Karl Malone was a mama’s boy, sothing Gan Guoyang had learned at the Indiana Olympic training camp.
Although they didn’t share a room, Malone was said to call his mother every day after training, and chat endlessly on the phone.
After arriving in Salt Lake City, this habit not only didn’t diminish, but intensified because he knew he wouldn’t be able to go ho for a while, and could only stay on the Utah plateau and endure endless plane travel.
Furthermore, in Utah, you could walk the streets and not encounter a single black person. Malone rembered the first black person he t was a contractor, with whom he imdiately struck up a long conversation.
To alleviate his hosickness, Malone’s mother would send him food from ho every week—Louisiana’s collard greens, waterlons, and fried catfish fillets.
These were hard to co by in Salt Lake City, especially waterlons, which always reminded Malone of his mischievous youth: shooting out windows with a BB gun, destroying neighbors’ waterlon patches, then zooming through their yards on his motorcycle.
Boys are often mischievous not only because they are naughty, but also in part to show off their masculinity, and Karl Malone was the latter.
He was a crybaby as a child, always bullied by his older siblings, so as he grew up, he was particularly keen on doing adventurous and manly things to make himself seem less sissy.
Upon graduating from high school and entering college, he could only go to the local Louisiana Tech due to his insufficient grades, a school that was not known for its n’s basketball but won’s basketball—they were a top team in won’s NCAA in the ’80s, winning two national championships.
At that ti, people would ridicule the n’s basketball team at Louisiana Tech, saying they couldn’t even beat the won’s team, and that Karl Malone couldn’t compare to the won’s team forward Deborah Rodman, the best female rebounder in the school’s history.
Deborah Rodman had a brother nad Dennis Rodman.
Perhaps to prove he was stronger than Deborah Rodman, Malone wanted to go to her hotown of Dallas during the draft, but in the end, the Mavericks didn’t take him.
In the 1985 NCAA national tournant, Malone led his team to the Sweet Sixteen, which was the best result in the school’s n’s basketball history, and to so extent, Malone proved himself.
However, when facing Ah Gan, his past accomplishnts turned to nothing, as Ah Gan was a man who had led Gonzaga to the national championship, standing in a higher place looking down on all the league’s big n—especially the power forwards.
With Bill Walton’s return to the Trail Blazers, Gan Guoyang appeared more at the power forward position, providing a challenge to all power forwards in the league.
Just like when Michael Jordan appeared at the shooting guard position, those long-ard, long-legged defenders suddenly beca in demand.
Malone was not scheduled to start tonight; he sat on the bench nervously alongside Stockton, looking on as a spectator.
The major change in the Jazz’s starting lineup compared to last season was that Griffiths was out with a stress fracture in his foot, putting Bob Henson in the starting position.
An accurate outside shooter like Griffiths, Henson was the sort of player who would attempt three-point shots.
Starting with Pete Maravich, the Jazz team has always favored these sharpshooting white shooting guards, a tradition that has continued since the ’70s.
The Trail Blazers also loathed these sharpshooting white guards, their presence a major annoyance in their zone press defense during set plays.
Mark-Eaton easily tipped the ball during the jump ball; the guy didn’t even need to jump, just reached out to touch the ball, so Gan Guoyang didn’t bother to compete and imdiately got into a defensive stance.
The Jazz worked the ball around the periter, and Henson hit a mid-range shot after a pass for the Jazz’s first points.
The crowd erupted in a huge cheer; to the uninford, it might have seed like Henson had scored the ga-winner.
Tonight, the Salt Palace had a huge number of fans. Salt Lake City, Utah, like Portland, Oregon, only had one major league team, a solitary bud.
Utah once had a team called the Utah Stars, which disbanded after the ABA-NBA rger; then in 1979, the New Orleans Jazz moved to Salt Lake City, keeping the Jazz na that didn’t fit well with the high plains of Utah.
Since this was an impoverished and remote part of Arica, the Jazz’s situation was always precarious, with not much comrcial value to be made, and the team was always planning to relocate.
Salt Lake City had its share of loyal fans; after all, there wasn’t much else to do, and if the only basketball team left, there would be even less to occupy the evenings.
During the sumr, the Jazz’s managent planned to move the team from Salt Lake City to Miami, Florida, believing it would bring more popularity to the team.
Local car dealership tycoon Larry Miller (who had given Stockton his used Toyota Corolla), through a series of maneuvers and negotiations, kept the Jazz in Salt Lake City and beca the new owner of the team.
Miller was a conservative Christian who set requirents for the players’ conduct and dress after becoming the owner, such as tying shoelaces neatly, socks needing to et length requirents, always tucking shirts into pants, and jerseys tucked into shorts (players who liked to pull their jersey tails out would get scolded in Jazz).
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