dalong was quite ruthless. It was already difficult for him to be so patient. His subsequent methods were also based on the principle of "a wise man avoids dangerous situations," and he would play some direct and risky games, digging a pit for Song Jun to jump into. Once Song Jun was in the pit, given Xu Dalong's methods and Song Jun's status as a small-time thug, the final showdown between the two would only depend on how ruthless Xu Dalong was.
Winter break has started.
Xu Kai is not attending tutoring classes at school, and Yun Shang's parents also arranged for her to be excused from school and receive one-on-one tutoring from a tutor at home.
Nowadays, there's no reduction in academic burden. Not to mention key high schools, even students in regular high schools can't expect a month-long break in their first and second years. For seniors, they basically only get a maximum of fifteen days off before and after the Lunar New Year, and the rest of the time is spent in school.
Before the agreed-upon make-up class time arrived, Xu Kai kept his promise and took Yunshang to Songjiang Lake for skiing.
Skiing is not yet a popular sport, and few ordinary people are interested in it, given its difficulty and inherent risks.
There are no supporting services yet. But if this were ten or twenty years from now, everything you need for clothing, food, accommodation, and transportation would be available here. After skiing, you could have some barbecue, hot pot, or hot springs, and stay in a hotel on the edge of the ski resort. It would be a one-stop service.
Upon receiving Yun Sheng's call, Xu Kai rolled his eyes. One-stop service, now, no longer belonged to him.
Yunshang laughed non-stop, and Xu Kai stopped the car, grabbed her, and pounced on her like a hungry tiger, kissing her passionately.
After a long while.
"Have you touched enough?" Yunshang was being very indulgent with Xu Kai's hands today.
He lit a cigarette, opened the window a crack, and drove while smoking. Xu Kai sighed inwardly. She was a mature and beautiful young woman on the outside, but she wasn't truly mature on the inside.
Thinking that touching is compensation, even if nothing happens, there are many interesting things that can happen between a man and a woman, and many ways to make up for it. Xu Kai could tell that, even though he had secretly watched some films, Yun Shang, in her current understanding, believed that those interesting ways of making up for it could only happen after the two of them were actually together.
There's nothing I can do but bear with it.
Unbeknownst to him, Yunshang, who had also regained her composure, stole a glance at him and thought to herself, "You rascal, your head is full of lewd thoughts. Luckily, you're putting on a good act, otherwise this big bad guy wouldn't be so lenient. But lately, he seems to be getting more and more impatient. Should I give him some more sweet treats?"
………………
Dong Bin, Fei Wenxin, Hu Yuxuan, and others are in deep trouble.
During the holidays, at the invitation of the Northeast Tigers Club, the basketball team of a high school went to serve as sparring partners for the second team, while also undergoing intensive training at a professional club for half a month.
The first National High School Basketball League has been confirmed to kick off in April.
Xu Kai, who was simmering with anger and unable to release it, vented all his energy on his teammates. The training intensity of professional clubs was already high enough, and he was also tortured a lot as a sparring partner. As a result, after everything was over, the nightmare had just begun.
Xu Kai didn't say anything; he just practiced by himself.
It's one thing to lose to the first team's starters as a sparring partner, but if you can't even beat the reserve team, how can you even take a break? How many points did you score in a game, and how many points did your opponents score?
In the cafeteria, the members of a high school basketball team were all silent, heads down, eating voraciously. They were at the age where they had a large appetite, and with the high intensity of their training, they also needed to conserve energy for the upcoming training sessions.
Instead of eating the delicious food in the cafeteria, they had the trainers communicate with the chefs to prepare some nutritious meals. Even professional athletes don't eat that kind of food every day. After Xu Kai ate heartily with a big rice spoon, these guys didn't care whether it tasted good or not, or whether it was oily or salty. They just ate, ate, replenished themselves, and then trained.
