In late December, the Christmas bells brought little warmth to Boston.
Instead, a string of road games out West had stripped a layer of skin off this young Celtics team.
Lin Qi stood in the training facility's second-floor gallery, holding a cup of black coffee that had gone completely cold as he looked down at the court.
On the court, the whole team was running competitive shuttle drills.
The nineteen-year-old chatterbox who normally could not survive a minute or two without talking was, for once, like a soulless pendulum, running mechanically across the hardwood.
The look in Kevin Garnett's eyes had changed.
After experiencing Karl Malone's iron elbows and midrange jumpers, Hakeem Olajuwon's Dream Shake, and a near-comprehensive schooling from David Robinson, the prodigy who had ruled the streets of Chicago had, for the first time, hit the rookie wall hard enough to bloody his head.
The wildfire in his eyes had not gone out, but they were filled with exhaustion, confusion, and an instinctive hesitation before the meat grinder of the 1990s paint.
"He's almost at his limit."
Head coach Rick Adelman had come up beside Lin Qi without him noticing. "Should we rest him for a few games?"
"No. Resting him will only make him feel like a deserter."
Lin Qi drew his gaze back and set his coffee on the railing, an unquestionable chill in his eyes:
"He doesn't need rest. He needs a stimulant. Rick, it's time to change the lineup. Move Kevin to starting power forward."
Lin Qi smiled, pulled out a diagram he had casually sketched late one night, and handed it over.
Adelman took the paper, and one glance made him frown.
Lin Qi's drawing could hardly be called professional. The lines were crooked, and even the off-ball screen symbols were a mess.
But when Adelman's gaze landed on the black cross representing the power forward, his casual expression slowly faded.
Adelman fell silent for a few seconds.
"Lin Qi, you know how quick Horace Grant is laterally. I studied the Bulls' film from those years. That guy can switch like a small forward. Kevin's strength and face-up game aren't fully developed yet. If we have him blindly driving from the perimeter, Grant's length and lateral quickness will give him hell."
Lin Qi tapped his right index finger hard on the black cross at the top of the three-point arc, a cruel sneer flashing in his eyes.
"The entire league knows next to nothing about Kevin right now. In Grant's eyes, Kevin is just a beanpole rookie who gets lost the moment he enters the paint."
"He won't do any targeted perimeter defensive film study on this rookie at all."
"So we'll divide this game into two phases and use that information gap to destroy Grant completely."
"Phase one is called destroying instinct."
Lin Qi's voice was soft, but carried an icy certainty.
"No matter how quick Grant usually is laterally, after nearly ten years in this league, his defensive instincts and his disdain for rookies will tell him he doesn't need to defend at that distance."
"In the opening quarter, he'll definitely fall back on habit and position himself at the edge of the paint, ready to help Shaq protect the interior."
"During this blind-spot phase, when he refuses to believe it and won't come out, all Kevin has to do is shoot him full of holes with threes from the top of the arc."
Adelman's pupils contracted slightly. He said nothing, only stared at that spot.
"Once Kevin's outside shooting has him questioning his life, we move to phase two: exploiting momentum."
Lin Qi slid his finger inward along a line:
"By the second quarter, Grant will be desperate from getting shot over. He'll have no choice but to scramble out hard beyond the three-point line."
"As long as he closes out too aggressively, he'll lose his balance completely. That's when Kevin uses his first-step speed to drive right past him face-up..."
Adelman stared at the paper, his right hand unconsciously rubbing his chin.
A few seconds later, he suddenly looked up.
"If Grant comes out, Shaq has to move with him."
"If Shaq doesn't come out, the middle is open."
"If they switch..."
Adelman's eyes suddenly lit up. "Sam Cassell!"
He snatched the ballpoint pen, leaned over the railing, and began drawing rapidly, muttering as he filled out the play:
"We can't just leave Kevin standing there alone. Have Johnson set a solid screen for Sam Cassell in the low post."
"Have Sam Cassell cut in with the ball from the strong side and force Grant out."
"At the same time, have Jones make a crossing backdoor cut from the weak-side corner, taking the Magic's rotating wing defender with him!"
"That way, the instant Sam Cassell drives and kicks, Kevin pops out to the top of the arc."
"If the Magic collapse, Kevin is wide open outside. If Grant comes out hard, Sam Cassell can use the screen to attack straight in."
"And if Shaq leaves the basket to close on Sam Cassell, Johnson can roll, catch, and hammer it home... Here! This spot creates an outright local numbers advantage!"
The pen kept scratching across the paper.
Lin Qi stood quietly beside him.
This was what he liked most about Adelman. This future master of the Princeton offense would never reject an idea because of the era's entrenched thinking, as long as it could win games.
Adelman drew faster and faster, his eyes growing brighter.
"Interesting... fucking interesting..."
"Send a seven-footer outside and force Grant to choose."
"Stay inside? Let Kevin shoot threes."
"Close out? Let Kevin drive."
