Chapter 572 The Last Two Years
Secondly, Lao Li was far-sighted and won the bet with the clubs, and won the opportunity for some CBA players with real potential to study abroad. According to the agreement between him and those clubs, if Longguo won the World Championships, he would never ask for players again, but if it lost, the Basketball Association could sign a mandatory transaction clause with the clubs, using some foreign players in exchange for the clubs giving up some of their star players to study abroad.
This was the suggestion made by Lin Dong after he bought Mobisi, hoping to let some outstanding players in CBA go to La Liga as a transitional springboard, but the clubs did not agree. The talents they had worked hard to cultivate, and finally played out, let them go to La Liga? Go to the NBA? What should the clubs do?
Foreign players, really strong foreign players, who would come to CBA? Aren’t they all the scum eliminated by the NBA and European leagues? They may not be better than the main players they have worked hard to train, and foreign players are expensive, difficult to communicate with, and have bad tempers. At the same time, their commercial value is not high, and they lack a fan base in China. Anyway, there are many bad things.
As for the World Championships... the clubs are still optimistic about Longguo's qualification. They don't believe that Lao Li dares to deliberately let the national team lose the game just to win a bet.
But they didn't expect that they really lost. Now the club owners have nothing to say.
Of course, if there are no follow-up measures, these bosses will probably still default on their debts, but you can't resist Lin Dong's mediation...
The club is reluctant to let go, nothing more than wanting the team to achieve results, nothing more than wanting the team to have more potential and value.
In fact, an excellent foreign player can fully meet their requirements, but those excellent foreign players in the past were unwilling to play in the CBA.
But now it's different. With Lin Dong's matchmaking, many players who play in the lower leagues of the NBA and retired players are willing to go to the CBA to make money.
When Lin Dong joined La Liga, another condition he reached with the European Basketball Association was to connect the trading channel between CBA and European leagues, allowing players from both sides to trade freely... If there was no such condition, those club owners would not have made such a bet with Lao Li.
At the same time, more importantly, because of Lin Dong's rise, the domestic basketball trend in Longguo is now prevalent. Not only have various basketball training classes sprung up across the country, but the overall commercial value of CBA has also increased greatly, which allows clubs to make more money and also allows them to have better conditions to attract excellent foreign players.
Using a stick to pry the basketball world around the world, connecting all leagues to nourish the basketball soil of Longguo, this is the purpose of Lin Dong and Lao Li to make Longguo lose the World Championships.
Longguo's defeat in the World Championships must be blamed, but surprisingly, it is not just Longguo that is blamed.
The group that the US team was assigned to did not win all the games. In the group stage, they were beaten by the Greek men's basketball team led by Jonas 101:97. Their high-position zone defense was perfect, which made the US team, which was missing superstars such as Kobe and Kidd due to special training after the playoffs, lose sight of the big picture.
On the offensive end, they could only rely on their personal ability to rush in and fight one against two or even three against four, or throw the ball to the outside and miss it with all kinds of fatal touches.
On the defensive end, they were often pulled out of the outside by the Greek team and frequently shot three-pointers.
In comparison, the overall performance of the US team was simply a pile of shit.
Not only Greece, but also Puerto Rico, which has always been regarded as a weak team, once put the US in a difficult battle. The team led by the magic boy Arroyo led the US team for three full quarters. It was not until the fourth quarter that the score was reversed by Wade's magical performance.
In another world, the United States only won the bronze medal in the 2004 Olympics. They lost in international competitions and even lost to Puerto Rico, which had Arroyo, in the 2004 group stage, but not in this world...
Although the magical Greece unexpectedly lost to Montenegro in the end, causing the US team to qualify as the first in the group after counting the net points, it still caused a lot of criticism in the United States, and it also sounded a wake-up call for Americans and sent a shocking signal to the world.
Americans are no longer invincible on the basketball court.
If the God of Basketball can beat them in the NBA with a group of Asian main players, then European teams can also beat them in international competitions!
International basketball has indeed made rapid progress in the past two years, especially European basketball. Teamwork has become their killer weapon in the international arena. On the contrary, the American team, which was once the only one in the world, pays too much attention to personal ability and carries the burden of superstars. It is still fantasizing about the kind of crushing game that Dream One has. It is also lazy in training, and there is basically no teamwork at all.
This undoubtedly made the world re-recognize European basketball. The fear and admiration of American basketball in their bones are no longer so mindless. Even just after the group stage, some people have already called for pulling this year's American team off the altar.
The whole world is looking forward to the appearance of a miracle, and across the United States, countless people are clamoring to defend the honor of American basketball. The attention brought by this has also spread the basketball fever brought by Lin Dong in the finals to the world again.
