After reading those notes, Sun Hao felt that the late-arriving system had been worth the wait.
Forget about the second and third points—even the first one alone was enough to get anyone excited.
Basketball depended on the body, and this system could directly make up for the height and wingspan he lacked most.
That was the best news possible.
What was more, there were the second and third points as well.
He was a coach responsible for team training; those two features had practically been tailor-made for him!
Goodness, impatience really did not get you hot tofu. There was a reason good things came late!
He put away the attribute interface, and the scene before him changed again.
The world was no longer blank, instead becoming the interior of a basketball gym.
Perhaps because the system was still in its initial version, though, the gym contained nothing besides basketballs and hoops, with only a row of chairs against one wall.
There was a door at the edge of the gym. He pushed it open and found a weight room beyond it.
The equipment in the weight room was fairly basic as well.
After looking around, he realized that, like a computer setup, the system's initial version was all at the lowest possible specs.
But the system notes had said it could be upgraded, so Sun Hao did not mind.
He was excited now.
If he had not still been standing by the roadside, he would have already started training impatiently.
With a thought, he left the system.
The sounds of basketballs bouncing and players shouting rang out beside his ears again.
A new group had taken the court, while the previous group sat on the ground at the sideline, drinking water and resting.
The score was 1 to 2. That sounded about right.
Delighted, Sun Hao seemed to have Wind Fire Wheels beneath his feet as he raced home, singing as he ran.
"I want a life in full bloom~ Like soaring through the vast sky~"
Whenever he was happy, he liked to belt out a few lines from this Wang Feng song, though he had no idea why Wang Feng wanted his life to bloom in full.
He arrived home panting heavily.
"Why were you running so fast? Was someone chasing you?"
"It's a good thing for children to run around more. He's already thirteen; he can take care of himself."
"Look at all that sweat. Go change your clothes, wash your hands, and come eat."
The moment he got home, he heard his parents talking.
Sun Hao gave an affirmative hum, then obediently went to wash his hands.
They had originally been the age of his older brother and sister, yet they had become his dad and mom.
When Sun Hao had first transmigrated, everything had felt strange. Fortunately, his "parents" were both good people, and he gradually got used to it.
After dinner, he said he was going to do his homework, then closed his bedroom door and sat down at his desk.
There was also a freshly brewed cup of Goji Berry Tea beside the desk, a health-preserving habit from his previous life.
After resting for a while and feeling that he had mostly digested his meal, he had a thought, and he was already in the System Space.
As a professional basketball trainer, he had already designed a professional training plan based on his available conditions while running home.
They said you never stopped learning, and now he had a new understanding of that saying.
After all, what if you transmigrated one day? What would you do without some professional knowledge?
After entering the system, he headed straight into the connected weight room next door.
Training required scientific principles—or rather, a systematic approach.
He was an expert in this area. He knew how to distribute stamina most reasonably, and he knew what order would achieve the greatest results.
He started with strength training.
Strength was the foundation of everything.
Strength was mainly divided into two major areas: core strength and upper- and lower-body strength.
But this gym only had basic equipment, so he could not train core strength and could only start with his upper and lower body.
The muscles used for upper-body strength were mainly in the back, shoulders, chest, abdomen, and arms.
For his back and abdomen, he did two sets each of weighted sit-ups and seated forward bends;
For his shoulders, he did a set of weighted lateral raises, a set of barbell shrugs, and another set of dumbbell chest flyes;
His chest was even simpler: two sets of push-ups, plus a set of behind-the-back hand raises and pull-ups on the horizontal bar;
After training those three areas, his body was slightly warm, and he was beginning to feel it.
Next came his arms. Compared to the other areas, there were quite a few more exercises for the arms.
Dumbbell lying flyes, weighted straight-arm lateral raises, crossed arms in front of the body, weighted elbow curls, barbell bench presses, weighted overhead presses...
That was how Kirin arms were forged.
By the time he finished that sequence of movements, his entire body was fully warmed up. He struck while the iron was hot and began training his lower body.
The strength muscles of the lower body mainly consisted of the hip muscles, thigh muscles, and calf muscles.
