am i proud?

Chapter 288 Victory in the First Battle
After seeing Yu Jia kindly instructing the cameraman to turn off the camera, Wang Dalin couldn't help but be quite moved.

You must know that this is a live broadcast of CCTV, and it is not a good excuse to always cut off the live broadcast on the grounds of "signal interruption".

"Old Yu, it's nothing!" Wang Dalin said with a smile, "I know this is a live broadcast, and I have thought about what I said just now. You don't need to cover for me!"

Yu Jia said in surprise: "Dalin, winning the championship is not something you talk about casually!"

Wang Dalin smiled and said, "Yes, so I told you just now that I have thought it through!"

Yu Jia was still astonished, and said with disbelief on his face: "But...does our Chinese men's basketball team really have a chance to win the Olympic Games?"

Wang Dalin laughed and said, "Why is there no chance? Not long ago we were able to defeat Lithuania, and the day after tomorrow we will be able to defeat Spain, as well as Italy, Serbia and Montenegro, Argentina... We will defeat them one by one!"

Yu Jia blurted out: "But... what about the US team? Can we beat them?"

Wang Dalin couldn't help narrowing his eyes, and slowly said: "If it was the US team in 92, of course we would have no chance, but this year...hehe, they may not be comparable to Argentina, Lithuania and Spain!"

Yu Jia cried out: "No way? The US team...can't be so weak?"

Wang Dalin said with a smile: "In my opinion, the US team's first game against Puerto Rico is not enough!"

Yu Jia obviously didn't take it seriously, and said with a smile: "Impossible...they easily abused Puerto Rico in the previous qualifiers!"

Wang Dalin smiled and said, "If you don't believe me, just wait and see...it's the 16th, and you'll know when the time comes!"

Yu Jia nodded, instead of continuing the topic with him, he signaled the cameraman to start the live broadcast... In the following live broadcast, neither of them continued to chat about whether to win the championship, but instead analyzed the strengths and weaknesses of each opponent in Group A.

Although the live broadcast was interrupted for a few minutes due to "signal transmission failure", Wang Dalin and Yu Jia made a thorough analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each opponent in Group A of this group match, which also gave Chinese fans in front of the TV a wave of knowledge.

Of course, the phrase "My goal is to win the championship" that Wang Dalin said also aroused heated discussions in China, and the fans were naturally divided into two camps.

Some fans think that Wang Dalin is a little blindly optimistic, even arrogant; while others think that what Wang Dalin said is very reasonable... Yes, since we defeated the European champion Lithuania, why are we not qualified to think about winning the championship?

With this kind of performance, even if they can't beat the strongest American team, at least... they are still qualified to reach the finals, right?
Yes, in the hearts of all domestic fans, the US team is still that unattainable mountain... It would be nice if the Chinese team could lose less points under their hands. How dare they dream of defeating them?
How would they know that the U.S. men's basketball team in this Olympic Games will have their worst record in any previous World Series... Except for the 2019 Men's Basketball World Cup, the U.S. men's basketball team has never performed so poorly!

……

The first group match against Spain was on the evening of August 8th... The battle was imminent, and the head coach Harris just organized the players to carry out some adaptive light training.

After training, Wang Dalin met a young man with yellow skin and black hair on his way back to the Chinese delegation in the Olympic Village. He was one of the very few Chinese athletes who participated in the sprint event in this Olympic Games... Yes, he is Liu Xiang!
One of them is Zhang Zilin's fiancé, and the other is Zhang Zilin's "senior brother", so they are not strangers to each other, so they chatted for a while, and they both said some blessings to each other when they parted.

Of course Wang Dalin knew what kind of brilliance Liu Xiang will create in this Olympic Games, and he will keep this brilliance for several years, until Beijing four years later... Alas, I will cry if I talk too much!
Back in the dormitory, Wang Zhizhi came out of the bathroom wrapped in a bath towel, and while wiping his hair with a big towel, he asked vaguely, "Who was that guy who was chatting with you just now? You two seem to know each other very well!"

Wang Dalin smiled and said, "His name is Liu Xiang, and he belongs to the track and field team!"

"Track and field team? Judging by his figure, does he practice high jump or long jump?" Wang Zhizhi asked casually.

Now Liu Xiang can only say that he has a certain reputation in the domestic track and field circle. Wang Zhizhi usually doesn't pay much attention to track and field events, so it's normal that he doesn't know Liu Xiang.

