One Year Left to Play

The Lakers are just that special—they always manage to capture the extra attention of fans. For instance, in the season opener, their pre-game buzz was even higher than that of the reigning champion Bulls.

However, because New York has entered the iron-blooded era of Van Gundy, the games have become less entertaining. Fans didn’t see much in the way of tactical collaboration. In the second half, the Lakers comfortably held the lead thanks to Barkley, securing the victory in the third quarter.

As far as the first game is concerned, the Lakers didn’t give their fans any surprises. It wasn’t exactly a big win. Starting off the regular season with a strong defense, the fans found it doesn’t make for good watching.

But in the second game, everyone thought the Lakers would crush the Raptors effortlessly. After all, in the first game, the Lakers beat a Knicks team with a lineup like that without much trouble.

However, after the second game, which wasn’t broadcasted, fans were incredibly shocked by the score when they saw the match report! Damon Stoudamire’s performance of 38+10+14 was especially astonishing, leading the Raptors to a 4-point lead with just 44 seconds remaining.

Then, Barkley and Zhang Hao teamed up to turn the game around in 44 seconds...

With no one paying attention, the Lakers and Raptors played out a spectacular 121-120 shootout, complete with a near game-winning slam dunk.

Even Lakers fans felt like their team was jinxed!

After this game, both the media and fans found even more sympathy for Damon Stoudamire.

The top 8 picks of ’95, every time they face Zhang Hao, they end up pretty miserable. But the two most unfortunate guys are Joe Smith, who looks like Zhang Hao’s enemy every time they play the Warriors, and Damon Stoudamire, who Zhang Hao plays even harder against than the Warriors!

Sure, Joe Smith was the first overall pick, and Zhang Hao was recognized as the best rookie of ’95. His rookie season was one of the best in NBA history, but because he was a high school player, he wasn’t picked first, so he has a reason to go wild seeing Joe Smith.

But Damon Stoudamire, the seventh pick, isn’t much higher than the ninth pick, and he’s far away in the East, facing off only twice a year, no playoff competition...

Yet when Zhang Hao meets him, he plays harder than he does against rivals like Garnett, Rashid Wallace, or Antonio McDyess.

When Damon Stoudamire saw the news saying how unfortunate he was, and remembered Zhang Hao actually saying that comment to him after the game, he felt like he had "unfortunate" written all over his forehead.

Triple-double in vain!

Most importantly, Damon Stoudamire couldn’t understand. He wanted to perform in front of Zhang Hao because Zhang Hao is recognized as the best player of the ’95 class.

But why does Zhang Hao always play so hard against him?

Even after defeating a star-studded Knicks, Zhang Hao wasn’t that excited. But when he played him, he actually taunted him with trash talk after the game... can’t figure it out!

...

...

"Godfather, do you feel any pressure playing with Barkley, O’Neal, and the Magician?"

"No, playing with them is really easy. I just need to shoot, why feel pressured?"

"Oh, just shoot, huh..."

The morning after the game with the Raptors, the Lakers fled from the icy Toronto to Charlotte.

In the afternoon, Zhang Hao invited Little Curry to the restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where the Lakers were staying, for lunch. He originally wanted Dale Curry to join too, but the poor Hornets had a grueling 5 games in 4 days start. On the 1st and 2nd, they beat the Magic and Hawks. They went to Miami yesterday and are playing the Heat today, and will face the Lakers tomorrow, so they’re away. Hence, only Little Curry was invited.

Thinking back to this time last year, Little Curry wouldn’t dare to call out "Aix" when out, but now, the more people there are, the more enthusiastically he does it, as if afraid others might not know.

If he didn’t look so different, you might think the "god" would be dropped.

Seeing him so happily calling out, Zhang Hao felt great and took out a prepared gift: "I forgot to give you a gift when you turned 8. It was a busy summer. This is for you."

Little Curry saw the gift box and got excited. A Motorola!

Upon opening it, sure enough, it was the latest Motorola flip phone!

Compared to previous models, Motorola had reduced the price to a quarter, starting at 1000 US Dollars, and in just a few months, sales exceeded ten million.

But 1000 US Dollars is still quite expensive for most people. Anyway, Little Curry’s pocket money couldn’t afford it, and Dale Curry’s 5-year, 6.6 million US Dollar contract wouldn’t spoil him that way.

The already thick-skinned Little Curry really wanted to ask—do you need a biological son?

...

After completing the bonding activity with Little Curry and resting for a day, it was November 5th, the game day for the Lakers’ away challenge against the Hornets.

At 5:40 in the evening, after warming up, Zhang Hao and his teammates entered the court.

The relationship between the two teams, without Larry Johnson, can be said to be quite harmonious.

Glenn Rice and Dale Curry had always had a good impression of Zhang Hao, the "hope of the shooting community," and had good personal relationships with him. Previously, they were restrained by Larry Johnson’s hostility towards Zhang Hao, but now, without him, there was noticeably more pre-game interaction between the two teams.

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