The Northeast Tigers professional club has a first team, divided into starters and substitutes, as well as a second team. The tiered training program was further strengthened after the team was promoted to the CBA and after Tiger King Sun Jun achieved outstanding statistics and gained more attention, the club invested more in the training program.
As an unofficial player, Fang Jinyao has been training at the club. His improvement in professionalism is far less than his improvement in personal strength. Now, he can be used as half a coach on the field. On the university stage, his ability to read and understand the game is enough for him to provide a reliable and dependable starting point for a university team with his unpretentious and down-to-earth style as a defender.
"Xiao Fang, are all your high school basketball teams this crazy?"
Even Fang Jinyao, let alone the club's players, was dumbfounded. What was going on with this intensity?
Under the supervision of the team doctor, the players, having reached their physical limits without injury, lay down on the floor one by one to end their day's training.
Even after everything was over, Xu Kai still held the ball and flew up into the air; at that moment, he was just playing around.
Dunking is awesome! With good physical attributes and sufficient stamina, you'll definitely need to practice dunking eventually.
For dunkers who are between 190 cm and 200 cm tall, their dunks are actually the most aesthetically pleasing, achieving perfection in every aspect. Unlike some taller players, their dunking limbs may appear less flexible and less refined.
Xu Kai is a bit lacking, but he makes up for it with his jumping ability.
The players, exhausted from practice, rested and recovered on the sidelines, watching Xu Kai dunk.
He pursues hang time, power, and body extension, which makes him feel comfortable. As for some movements like crotch thrusts or difficult limb folding, he only plays around with them occasionally.
When the first team returned from the match and saw the high school training, a strange and inexplicable emotion welled up inside them.
Since winning the national 3x3 championship, several professional teams and universities across the country have come to No. 1 High School to observe Xu Kai and others. Dong Bin and Fei Wenxin have both decided to pursue a professional career.
When Hu Yuxuan was chatting with Xu Kai, he said that he was actually not against studying abroad at first. Going to the United States, where there is the NCAA and the NBA, is the paradise for playing basketball.
He went there and came back. Xu Kai didn't even need to ask; he was confident that he had been hurt.
If you can't play basketball while studying abroad, then as a second choice, there are more opportunities in China due to the booming development of basketball.
He genuinely liked it; otherwise, he wouldn't have transferred from Yanjing High School to Songcheng No. 1 High School. He also had the right to be willful.
During the training camp at the Northeast Tigers Club, Hu Yuxuan was the most excited from beginning to end. Even when Xu Kai's training intensity made him feel like he was dying, his eyes were full of longing.
He had his father pay a high price to hire a professional physiotherapist and trainer for him, not only for his own use but also for the team. After all, professional teams can provide some guidance, but they wouldn't focus their attention on a high school team that's just for practice.
Everyone is working hard towards their goals. Even if others don't make it to the professional scene, using basketball to get into a university is a perfectly good path. Park In-ji doesn't make empty promises; she speaks to ordinary people in her own way, offering them guidance.
In the future, one could work in the sports sector as a physical education teacher, competing for various levels of basketball coaching and related positions. Ultimately, there's a bright path ahead: entering enterprises, factories, and mines, using basketball to get in, becoming an employee, and directly playing for the unit's team. It's not impossible for major bureaus or state-owned enterprises to do the same. It's like getting a job for yourself based on your hobby. As an active participant in sports, you can win relevant honors for your unit in the corresponding category of organizations.
Park In-ji also listed some units in Songseong that have their own unit basketball teams. These teams not only participate in friendly matches, but also represent their units in competitions with other units in other provinces and cities within the unit's vertical system.
Don't underestimate this sporting activity just because it's a sporting event within a large corporation. Many smaller cities don't mind supporting a few semi-professional athletes.
With Teacher Park pointing the way, everyone was full of energy. It's not just a stepping stone to university, but also a potential source of income. The effort, sweat, and improvement we get now may stay with us for life and serve us for the rest of our lives. In some ways, everything we learn and work hard for now is more valuable in the future than the knowledge we learn from textbooks.