Wang Dalin smiled and said, "He's practicing the 110-meter hurdles... roughly, he was the champion of the men's 2001-meter hurdles in the 110 Universiade, and he is very hopeful to compete for the gold medal this time!"

Wang Zhizhi was surprised and said: "So powerful? I don't know anything about it? Alas, it seems that I have been playing in the NBA for the past few years, and I really have been a bit deaf to the outside world!"

Wang Dalin asked while taking off his clothes: "By the way, roughly, how is your contract renewal going?"

Wang Zhizhi smiled and said, "Brother Xia has already negotiated with the Clippers to renew his contract for 2 years, with a total salary of 461 million US dollars... Thank you for this!"

Wang Dalin smiled lightly: "It's nothing, we are all on our own, so we must help if we can!"

The brother Xia that Wang Zhizhi was talking about was his agent Xia Song... Based on his performance with the Clippers last season, $2 million for two years is definitely not high, but it is not low either.

If Wang Dalin hadn't greeted "Lord Baylor", the Clippers probably wouldn't have offered him such an offer.

At least, when Wang Zhizhi became a free agent, none of the offers from NBA teams could match the offer from the Clippers, and the highest average salary was only about 150 million US dollars.

This is also normal... Although Wang Zhizhi has good offensive firepower, he has obvious flaws on the defensive end. In this era when big men are generally despised to shoot three-pointers floating outside, it is certainly impossible for him to get a high salary.

If he was born 10 years later and could enjoy the dividends of the small ball era of later generations, with his strength, it would not be surprising to get an annual salary of 600 million to 1000 million US dollars in the NBA.

This can be compared to that Ryan Anderson... that guy also has obvious flaws on the defensive end, but he is tall and can slightly protect the basket and shoot three-pointers. The Rockets signed him a 3-year contract of 5875 million U.S. dollars, with an average salary of 1958 million U.S. dollars!
Although it is quite an outrageous premium contract, it just shows that... in the small ball era, a big man like Wang Zhizhi who can shoot three-pointers is still very popular!

……

On the evening of August 8th, the first group match between the Chinese men's basketball team and the Spanish men's basketball team finally started.

At the beginning of the game, Wang Dalin gave the Spanish team a blow.

As soon as he received the ball at the top of the three-point line, he raised his hand and shot a three-pointer without hesitation... Paul Gasol, who was in charge of marking him, didn't even have time to react.

But looking back, Gasol also returned one to the Chinese team... He forced the Chinese team to make a defensive change through the pick-and-roll, and then slipped to the bottom line and made a counter-basket.

This time Yao Ming's assisting defense was a step slower. Of course, there was also the reason why the opponent's point guard Calderon had a very tricky pass timing, so he succeeded in sneak attacking... But Yao Ming's face was still a little unsightly.

In fact, in the past two years in the NBA, Yao Ming and Gasol have played against each other no less than seven or eight times, and each time Yao Ming failed to take advantage of it.

Gasol is 213cm tall with bare feet, has good movement speed, and has a reliable mid-range shot. Yao Ming and him are evenly matched, and no one can completely defeat the opponent.

But when it comes to international basketball, FIBA ​​rules do not have the phrase "defend the penalty area for three seconds", so Yao Ming thinks he should have an advantage over Gasol.

After all, he is 226cm tall, standing in the penalty area is like an iron tower, who dares to come in and stroke his beard easily?

But Gasol did just that, and he did it beautifully... He used quick moves to avoid Yao Ming's help defense and broke the Chinese team's supposedly impregnable inside line.

Wang Dalin patted him on the shoulder and said with a smile: "It's okay, Dayao... Let's show them a show later, and show these Spaniards what a high-position pick-and-roll is!"

Yao Ming nodded and said, "Okay! You don't have to worry about jumping in, I will definitely pass the ball to you!"

Looking back, the Chinese team made the second attack.

After Wang Dalin received the ball at the top of the three-point arc, Gasol immediately stuck it up. He didn't dare to let Wang Dalin shoot from this distance again.

You must know that the FIBA's three-point line is much closer than that of the NBA. For Wang Dalin, this distance is only two points from a long distance.

As we all know, Wang Dalin's three-point shooting percentage in the NBA last season was as high as 50%. Here... Who knows how accurate he can shoot?

Yao Ming came up in time to set him a pick-and-roll, Wang Dalin dribbled the ball sideways, Gasol was blocked by Yao Ming, and cold sweat broke out on his back in anxiety.

Fortunately, at this time, Spain's starting center Antonio Bueno also came to the high defense, and Wang Dalin lost the opportunity to shoot immediately.