"Switch? Bring Shaq out."
"Shaq won't come out? Then the middle is ours."
He stared at the tactical diagram, which had grown increasingly complicated under their pens, and suddenly laughed.
"Lin Qi, I don't know whether this can become a regular weapon. But I'm certain that if the Magic haven't prepared for it before the game, we'll catch them completely off guard."
In fact, their greatest source of confidence at that moment came from the historic adjustment the league had made a year earlier.
In the summer of 1994, with scoring falling across the league and games becoming excessively brutal physical battles, the NBA had decided to shorten the three-point line from twenty-three feet nine inches at the top and twenty-two feet in the corners to a uniform twenty-two feet.
Although that change had produced the first wave of "three-point-shooting big men," including Sam Perkins.
In 1995, however, those big men were still only stationary artillery waiting for passes on the perimeter, without any deep integration with high pick-and-rolls, passing and cutting, or face-up drives.
What Lin Qi and Adelman were drawing on that sheet of paper was a complex weapon belonging only to the future, combining pick-and-pops, face-up penetration, high-post distribution, and backdoor cuts from the corners.
This new tactic truly was something no one had seen in 1995.
It would not fully take shape and become a standard nuclear weapon sweeping the league until Adelman coached the Sacramento Kings in the early 2000s, and later, when Stan Van Gundy coached the Orlando Magic in 2008.
Adelman looked up, a trace of a tactician's excitement in his eyes.
"This feels less like a play and more like forcing the opponent to answer a question they've never seen before."
He paused, then gave another wry smile.
"But the real problem isn't the tactic. It's Kevin. A nineteen-year-old kid."
"If he misses two threes in a row in front of those Boston reporters, they'll tear him to pieces with their typewriters."
"After getting schooled by Malone, the Dream, and Robinson in succession, can he still take it?"
Lin Qi patted his shoulder. "You handle the tactics. I'll shoulder the pressure. Give him one night. Leave the rest to that kid."
Late that night, the Celtics' chartered plane forced its way into the air from the airport runway, roaring through heavy clouds and heading east.
Inside the airliner's business-class cabin, the engines gave off a low, steady rumble.
Garnett dawdled for a long time before finally inching over to the empty seat beside Lin Qi.
"Mr. Lin Qi," the teenager said quietly, his voice carrying the exhaustion and confusion of facing Malone, the Dream, and the Admiral in succession.
"Those guys I faced today... each one was more of a monster than the last. I feel like I'm so far behind them. So far I can't even see their backs."
Lin Qi turned to look at the nineteen-year-old prodigy, who seemed especially enormous in the darkness yet also somewhat at a loss, and smiled.
"Kevin, you've played in this league for less than two months. How many years have they been rolling around in this mud pit? Wanting to step on their shoulders and reach the sky already isn't confidence. It means life hasn't beaten you down yet."
"Then when can I be like them?" Garnett pressed.
"I don't know," Lin Qi answered honestly. "Maybe three years. Maybe five. Maybe... you'll never learn to play like them in your whole life."
Garnett's face instantly fell in the darkness.
"But," Lin Qi changed tack, his voice sounding especially clear amid the roar of the engines.
"Kevin, why do you have to become them?"
Garnett froze for a moment.
"You have a trump card none of them had as rookies... You're two meters eleven tall, with the speed and court vision of a perimeter guard."
"In the past fifty years of this league's history, there has never been a player like you."
Lin Qi smiled and pulled out the tactical diagram, now densely covered in Adelman's professional lines and even slightly creased, then gently patted it into Garnett's lap.
His eyes held a deep, unshakable, absolute certainty.
"You don't need to chase them. So next game against Orlando, you're starting at power forward, and you're not allowed to go into the lane to fight for position anymore."
"Those five hundred extra threes you've been shooting every day in Boston for the past two months-it's time to put them to use."
"What you need to do is defend them on the court, feel them out, then, like a thief, tear off the things that can make you stronger, piece by piece, and attach them to yourself."
"Not just the Admiral's all-around game, the Dream's Dream Shake, and Malone's discipline and fundamentals, but also the three-point shooting from the future on this sheet of paper."
"Then grow into a completely new monster in this league's paint, one they've never even heard of."
"When that time comes," Lin Qi patted the teenager's shoulder in the darkness.
"You won't be chasing their backs. Those old guys will have to turn around, sit down together, and study you to figure out how to defend you."
Garnett stared blankly at the tactical diagram in his hands.
In those eyes, dimmed somewhat by repeated schooling from the three great big men, two wildfires named obsession and ambition blazed fully to life.
He said nothing, only turned his head away and held the basketball and diagram in his lap tighter with both hands.
The plane finally landed in Florida.
Orlando lay just ahead.
Shaquille O'Neal, who had just returned from injury and was preparing to slaughter everyone in the paint, still knew nothing.
He had no idea just what kind of monster he was about to face, one ready to bite the old era's logic to pieces...
An era-defining monster.