That night, after receiving the training task, Wang Yi barely slept a wink.
Once he completed the task, his Three-point Percentage would reach 45%.
That would make him an elite Three-point Shooter.
Even Curry, as great as he was, had a career Three-point Percentage below 45%.
In the entire history of the NBA, only Warriors head coach Kerr had a career percentage above 45%.
What did the Lakers need most right now?
A reliable Three-point Shooter!
Pope, Kuzma, Schroder, Tucker...
They could all shoot threes, but their percentages were honestly painful to watch.
In the small-ball era, without reliable outside shooting, games became a real struggle.
It went without saying that if he could raise his Three-point Percentage to 45%, he'd be a hot commodity on the Lakers.
Then it would be easy to convert his second short-term contract into a guaranteed deal.
The next day, at four in the morning, it was still dark.
Wang Yi had already slipped out of Caruso's garage and was on his way to the Lakers' Training Hall.
He'd barely slept the night before and had wanted to go to the Training Hall right away.
But it was too late, so he'd had to force himself to contain his excitement.
He'd trudged down the street without managing to flag down a single car.
It was winter.
Los Angeles had a Mediterranean climate, so winters weren't especially cold.
But at four in the morning, the temperature was still only eight or nine degrees.
Wang Yi tugged his collar tighter and looked up at the dim streetlights ahead.
He thought of the famous line, "Have you ever seen Los Angeles at four in the morning?"
It had later been pointed out that Kobe Bryant only occasionally got up to train at four in the morning.
But the line still captured the hard work Kobe Bryant put into training throughout his career.
For twenty years, it had also been one of the things that kept Wang Yi pushing forward.
He started jogging, treating it as a warm-up.
After jogging for half an hour, he arrived at the Training Hall, steam rising from his head.
He knocked on the security booth's door, waking the guard, who'd been dozing off.
"Hi, I'm here to train."
The guard rubbed his bleary eyes and squinted at Wang Yi for a moment before recognizing him as the Lakers' newly signed ten-day-contract player.
He glanced out at the pitch-black sky.
Then he looked at the time on his computer.
Surprised, he asked,
"So early?"
Wang Yi nodded. "I couldn't sleep, so I came over to train."
"Are all East Asians as hardworking as you?"
The guard let him in and asked with a smile.
Wang Yi nodded without saying anything more.
Watching Wang Yi walk away, the guard called after him,
"The air conditioning isn't on yet. It won't be on until eight."
The team's rules called for morning practice at ten on days without a game.
But James usually arrived at eight.
So the air conditioning in the Training Hall came on at eight.
Without looking back, Wang Yi shook his head. "It's fine."
The Lakers' training facility was called the UCLA Health Training Center.
It included a basketball court, two whirlpool baths, ten ice baths, a weight room, offices, and many other facilities.
Wang Yi entered the court and turned on the lights.
The first thing he saw was ten gleaming O'Brien Cups, "enshrined" high on the opposite wall.
They proclaimed the Lakers' illustrious history.
With those ten championship trophies inspiring him, training here made him feel even more driven.
Wang Yi silently told himself, One day, I'll bring home an O'Brien Cup with my own hands.
Then he got right to work and set up the shooting machine.
The task the system had given him was to make 1,000 three-pointers.
Taking into account that his stamina would fade and his accuracy would drop, he figured he'd have to shoot around 3,500 threes.
Soon, he started the shooting machine.
Then he quickly moved to the top of the three-point arc and got set.
He took a deep breath.
With a soft whir, the shooting machine fired a basketball toward Wang Yi at the top of the arc.
He caught the ball.
Wang Yi immediately jumped, raised his arm, snapped his wrist, and released.
Swish!
The three-pointer went in.
At the same time, a status panel appeared in his mind.
[Task Progress: 1/1000] [Time Remaining: 11 hours 59 minutes]
The training started the moment he took his first three-point shot.
The countdown was twelve hours.
That was straightforward enough.
A second after his first shot, the machine fired another ball.
Wang Yi caught it and shot again.
Swish!
Another three-pointer.
He took ten shots in a row.
He made seven of them!
For any player, shooting accuracy in practice being higher than in games was perfectly normal.
When Superman Howard played for the Lakers, his free-throw percentage in games was only a little over sixty percent.
But in practice, he could make over ninety percent.
Wang Yi kept shooting threes.
When he made his twentieth, his right wrist began to ache again.
He couldn't help frowning.
Making 1,000 threes wasn't the hard part.
The hard part was that his right wrist was already injured.
If he kept practicing threes, the injury would only get worse.
Unlike players with guaranteed contracts, he couldn't just rest when he got hurt.
As a short-term-contract player, he had to fight for a guaranteed deal!
Even if he was injured, he had to grit his teeth and push through.
With that thought, he clenched his teeth and kept practicing his threes.
Half an hour later, the pain in his right wrist continued to intensify.
He checked the task progress in his mind.
[Task Progress: 103/1000] [Time Remaining: 11 hours 26 minutes]
He'd only completed a tenth of the task.
His brow furrowed as he shook his head.
He couldn't keep going.
He'd taken more than 150 shots, and his wrist was already hurting badly.
If he continued, he might not be able to play in the next game. It was true that, as a short-term-contract player, his chances of getting on the court weren't high to begin with, but as an athlete, he had to be ready to play at any moment.
But if he stopped, he'd waste this chance to improve his Three-point Percentage.
That was something he absolutely couldn't accept.
After all, what the Lakers lacked most right now was a reliable three-point shooter.
If he could quickly raise his Three-point Percentage to 45%, he'd have a great chance of making it into the rotation.
Wang Yi now faced a difficult choice.
But neither option would end well.
He glanced at the task countdown in his mind.
The red numbers ticked down coldly.
The system wouldn't take pity on him or stop the countdown just because he was injured.
After thinking for a moment, Wang Yi came up with a solution that wasn't much of a solution.
Shoot with his left hand!
He'd practiced shooting with his left hand for a while, so it wasn't unfamiliar to him.
He just wasn't nearly as practiced with it as he was with his right.
Another basketball came flying toward Wang Yi.
He caught it with both hands.
He held the ball in his left hand and steadied it with his right.
He jumped and shot!
Thump—
No surprise: the three-pointer hit the rim and bounced away!
But the pain in his right wrist did ease a little.
The second shot.
Thump!
Another miss!
The third shot.
Thump!
Still a miss.
But Wang Yi wasn't discouraged in the slightest.
His eyes were filled with determination.
There was no turning back now!
He had to go all in!
Swish!
It wasn't until his fifth shot that he finally made a three-pointer.
On his tenth left-handed shot, he made his second.
His left-handed shooting percentage was twenty percent.
That meant he'd have to take far more shots to complete the task.
But he had no other choice.
Thump!
Thump!
Thump!
Swish!
Thump...
The sound of the ball hitting the rim echoed through the empty court.
Every now and then, it was joined by the sound of a three-pointer dropping through the net.
His training clothes were already soaked with sweat.
Steam rose from his head.
He was starting to gasp for breath.
But he couldn't stop for even a moment.
The red countdown in his mind was like a countdown to his life, ticking on without pause.
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