The next day.
Hibari continued going to the basketball club.
As a power forward, his current training items and playing style were more or less rebellious against tradition.
Especially in a place like Japan, where positions tended to be clearly defined.
Point guards were responsible for connecting the team and directing traffic.
Shooting guards provided perimeter firepower for the team, with most of their shots coming from outside the three-point line.
If they had the ability, they could add isolation scoring and drives.
Otherwise, they could only do their own job.
The small forward position leaned toward being a jack-of-all-trades, doing a little of everything.
As for power forwards, generally speaking, they were supposed to operate under the basket.
Their main tasks were fighting for rebounds and defending the interior.
Yet Hibari insisted on attacking from far away from the basket like a guard.
This style of play was rather unconventional.
Basketball in the current era had not yet blurred positions as much as it would in the future.
In later basketball, even interior players might run out to the three-point line and fight their perimeter teammates for food.
Embiid sticking his butt out at the three-point line, Jokic organizing the offense with the ball outside the arc, Towns transforming into a three-point maniac.
In short, in future basketball, player positions would be extremely flexible, and interior players couldn’t just plant themselves in the restricted area.
That said, interior players running outside to shoot threes did not begin with the small-ball era.
Bill Laimbeer, a rookie in 1979, already had a very accurate three-point shot.
As a center, he once shot 6-for-9 from three in the Finals.
He was an early stretch big.
But in a place like Japan, in the eyes of the people in Chiba Middle School’s basketball club, Hibari looked somewhat neither fish nor fowl.
However.
Hayato Takahashi valued Hibari very highly.
Coaches in this era all placed great importance on the interior.
And the greatest value of an interior player was none other than dominance in the restricted area.
You could fail to score under the basket, but as long as your paint defense was outstanding enough, you wouldn’t need to worry about getting playing time.
Chiba Middle School already had Eikichi Nebuya inside.
Hibari could absolutely join forces with Eikichi Nebuya on the defensive end, while roaming the perimeter on offense to further strengthen the team’s firepower.
Their original starting power forward was only a blue-collar interior player.
If Hibari were just as ordinary, why would he bother racking his brains over him?
So, training was the right choice.
Hibari didn’t care about his teammates’ strange looks and strictly carried out his training program.
Aside from that, he also planned to go work out with Eikichi Nebuya.
Japan had very few competitions.
At the middle school level, there was only one national tournament to play.
Based on 200 participating teams, even winning an entire prefectural tournament from start to finish wouldn’t add up to enough for one ten-pull.
Once they reached the final stage, there would be even fewer games.
There were 64 participating teams in total.
After one round, 32 remained.
After two rounds, 16 remained, then 8, 4, and 2.
All in all, that was only six games.
Relying on lottery draws to stack attributes was far too slow.
Not to mention, there was also Teiko, the big boss.
No one knew whether they would run into them early.
He had to train himself.
And it would be best to train up to a bottleneck now, while he had no lottery chances, then use the attributes from the lottery to charge upward and break through the limits of his own talent.
Afternoon training finished.
Hibari found Eikichi Nebuya and wanted him to take him to the gym.
“You want to go work out with me?” “Mm.
I’m not very familiar with the nearby gyms.
You must train long-term, right?” “Of course.
I bought my membership card for three years straight!” The way Eikichi Nebuya looked at Hibari changed.
He became much more affectionate.
Sure enough, this kid understood ball.
Those idiots who only knew how to train technique and kept talking about maximizing strengths and avoiding weaknesses were all heretics.
Real men should meet men head-on!
If you wanted to establish yourself on the court, you had to forge a suit of muscular armor.
As long as you knocked everyone over, wouldn’t the court be yours?
“This weekend, right?
Wait for my call.
I’ll take you to the best gym in Chiba Prefecture.” He was as enthusiastic as Aoi Todo meeting Yuji Itadori, who shared the same taste in women.
Basketball club activities ended.
After returning home, Hibari arranged dinner for himself, rested properly, and continued setting out with his basketball.
Yukino didn’t come to the basketball club today.
The tigress of the Yukinoshita family had probably gotten angry.
At this moment, Yukino was in her room, holding her phone as if waiting for Hibari’s message.
In the end, she hadn’t appeared all day today, and that bastard hadn’t even sent her a single text.
She wanted to take the initiative and message him, but suddenly her temper rose again.
“Why am I always the one looking for you?” Yukino turned off her phone and weakly collapsed onto her desk.
In order to become the basketball club manager, she had gathered her courage and argued with her mother for a few sentences.
Because it was Hibari’s request.
“Did training make him forget?” After feeling wronged for a while, she opened her phone again.
A moment later, she put it down again.
Finally, she irritably lay down on her bed and buried her head in the pillow.
“Baka!” …
The next day, noon.
Hayato Takahashi brewed himself a cup of coffee and sat in front of the computer in his office.
On the screen, footage of Teiko Middle School’s game from last year’s national tournament was playing.
This team from the Tokyo region was very strong, a powerhouse among powerhouses, equivalent in status to Rakuzan High in high school basketball.
Hayato Takahashi’s greatest dream was to drag this damn Teiko Middle School down from its throne.
Over the past ten years, Teiko Middle School had won the final national tournament championship three times.
Middle school only lasted three years in total, and every generation of the team coached by Kozo Shirogane could win at least one championship.
Although they hadn’t won the championship last year, they had still achieved the excellent result of reaching the national top four.
The team’s core, Shuzo Nijimura, was even praised as the best number four in the nation.
One had to know that last year was only Shuzo Nijimura’s first year.
This year, he would inevitably become even more mature and powerful.
For most teams aiming for the championship, Teiko Middle School was their imaginary enemy.
Hayato Takahashi had also received news that Teiko had welcomed several more geniuses this year, further increasing its strength.
Eikichi Nebuya was very strong, with few opponents under the basket.
But compared to Shuzo Nijimura, Eikichi Nebuya was still a step behind.
Shuzo Nijimura’s versatility made him extremely difficult to target.
If you blindly double-teamed him, the result wouldn’t be much different from the Rockets double-teaming LeBron James.
Right now, many youth sports magazines were reporting that Shuzo Nijimura would become the strongest middle school student in the nation this year, and that he had a very high chance of leading his team to the championship.
Hayato Takahashi also felt that Teiko’s championship window would inevitably open once again this year.
If he couldn’t find a number four who could contend with Shuzo Nijimura, then wanting to win the championship was nothing but a fool’s dream.
“If I have Hibari guard him full court, then join forces with Eikichi under the basket for double-teams, can they limit that monster?” The current Hibari was clearly not enough to guard Shuzo Nijimura one-on-one.
In terms of physique, Hibari had no disadvantage, but he was far too lacking in fundamentals, technique, and experience.
“Bang!” “Bang!” “Bang!” “…” Just as he was thinking, Hayato Takahashi faintly heard movement coming from outside the office.
It sounded like a basketball hitting the floor.
“Basketball club activities aren’t happening right now.
Who is it?” Hayato Takahashi looked at the clock on the wall.
Lunch break had only just begun.
…
Please add this book to your library!