Unfortunately, such enthusiasm did not bring miracles to fans all over the world.
After entering the knockout stage, the American team obviously learned the lesson of underestimating the enemy before, and played the subsequent games very cautiously, and there was much more cooperation between each other.
The individual strength of these NBA superstars is still undoubtedly the strongest in the world, and when they are willing to put down their status and cooperate and take every opponent seriously, even the rising European basketball is visibly inferior.
The Americans did not give other teams any chances and swept all the way to win the championship.
The only thing worth mentioning is that Japan actually made it to the semi-finals again...
Japan had already made it to the semi-finals once in the 2004 Olympics, and this time as the host, Japan also has a great advantage in the grouping of this World Championships. Of course, more importantly, their strength.
Sakuragi Hanamichi is already a world superstar, and Rukawa Kaede is also an All-Star. The cooperation between the two is very skillful. In addition, Sendoh, Yamatoda, Zebei Rongji, Mori Shigehiro and others who have been trained in Mobis for one or two years, under the leadership of the national team captain Orimo Takehiko, not only did they easily break out of the group stage, but also eliminated Slovenia and France in the round of 16 and the quarter-finals respectively.
With Sakuragi Hanamichi in the inside, and the cooperation of Yamato and Mori Shigehiro, Japan's inside line can be said to be quite strong. More importantly, the Japanese team continued the space small ball tactics of the supersonics.
After all, whether it is Sakuragi Hanamichi or Rukawa Kaede, they are experts in this tactic, and Sendoh and others who are far away in La Liga Mobis are from the same source as the supersonics, so they have also learned this set of tactics to a certain extent. The overall cooperation is very smooth, and they are known as the little supersonics, strong in defense, strong in the outside line, and strong in their space and cooperation.
This Japan is enough to compete with world-class teams such as Lithuania, Greece, Serbia, and Spain. If it hadn't met the US team in advance in the semi-finals, it would not be impossible to make it to the finals.
The semi-finals of the World Youth Championship, the semi-finals of the World Championships...
If such a world-class result only happened once, it can only be said to be an accident.
Just like the last World Youth Championship, Japan was lucky enough to be in the group stage. After the group stage, they ranked high and played against weak teams all the way. In the quarterfinals, they met France, which was not fully staffed, and barely squeezed into the semifinals.
People say that it was the Japanese team's shit luck, and even the Japanese fans who cheered for it believed it.
But this time, although the group luck is still good, the schedule of the World Championships is completely different from that of the World Youth Championship, and the degree of attention of each country is also different. Being able to make it to the semifinals is enough to prove Japan's strength.
Japan has players such as Sakuragi Hanamichi, Rukawa Kaede, Sendoh Akira, Sawakita Eiji, Mori Shigehiro, Yamatoda, etc. Even the former Japanese national player Orimo Takehiko can only play as a substitute in this team. They are indeed a world-class team.
Ding ding ding ding...
"Congratulations, Anzai-san, this is a great victory for the Japanese basketball world, this is a monument for the Japanese basketball world..."
The phone kept ringing, and Coach Anzai kept answering it. Almost all of the calls he heard were congratulations from senior officials of the Ministry of Education, B League officials, club owners at all levels, and other people in the basketball circle.
He answered them one by one with a smile, and responded neither servile nor overbearing. Finally, he received a call from Michiko.
"You have made it to the semi-finals of the World Championships. Can you take a rest now?" His wife asked him with a smile on the phone: "Mr. Tsuchiya found a good sanatorium for you. It's time to take care of yourself."
Mr. Tsuchiya is Anzai Mitsuyoshi's personal doctor and a good friend of the couple. He has saved Anzai Mitsuyoshi's life more than once.
Anzai Mitsuyoshi smiled.
To be honest, Tsuchiya Maedo had advised him several times not to work anymore. He needed to rest at home to recuperate due to his high cholesterol, high blood sugar and heart disease, but Anzai Mitsuyoshi didn't listen. As a result, he almost failed to overcome two difficulties in recent years due to his physical condition.
Tsuchiya Maedo had advised him at the World Youth Championship a few years ago, but at that time Anzai Mitsuyoshi said that he wanted to retire after getting a good result in the World Youth Championship with his children.
His wife supported him, but after the World Youth Championship, he was thinking about the World Championships again. Now that he has reached the semi-finals of the World Championships, he is thinking about something else.
His wife is no longer so supportive now because of his physical condition, but...
"Michiko... give me another two years."
"Olympics? You have already got the tickets, that's enough." Before making this call, Michiko Anzai had actually guessed her husband's answer: "And what about after the Olympics? Japanese basketball has risen, there is no need..."