For the hip muscles, he did a set of weighted high knee raises, a set of hanging leg raises, plus a set of controlled front leg raises and supine leg raises;
Then came the thigh muscles: prone leg curls, weighted side swings, and weighted squats;
Finally, for the calf muscles: weighted deep squats, half squats, prone reverse bows, kneeling backward leans with palms on the floor, weighted back kicks, and backward running drills;
After completing the entire routine, he could feel the muscles throughout his body beginning to burn.
But he stopped there for the time being.
He returned to the basketball gym.
After strength training, it was time to work on his vertical leap.
Jump training included squat jumps, calf raises, step drills, vertical jumps, and toe jumps.
At that point, the chairs in the gym became the best auxiliary tools.
Toe jumps normally required stairs, and without stairs, laying a chair on its side was the best substitute.
For step jumps, he only needed to stand the chair upright.
This was also the source of many people's misunderstanding about Yi Jianlian being the "chair man."
Chairs played an extremely crucial role in basic training.
After several sets of exercises, Sun Hao felt a lightness in his legs.
That was the sign that his body had been fully worked loose.
He stopped then and moved on to ball-handling and shooting training.
Compared to strength and jumping, these were the areas he excelled at more.
After all, in the NCAA, they were the most important parts of training and the foundation of the pyramid.
Wide crossovers, low crossovers, continuous between-the-legs-behind-the-back dribbles, continuous between-the-legs-front dribbles, figure-eight dribbles through the legs, behind-the-back figure-eight fingertip dribbling drills, spider dribbles, and so on.
There were many ball-handling and dribbling methods, but they all had the same purpose: mastering feel for the ball and ultimately achieving unity between player and ball.
Physical gifts were innate, but ball feel was basically built through relentless training.
The most famous example was undoubtedly "White Chocolate" Williams. He began practicing ball-handling at four years old, and more than twenty years of hard work gave him extraordinary dribbling skills.
Shooting training was the same: what positions to shoot from, how many shots per set, rest intervals, shooting methods.
That was how training worked. Once you mastered the methods, your efficiency would double with half the effort.
When it came to shooting, Sun Hao had his own focus in practice: he concentrated on long-range shots.
The reason was simple.
It was 1995 now. Even five years later, when he turned eighteen, it would only be 2000.
Before 2004, even the NBA, which represented the highest level of basketball, had not abolished the hand-check rule.
The hand-check rule allowed defenders to place a hand on an offensive player while defending, making it the most effective way to limit Breakthroughs.
In other words, attempting Breakthroughs in this era was practically the same as gambling with his life.
By comparison, long-range shooting could reduce physical contact and unnecessary injuries.
More importantly, this era did not value perimeter shooting. He could become the first to eat the crab before Stephen Curry did.
With training content and a training plan in place, all that remained was to grit his teeth and persevere.
In his previous life, Sun Hao had also aspired to become a professional player. Unfortunately, his physical conditions were not good enough, and from eighteen to twenty-eight, he had drifted along until becoming an assistant coach.
So after transmigrating and getting another chance like this, what he lacked least was patience.
After half a day of training in the system, he returned to reality and immediately felt sore all over.
It seemed the effects of training in the system were brought directly back into reality.
But because of the time ratio, only two hours had passed in the real world.
His parents opened the door at that moment, saw him doing his homework, and then left again.
Sun Hao got up and stretched his body before actually beginning to do his homework.
Many NBA players had been unable to attend good universities because their grades were not high enough, losing their chances to enter prestigious NCAA schools. Some had even directly lost their chance to enter the NBA.
So even with a cheat, he could not let his studies fall behind.
Fortunately, middle school homework at this time was nothing like the parent-killing level of homework from the future, so he completed it easily and happily.
He had obtained the system, quickly finished his homework, and happily ended the day. After dinner, he went to bed early.
Because he had trained in the system for so long, his body was tired, and he fell asleep before long.
After falling asleep, he had a wonderful dream.
In the dream, Yi Jianlian and he were both selected by the Hongyuan Youth Team. Then they entered the first team together and dominated the CBA.
Just as he was about to dream about winning a championship together, dawn arrived, and the dream ended.
Though the beautiful dream had not been finished, Sun Hao woke with a smile on his lips.
It might have only been a dream, but with the system, making all of it real was entirely possible.
Before you continue