Chapter Eight: Carter

  On the east side of Wake Forest University, a Chinese restaurant stands out on this street. With over 10,000 students enrolled, although not very large in scale in the US, it still has a complete and compact living area within the campus, including supermarkets, restaurants, cafes, etc., just like an ordinary pedestrian street, which is always brightly lit at night.

  The owner of this Chinese restaurant is an American, but the head chef is a Chinese person. For Zhuang Fei, most of the dishes here, although they have Chinese names, are actually filled with American flavors and not authentic. Just looking at the potato shreds cut like potato chunks makes Zhuang Fei want to laugh.

  "Wens, over here!" Zhuang Fei saw Carter come in and hastily greeted him. Today he had an appointment with Carter to treat him to dinner.

  "After a bath, he's much more spirited," Zhuang Fei praised, but the fatigue on Carter's face was still clearly visible. He looked quite exhausted at the moment.

  "Vincent, can you still take the training of the current team?" Zhu Fei asked with concern. Since Zhu Fei asked Mark Allen and Bill Lamb to intensify the training for these players, they had been complaining non-stop, especially the freshmen who had never experienced such intense training in high school. At first, they thought this was how college training was supposed to be, but after a week or so of intense training, Zhu Fei received complaints from many teachers at the school, saying that the players were sleeping in class and looked listless. This also put tremendous pressure on Zhu Fei.

  "It's okay, I've never trained with such a large amount before," Carter replied tiredly. The past half month had been the most exhausting half month of his life. He had started playing basketball at a very young age and was always the standout player in his elementary school and high school teams. He always did better than others and was always so carefree, but now he could clearly feel that he was tired. For the first time, he felt that playing basketball could be so exhausting. His strong competitive spirit didn't allow him to sleep in class like Wally Szczygiel or complain about being tired during training. He even felt that his training was specially arranged by Coach Wang, with a larger and more difficult workload than others. But he still gritted his teeth and persisted. Originally, he didn't want to come to practice today and just wanted to take a bath and sleep after getting home. He was really exhausted.

  "Wens, do you have any grievances against me? You should find that I'm more demanding of you than others," Zhuang Fei said with a smile.

  Carter hesitated for a moment, seeming to want to say something but then deciding against it. Finally, he spoke up: "There was, at the beginning, I didn't understand why you wanted me to put in so much effort to learn how to pass the ball, and have Coach Bill constantly polish my ball control skills, and even have Coach Mark make me read those tactical guides that are drier than textbooks. I always thought of myself as a small forward, not a point guard. But now, I don't have any complaints."

  "Why?" Zhuang Fei's interest was suddenly piqued when he heard Carter say this. Had Carter already understood his intentions? The team was going to play a three-pointer, but he hadn't said a word about it to these players.

  "Because Tim and I have had identical training, if he can do it that well, so can I," Carter said with an unusually firm tone.

  This time it was Zhuang Fei's turn to stay, and unexpectedly, Carter was actually motivated by Duncan's encouragement to train so hard without complaint. Carter and Duncan had the same training content, which was also arranged by Zhuang Fei. He didn't do this to stimulate Carter, but rather intentionally. The team's report said that Carter needed to practice shooting and offense, but through daily training, he found that Duncan's inside attack skills were quite mature and rich. However, Duncan's attacking score was only over 70 points, which might be related to his passing ability, ball control ability, or even organizational ability. In the triangular offense tactical system, Duncan, as the inside core, still needed strong organizational support and passing ability. Although Duncan wasn't weak in this aspect, he wasn't particularly outstanding either. So Zhuang Fei let Duncan and Carter train with the same content. Accidentally, it became a motivating factor for Carter. It's no wonder that Carter was always the best on the team before, but now because of Duncan, he was often suppressed by an inside player in terms of passing and organizational training.

  "Hey, Vince, what's your position on this?"

  "What's going on?" Carter asked somewhat perplexedly.