"Hehehe..." Anzai Mitsuyoshi pushed his glasses on the bridge of his nose and smiled into the phone: "It's raining in Saitama City, how is the weather over there..."
He was joking to divert his wife's attention, but his wife was right.
Waiting for two more years is for the 2008 Olympics.
The Olympics is the common dream of everyone in the Japanese basketball world.
For Japan in the past, being able to enter the Olympics was already a huge success, but for Anzai Mitsuyoshi now, just entering the Olympics is not enough.
He wants more, such as getting out of the group stage, such as the quarterfinals, or even another semifinal!
Many people think that Japanese basketball has risen, whether it is domestic fans or even his wife, they all think so.
But what they don't know is that this may be Japan's last chance...
In recent years, Japanese basketball has developed very fast, because of the cooperation with the NBA, the cooperation with the European League, and the basketball fever caused by NBA players such as Sakuragi Hanamichi and Rukawa Kaede across the country. Both the training conditions and the number of players have been greatly improved compared with previous years.
But strangely, the entire youth basketball world in Japan seems to have a fault.
Coach Anzai has been paying close attention to the high school league and the college league in recent years, and has also used the power of the Basketball Association to open the door for these young people and fully support them, whether it is game sponsorship or youth training connected with the European League and the NBA.
However, let alone players of the level of Sakuragi Hanamichi, Rukawa Kaede, Mori Shigehiro, Sendoh Akira, and Sawakita Eiji, it is a luxury for Anzai Mitsuyoshi to find another Amu in the country. No one is active or potential. Occasionally, a dominant player appears, but it is only because the surrounding competitors are too weak, so that the tallest one is picked out among the short ones, just like Tabuse Yuta who went to the NBA with the relationship of Sakuragi Hanamichi but was laid off after playing only 4 games...
It is obvious that all aspects of Japanese basketball are rapidly improving, but there is such a fault drop. This is really unreasonable.
Anzai Mitsuyoshi has been looking for the answer for a long time but has not found it, but the older people are, the more they fear ghosts and gods.
He has now begun to believe the joking summary of the Japanese Basketball Association - saying that the emergence of Sakuragi Hanamichi and his generation of players is because Amaterasu Omikami wants to watch basketball...
The emergence of Sakuragi and his gang is Japan's luck, or perhaps Japan's sorrow.
When these players are no longer at their peak, Japan will no longer be able to gain a foothold in the world's top ranks, and may even fall to the bottom in an instant.
Yes, there will be the Olympics in 2012, and these players will still be there, but by then they will have entered the later stages of their careers. The injuries, declining form, and declining morale that athletes must have, coupled with the poor performance of the new generation in Japan, have already doomed Japanese basketball to be in a state of transition.
So... the 2008 Olympics may really be Japan's last and most promising peak.
Anzai Mitsuyoshi doesn't want to let go, and he never dares to let go. In order to see this dream come true, he can even die peacefully on the court at that time.
He has already thought of the Olympic roster.
Orimo Takehiko may no longer be able to compete in the court in two years, but that doesn't affect anything.
Sakuragi Hanamichi, Rukawa Kaede, Sendoh Akira, Sawakita Eiji, Mori Shigehiro, Yamato, and even Kamiso Ichiro, Tsuchiya Jun, and Fujima, who have performed amazingly in the B League just after graduating from college and are likely to go to the European League.
Mori Shigehiro has now grown into an All-Star center in the European League. Although he is not as good as Chandler of the Supersonics, he is enough to partner with Sakuragi, which makes the Japanese inside line capable of dealing with any first-class team in the world.
And Sendoh Akira is already an All-Star player in the European League and is known as a passing master. As long as he is there, and Sakuragi and Mori Shigehiro contain the inside line and protect the rebounds, outside players such as Rukawa Kaede, Kamiso Ichiro, and Zebei Rongzhi will definitely get many open opportunities, and there will be enough substitutes on the bench.
This Japanese team is very strong, and in two years, they will become even stronger!
No matter what the future of Japanese basketball will be, at least in this era, it is necessary to leave an indelible legend and example for future generations and the Japanese basketball world!
Michiko Anzai was still persuading on the phone, and was not led astray by Anzai Mitsuyoshi's jokes. She knew her husband too well.
"Michiko..." Anzai Mitsuyoshi actually didn't listen at all. After he finished imagining the lineup for the 2008 Olympics, he finally interrupted her and faced the issue that his wife was most worried about.
"Let me finish this dream." Anzai Mitsuyoshi slowly said, "These are really the last two years... I promise!"