[There’s a story about Napoleon Bonaparte selecting generals that I love to share with others.
It is said that after his best general died, Napoleon sent one of his chamberlains to find soone capable of taking over the general’s position.
A few weeks later, the chamberlain returned and described a perfect candidate for the deceased general, soone with rich military knowledge and strong managent skills.
After the chamberlain finished speaking, Napoleon looked at him and said, "Sounds great, but is he lucky?"
Before I achieved real success, Tex Winter often comforted by saying, "All you lack is a little luck."
This sounds sowhat hurtful, and sotis I would comfort myself the sa way, thinking I was missing so luck.
There are many situations in basketball gas that you can’t control, which is why most of your energy should be focused on things you can control.
You can’t avoid player injuries or other misfortunes befalling the team, but in fact, during my experience with the Bulls, we didn’t encounter such misfortunes.
I think our real bad luck was that soone was always one step ahead of us, climbing higher and going further.
I’ve always believed there’s another belief more important than luck—a belief that all of us understood each other on the sa level of thought, a belief that goes beyond the emotional.
For this reason, I had the players sit quietly together, undisturbed, to foster deeper connections among them.
As Friedrich Nietzsche said: "The invisible ties are the strongest bonds."
In my career, I have witnessed the birth of such bonds several tis.
These threads, like a web, connect players to each other, generating a strong brotherhood and trendous power to sweep away all fear of failure.
However, there was one team that was an exception, the Portland Trail Blazers.
They too had threads, but not like a spider’s web, rather like the strings of puppets.
A giant figure stood behind everyone, connecting each person with strings.
It was a terrifying sight, one of the reasons I detested Bobby Berman.
And I must admit, his luck was much better than mine.]
——Published in 2014, an excerpt from Phil Jackson’s autobiography "Christ, Hippie, Indian, Zen, and Basketball".
In June of 1992, the official economic report of Arica was released, showing that the national unemploynt rate had reached 7.8%, a peak not seen in nearly ten years.
The last ti Arica experienced such a high unemploynt rate was in March of 1984, when Reagan was vying for his second presidential term, and Gan Guoyang was competing for his NCAA championship.
The economic cycle rises and falls like waves. After Arica experienced the boom of the Reagan era in the ’80s, it faced a recession in the early ’90s, and society needed new growth points.
The poor economic environnt made George H.W. Bush’s poll numbers less than ideal. Although world-changing events occurred during his term, voters focused more on their imdiate interests when choosing a president rather than distant Iraq or the Soviet Union, which had always been portrayed as the enemy.
anwhile, across the ocean in China, the market economy was in its difficult early stages. Leaders traveled to the south for inspections and delivered important speeches in various places.
The timing of the visits was cleverly chosen, coinciding with the Portland Trail Blazers’ strong playoff run, and the leader frequently cited this basketball hero in his speeches.
Gan Guoyang and the Trail Blazers were very obliging, making it all the way to the finals, standing on the grandest stage for the second straight year, aiming for their second three-peat.
After the Western Conference finals, Gan Guoyang publicly announced at a press conference that he would represent the Chinese n’s Basketball Team in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, bringing glory to the nation.
On the sa day, the leader gave a speech in Shenzhen, saying, "Science and technology are the primary productive forces. For faster economic developnt, we must rely on science and education. Basketball is a good example; an amazing athlete has proven with his achievents that under scientific and reasonable training, Chinese people can achieve extraordinary success. We are still a bit behind in all aspects and must hurry to catch up."
"The purpose of developnt is to liberate productive forces, allowing so people to beco prosperous first, with the pioneers leading the followers to achieve common prosperity. Just like advanced basketball techniques leading the less advanced, ultimately reaching a high level."
In this important speech, Gan Guoyang was used as an example twice, highlighting his status in Chinese sports, already an unattainable benchmark, destined to be written into history books.
anwhile, in the Eastern Conference, the Chicago Bulls defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers 4-2, advancing to the finals for the second consecutive year, facing the Portland Trail Blazers once more.
The Cavaliers once again beca the backdrop for the Bulls and Jordan.
Fans across Arica awaited the finals eagerly all season, and though there were so twists in the process, there was ultimately no suspense—the Bulls and the Trail Blazers were undefeated in their respective divisions.
Before the ga, the topic of Gan vs. Jordan was all the rage, with almost every TV program discussing it, even busier than in 1991.
The discussion was further fueled by the potential match-up between the U.S. Olympic Basketball Team and the Chinese n’s Basketball Team, as well as the confrontation between Arica and China—post-Soviet Union dissolution in 1992, U.S.-China relations began to change.
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