  "It's what you think you'll be like as a player in the future, I know many people are already calling you a great shooter, but that's not what I'm asking. What I mean is do you want to be a pure scorer or the soul of a team? Let me give you a simple example, would you rather be a player like Steph Curry or Grant Hill, I think you're familiar with both of them."

  "I don't know," Carter thought for a moment and shook his head, he wasn't very clear, because these two people were now beyond his match, but now some people have said that he is like Starkhouse.

  Zhuang Fei's response to Carter was not unexpected, a high school student who has never been in contact with college basketball, no matter how talented he is, cannot make judgments about his own future.

  "Wynns, you are Stark House now, but I hope in the future you can become Grant Hill"

  "Can I become a player like Grant Hill?" Carter was still puzzled, not because he doubted his own talent. If it were just about scoring, he didn't think he would lose to Grant Hill. However, Grant Hill's all-around ability was something he couldn't match. In his heart, he leaned more towards becoming a player like Stackhouse, as the two shared similar body types and playing styles.

  "Why can't you, you're still young and have many possibilities, Vince, you're a natural-born attacker, but I don't just want you to be a pure scorer, I hope you can become an all-around core like Hill and Pippen," Zhuang Fei continued.

  "You might not understand, but I still want to say that in the future NBA, the small forward position is not just about scoring, it also requires a certain level of organizational ability, and even being good at both offense and defense. The more versatile, the better.

  The traditional definition of the small forward position is scoring, but as someone who traveled back from 2012, I can tell you that in that era, the small forward had already been given a different definition - not just scoring, but also being all-around. In fact, Pippen and Hill have already started to change the definition of the small forward."

  "So you're teaching me the skills of a point guard just to make me more all-around, not only can I score myself but also organize my teammates to score?" Carter asked uncertainly.

  "That's right, that's how I position you, and it's what I hope you can achieve." Zhuang Fei smiled slightly, then continued: "Any more questions?"

  Carter shook his head, then nodded slightly and said with a hint of puzzlement: "Why are you so confident in me? To be honest, I'm not even sure if I can successfully transform myself, but it seems like you always have a plan."

  "Haha, this is a secret, the dish has been served, you try it and see how it tastes"

  "Huh, is this Chinese food? The white block thing has red particles on it, looks pretty" Carter picked up his spoon and took a bite.

  "Wow, it's so spicy! What is this?" Carter had only taken one bite when he hastily picked up the water glass in front of him and gulped down all the water in one breath.

  "This is a very famous Chinese dish, called Mapo Tofu. This Chinese restaurant only has this dish that Zhang Fei can tolerate, but Zhang Fei likes it anyway. However, Carter cried because he had never eaten such spicy food before. In the end, Carter still finished eating with sweat all over his head."

  "You're in much better spirits now, aren't you?" said Zhuang Fei with a smile. After finishing the Mapo tofu, Carter's spirits had clearly improved a lot.

  "Yes, thank you, coach," Carter said gratefully.

  The two of them finished dinner and it was almost 9:30. They both had to get up early the next day, so they parted ways after dinner.

  "Wens, that perverted Chinese guy is calling you out for something." Carter was caught by James Posey as soon as he returned to the dorm.

  Two people were in the same profession and class, and also lived in the same dormitory.

  "There's nothing, just that he asked me out for a meal, and please don't say Mr. Zhuang is abnormal, he's a very normal person." Carter lightly punched Posy's stomach.

  "Ah, ouch, Vince. When did you become so close to that pervert? Ah, I'm wrong, it should be... when did you become so close to Coach?"

  "Don't ask me, I still need to take a bath. You must be very tired now, why aren't you sleeping? Are you planning on sleeping in class again tomorrow?"

  "Another bath? Hey, Vince, did that coach do something weird to you?" James Posy especially emphasized the word "weird".

  "Looking for trouble"

  "Hey, can't I be wrong for once? Hey, Vince, my stomach really hurts, stop hitting me, I surrender!"