Chapter 808 - 253: Finally Mastered the Crossover Dribble!_3

On a bottom-tier team, you can play freely, and Van Exel’s individual performance is indeed explosive.

In tonight’s game, Kenny Anderson really didn’t gain any advantage against Van Exel.

In the game against his former team, the Lakers, Van Exel shot 12 for 26, including 2 for 6 from three-point range, plus 7 for 7 from the free-throw line, scoring 33 points, 2 rebounds, 7 assists, and 2 steals, playing very well and decisively outperformed Kenny Anderson’s 15 points, 3 rebounds, and 9 assists.

But the other Lakers players were much better than the Dallas Mavericks.

Zhang Hao shot 11 for 18, including 2 for 2 from three-point range, plus 8 for 8 from the free-throw line, easily scoring 32 points, 10 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 blocks, and 1 steal, Barkley scored 14 points and 9 rebounds, along with Doug Christie’s 16 points and Jason Williams’ 5 points and 13 rebounds... The Lakers comfortably defeated the Mavericks 109 to 99, improving their record to 29 wins and 7 losses!

The game was uneventful, except that Van Exel’s unpredictable style, always focused on his own performance without considering the defense, left Del Harris somewhat regretful. If only Barkley’s trade hadn’t included Van Exel... but it’s better to have sent him out, as Kenny Anderson plays more steadily.

Speaking of surprises, what really surprised Del Harris was Barkley’s consistent double-digit scoring since he changed his hairstyle. If it weren’t for a certain anonymous number 8 player completing a putback dunk over a teammate, Barkley would have had a double-double tonight!

Del Harris looked at Barkley’s latest wig—a bright gold bullet Mohawk... The old fox thought about it and felt both discouraged and annoyed.

He tried many ways to encourage Barkley to put in a bit more effort and performance on the offensive end, but Barkley always acted like he didn’t care at all, ignoring whatever he was told.

When O’Neal got injured, Barkley initially showed no change, thinking O’Neal would be back anyway, saying, "Don’t we still have Exel, Kenny, and Elvin?"

Then, Zhang Hao just messed a little with Barkley’s head, to be exact, just messed with his wig, which unexpectedly gave Barkley some motivation, and his performance noticeably became much more active.

The stars of the Lakers are strong, especially the four frontcourt players, but the role players are mostly functional players; otherwise, the Logo Man wouldn’t have given Brian Shaw such a high salary because it’s indeed very necessary.

During the mid-season, when O’Neal was injured and Barkley was loafing around, their demonstrated strength was indeed not that strong. Barkley was a bit more active and put in a bit more effort, and although he didn’t fully lead the team forward, this little bit of change still improved the Lakers’ mid-season situation a lot.

"Clearly, I am the coach, but these small issues have to be solved by a brat..."

...

...

On January 13th, the Lakers’ home game welcomed the challenge of the Oakland Warriors.

Joe Smith seized the opportunity against the Lakers’ vacant inside, scoring 27 points, setting a new personal career high against the Lakers.

But Zhang Hao played for 44 minutes, shooting 15 for 31, almost missing 20 shots, with 4 of the 15 field goals being three-pointers, plus 8 for 9 from the free-throw line, scoring 42 points, 10 rebounds, 1 assist, 3 steals, and 1 block, helping the Lakers beat the Warriors 103 to 95, improving their record to 30 wins and 7 losses.

In less than half of the new season, Zhang Hao has already reached 40+ points in a single game seven times! He’s just one away from matching his eight 40+ point games from last season!

On January 14th, the Lakers hosted the Washington Bullets in a back-to-back at home.

Ten days ago, at the league owners’ meeting on January 4th, the proposal to change the Bullets’ team name passed unanimously. Starting next season, the Bullets will be renamed as the Wizards, with Zhang Hao seeing domestic translations of this name as he remembered, translating it to the Wizards.

The last time the Washington Bullets came to Los Angeles to play, this name left a very beautiful memory in Los Angeles.

Tonight, the Bullets players went wild. Rod Strickland soared with 31 points and 9 assists, Chris Webber scored 30 points, 7 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 steals, Juwan Howard scored 24 points, combining for 85 points, helping the Wizards go on a scoring spree with 117 points!

On the Lakers’ side, Zhang Hao performed very well tonight, scoring 17 points in the first quarter, ending with 36 points, 8 rebounds, 2 assists, and 2 blocks, Kenny Anderson had 14 points and 11 assists, Barkley had 18 points, 13 rebounds, 2 assists, and 1 steal.

But the Lakers only had these three players scoring in double digits, while the Wizards had three players scoring at least 20 points and two shooters also scoring 10 points each.

to 117, the Lakers suffered a home defeat against the in-form Wizards, marking their eighth loss of the season.

...

In the first four games of a six-game homestand, they achieved a record of 3 wins and 1 loss, which is quite impressive.

After completing back-to-backs, the Lakers got two days of rest.

The day after the game against the Wizards, the Lakers did not schedule any training, and Zhang Hao continued his crossover and change of direction dribbling training.

Finally, at 4 PM, the sixth set of one-hour crossover and change of direction dribbling training for today was completed, and the first phase of the six sets of training was completely finished!

"Special contract player Zhang Hao’s crossover dribbling rating has increased to 50..."

Finally, Mr. Zhang’s crossover dribbling reached the level that could be assigned a numerical rating by the system!

The following day, Zhang Hao arrived early at the Great Western Forum.

Tomorrow, the Lakers will host the Blazers, who arrived in Los Angeles the day before yesterday. The Blazers are in California for a four-game road trip. Yesterday, they played the Clippers at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum, and tomorrow they will face the Lakers.

Unexpectedly, Zhang Hao encountered a Blazers player while walking from the parking lot through the employee entrance to the training court.

Originally he wanted to say hello, but looking at the opponent’s hairstyle... someone is imitating my hair!