The NBA's opening sling against Chris Paul

Chapter 90 Zach Randolph's Road to Fame

"Hey, buddy, hurry up and change your clothes and come to the arena, everyone is waiting for you." Almost everyone received this group text message from Guy on their mobile phones.

"What the hell is this guy doing? Isn't the joint practice in the afternoon?" Li Ming, who was drinking water, looked surprised.

At this moment, he just finished two sets of squat exercises and is resting to prepare for the next set of battle rope exercises.

Just when everyone was standing in the arena, Guy came late, still in the exaggerated cyan slim-fit suit, wearing sunglasses, walked to the cabinet and began to change his training clothes, shaking his head.

"Rudy, what the hell are you doing, you were the last one to come when you asked us out?" The rookies who arrived first had obviously passed each other's breath and knew his trick.

Conley and Randolph ignored his message, and they were already doing upper body training upstairs at this time.

"Kenyon, am I doing this for you to know? You should thank me, I have made you more perfect, have you never seen Los Angeles at [-] o'clock?" Guy quickly finished changing Clothes, start looking for someone to single out one by one.

It's not so much a one-on-one match, it's actually just a sparring partner to let him warm up. What he really wants to play today is Conley and others, and even Randolph, he also wants to try at the basket.

The rookies had no choice but to come anyway, so they threw off their shirts and started practicing.

Gay and Kenyon are playing American-style heads-up. Specifically, they are not allowed to dribble more than three times.

Guy graciously let Kenyon Dooling go first.

Du Lin stepped on the three-point line with one foot, and kept probing left and right with the other foot. He tried his best to search for tactics related to offense in his mind.

However, under the interference of Gay's long arms and trash talk, he was blocked with almost no decent shots.

On the other hand, on the defensive end, Gay's forward lean made him lose his center of gravity, so the heads-up became Gay's one-man show again, with various dunks, gliding, half-turning and falling back... the ten players in the arsenal Eight kinds of martial arts came one by one.

"Rudy, what? Are you bullying them again?" A burst of hearty laughter came, and you could almost feel the vibration of the floor under Zach Randolph's footsteps.

"What the hell are you doing, buddy, does anyone in your family have a baby? It's been waiting for you for a long time."

Randolph didn't rush to play, but sat on the floor beside him in his jersey and ate a sandwich.

Wow, it's almost two o'clock, this guy can't eat breakfast.

When the team is not training, he is so lazy, he doesn't move his big butt, and sleeps like this until dawn every day.

Under Guy's urging, Randolph stuffed the remaining sandwich into his mouth in two or three bites.

Get up and go one-on-one with him near the free throw line.

The legendary one-on-one battle can finally begin. Apart from Marc Gasol, the only man on the team who can defend Zach Randolph alone is finally going to show his true strength.

Guy attacked first, and I saw him catch the ball with his right hand and put it behind him. He bent down, wiped Randolph's belly with his head, and suddenly squeezed in. Randolph let him into the basket without hesitation. Then when he shot confidently, he hit a hot pot...

In exchange for Randolph's possession of the ball, Randolph took the ball and glanced at the basket, then turned right and received a vigorous dribble with his left hand. He didn't go to the basket, but swayed away near the free throw line Gay then hit a mid-range shot.

"Swipe!" Hollow into the net.The rookies at the scene cheered.

No one in the crowd noticed Li Ming who sneaked in and hid in the corner.

At this moment, he was seriously analyzing the strength of the two opponents on the field, and happened to scan Randolph.

Randolph: Born in Marion County, Indiana in 1981, he was a local star player in high school.

The university entered Michigan State University, a famous basketball school, and was picked by the Trail Blazers with the 19th overall pick in the first round of the draft a year later.

Like many black players, his tragic childhood experience gave him a thorny side. When Zach Randolph was young, her mother, May Ai, relied on government relief funds to raise 4 children.

Although life is very tight and often worry about eating, the four children are still full of vitality, which makes Mei Ai unable to control them.Randolph and his younger brother Roger got acquainted with a gang of punks, and often played some pranks, and finally asked his mother, May Ai, to clean up the mess.

Randolph's life was very poor at that time. He often didn't have enough to eat, and sometimes he would even deliver drugs for the local gangsters in exchange for two hot hamburgers to go home to his mother and sister.

One year, because he had no pants to change, he had worn a pair of jeans for a long time, and the friends around him began to make fun of Randolph, so Randolph walked into a Wal-Mart and tried to take out a pair of brand new pants.He was too nervous and made too much noise.

Unfortunately, he was caught, and the district court ruled that he enter the juvenile reformatory for 30 days to reflect.

Faced with this reality, mother Mei understands that it is not enough to just tell her son to be loyal and friendly every day, she needs to take action.Thus, basketball began to enter Randolph's life.

It can be said that basketball changed his destiny and that of his family.

Randolph's achievements in the first two seasons of entering the NBA were very inconspicuous. He was just a substitute player on the bench of the Trail Blazers. He averaged 2.8 points and 1.7 rebounds per game in the first season. Got 8.4 points and 4.5 rebounds, because of the existence of Rasheed Wallace, he can hardly get any playing time.

In April 2003, Randolph and former Trail Blazers teammate Ruben Patterson had a big fight in practice. Patterson was hit in the face and lost. Randolph established his fiery temper in that fight. Afterwards, Randolph was suspended by the team for 4 game.

Since then, his fiery temper began to spread throughout the league, and some even compared him to the Pacers' Ron Artest and Stephen Jackson.

2002-03赛季，兰多夫场均只有8.4分4.5个篮板和0.5次助攻，但是到了季后赛，兰多夫以替补身份每场拿下了13.9分8.7个篮板。其中在开拓者队以0:3落后于达拉斯小牛队后，第四场开拓者的主教练大胆将他摆到先发位置。

He led the Trail Blazers to the seventh game against the Mavericks. Although the team was still eliminated in the end, his average 20.5 points and 11 rebounds in the last four games made him start to attract people's attention.

The following season was his lucky season, as Randolph averaged 20.1 points, 10.5 rebounds and 2 assists per game, and won the Most Improved Player award that season in one fell swoop.

(End of this chapter)