However, Wang Dalin suddenly gave the ball to Yao Ming with a back pass in the process of dribbling, and Gasol and Bueno rushed over involuntarily.

It's normal for them to have such a reaction... With such a distance, they dare not let Wang Dalin go, and neither do they dare to let Yao Ming go!
Unexpectedly, Yao Ming just raised the ball and quickly pushed it straight into the inside line. After receiving the ball, Wang Dalin didn't turn around, and directly made a back dunk.

After scoring the goal, Wang Dalin and Yao Ming smiled and clapped their hands in celebration. They laughed almost at the same time——

"Pretty spread!"

"Butt aggressively!"

Gasol was obviously a little depressed. He really didn't expect Yao Ming and Wang Dalin to play such an exquisite cooperation, and he didn't expect that even in the Chinese men's basketball team, Wang Dalin was not obsessed with fighting alone... He played a very "team", even more "team" than he was in the Clippers.

Fortunately, apart from him, there is also Juan Carlos Navarro, nicknamed "Bomb", in the Spanish team.

The shooting guard shoots accurately and breaks through very sharply. He is also very fierce on the defensive end. He has brought a lot of trouble to the Chinese team's perimeter defense. No matter Zhang Jinsong, Li Nan, Zhu Fangyu or Du Feng can't do anything about him.

The outside players of the Chinese team all performed very hard, but their strength is indeed far from that of Navarro, which cannot be compensated by hard work.

Under Navarro's strong performance, the Spanish team kept clung to the score in the first half and was not pulled away. But at the end of the first half, Wang Dalin suddenly hit two consecutive three-pointers from the outside, and immediately opened the point difference to double digits.

Wang Dalin does play very "team", but this does not mean that he is incapable of playing "selfish"... With his current strength, once he goes all out and sticks to offense, scoring 30 or 40 points in a single game is really like playing, not to mention that he is also known as the "FIBA Killer"!
If it were replaced by James, Wade, Iverson and Marbury in the current US men's basketball team, their breakthrough players would definitely be weakened under FIBA ​​rules, but Wang Dalin is different... His outside shooting ability is also second to none in the NBA, and it will only be more accurate here.

Why are Carmelo Anthony and Kevin Durant so good under FIBA ​​rules?
Isn't it just because they can shoot accurately from the outside?
James really wants to be able to practice his mid-range and long-range shooting to Kobe's level, so why should he "throw the pot" to his teammates at the last moment of the game?

After all... he still has no confidence in his shooting!

This point has not really changed even when he was with the Lakers at the end of his career... Maybe he can often make three-pointers in the game, but after careful consideration, his mid-range and long-range shots are still not stable enough!
That's why he becomes more and more powerless as he gets older... He is still strong and strong, but his speed has slowed down a lot, and his breakthrough is much more strenuous than when he was young.

……

In the second half, the Spanish team began to focus on Navarro, but they did not expect that after the intermission, the Chinese team would let Wang Dalin defend Navarro.

This change in defensive strategy obviously made Spanish coach Javier Imbroda a little unexpected, and it also gave Navarro a taste of how powerful members of the NBA's best defensive team are.

Navarro originally thought that Wang Dalin was so tall that his footsteps must be much slower than his own, but when he broke through, he realized... is this frankly human?

Wang Dalin, a big man with a height of 211 cm, is actually a little faster than Navarro, who is 193 cm tall... Is there any Wang Fa?Is there still a law?

Navarro's offense was hindered, Gasol was also defended by Yao Ming on the inside, and it was extremely difficult for the Spanish team to score every time.

Under such circumstances, the Chinese team played more and more smoothly, and soon opened up the difference between the two sides to more than 20 points... At the final stage of the game, the head coach of the Spanish team, Imbroda, finally replaced Pau Gasol and other main players, and voluntarily surrendered.

For the Spanish team, it doesn't matter if they lose a game in the group stage. Instead of fighting the Chinese team, it is better to preserve their strength and fight against Italy, Serbia and Montenegro.

For the Chinese team, the victory of this game is of great significance... This is not just a simple start!
As Wang Dalin said in Yu Jia's interview - "Our strength is very strong... My goal is to win the championship!"

这场比赛王大林全场18投12中，其中三分球7投5中，罚球8投8中，砍下了37分17篮板11助攻2抢断2盖帽的大号三双……他用自己的表现给国内广大球迷打了一剂强心针！

(End of this chapter)