"If he’s got the guts, let him throw elbows at Ah Gan, see my nose. I’d rather go up against Ah Gan. At least as long as you don’t play dirty against him, his ga is absolutely clean," said Jack Sikma, the center for the Bucks, during a dia interview, putting pressure on the League’s operations office.
Because the ga was already over, and things like throwing elbows are common in the League, it was hard for Thorne to issue a retroactive fine to Cartwright.
All he could do was call the Bulls and request that Cartwright wear a soft elbow pad in gas, to make his elbows less hard.
Cartwright refused when he heard this, saying that wearing an elbow pad would affect his ga feel, especially his shooting.
Phil Jackson then said, Cartwright will not wear an elbow pad, and the Bulls won’t make him, it’s a player’s personal freedom.
Moreover, players are making such a fuss mainly to weaken the Bulls’ defense inside since the combination of Cartwright Buck-Williams is extrely tough defensively.
Thorne didn’t have many options, only saying that he would pay attention, and players’ complaints might increase more and more.
"Lan Bi’er didn’t wear an elbow pad, why should Cartwright?" said Jackson nonchalantly.
In short, everyone on the Bulls didn’t care, and the team’s assistant coach Bach even drew tombstones on the tactical board, writing on them "Olajuwon," "Kite," "Parrish," "Thomas"... next to it, he wrote "Cartwright’s National Cetery."
Jordan shook his head disapprovingly upon seeing this, saying, "Ah Gan has buried many more, yet he hasn’t built a cetery, and nobody’s complaining."
Bach, knowing Jordan is a hardcore fan of Ah Gan and has never liked Cartwright, had no choice but to silently erase the drawings on the tactical board, murmuring, "Those who complain have all been taken out by him."
Jordan said, "At least he took out the opponents fair and square, look at Cartwright, what did he look like facing Ah Gan? Does his elbow have an ’automatic evade for Ah Gan’ label on it?"
Bach shrugged, not wanting to get entangled with Jordan over this matter.
However, Jordan’s words did make sense, Bill Cartwright has elbowed so many people, but he never dares to elbow Ah Gan.
And each ti against the Trail Blazers, Cartwright’s performance has been terrible, not just ordinarily bad.
Especially when matched up against Gan Guoyang, he would often end up with zero points and one or two rebounds - such pitiful stat lines.
This has always been a big concern for the Bulls, you may not be able to stop Ah Gan, but you can’t be this bad on offense.
Moreover, the Trail Blazers also have Sabonis, which is a huge test for the Bulls.
Because Olajuwon was elbowed and rested for two months, the position for reserve center at the All-Star ga beca available.
This year, Gan Guoyang was moved to the forward group for All-Star voting, the League did this with the intention of hoping that Ah Gan, Robinson, and Olajuwon, all three popular big n, could make it into the All-Star ga without having to eliminate one between Robinson and Olajuwon after Ah Gan secured a spot, as both are very popular among fans.
Unexpectedly, Olajuwon’s injury led to Sabonis getting a lucky break, filling in for Olajuwon’s spot, and being selected for the All-Star ga for the first ti in his career.
It was entirely by chance, otherwise, the Trail Blazers would have only had Gan Guoyang as their All-Star, similar to the situation with the Eastern number one Bulls.
They only had Michael Jordan undoubtedly selected for the All-Star and even surpassed Ah Gan in the final phase of voting, becoming the top vote-getter.
The reason is simple, due to the Gulf War, the surging patriotic fervor of Aricans did not allow a foreigner to be the top vote-getter.
The League’s gas ended on February 7th, officially entering the All-Star Weekend period, suspending gas until February 12th.
On the sa day, in the Gulf region, the "Desert Storm" air strike operation led by the US ard as the United Nations Army had been going on for over 20 days.
After more than 20 days of war, multinational forces had been flying in the skies, continuously using high-tech weapons to precisely bomb Iraqi military forces and targets, paralyzing Iraq’s command and control system. The Iraqi forces, who had been fighting for over half a month, hadn’t even seen the face of the enemy and were left utterly disoriented and incapable of resistance.
On the 7th, the US Army crossed the borders of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, beginning ground combat with Iraq.
Before the outbreak of war, Saddam had longed to engage in ground combat with multinational forces, hoping to turn Iraq into the second Vietnam.
However, tis truly changed, and Aricans showed the world a new model of warfare, foregoing any ground entanglent, and defeating the Iraqi forces with high-tech precision bombardnt, leaving them powerlessly beaten.
The ground combat was not ant to decide the outco of the war, rather, it was to sweep up and reap the fruits of victory.
Moreover, after the US military entered Kuwaiti territory, they were not in a rush to engage in full-scale ground warfare with Iraq, but instead sent out advance troops to fight preliminary skirmishes.
While conducting probing firefights, they continued to call on the Air Force for all-around heavy bombing, shattering the Iraqi forces.
Before the Gulf War began, there were many anti-war voices within Arica, with people worried that the US would once again fall into the quagmire of the Vietnam War of the 60s and 70s, where a generation of youth’s pri and lives were lost in the jungles of Southeast Asia, and this ti they’d be left in the deserts of the Middle East.
Instead, in just over 20 days, the high-tech, heavily ard US forces achieved a breakthrough victory with unopposed might.
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