Milan, a Europe metropolis renowned for its fashion, luxury goods, and laid-back lifestyle, is just beginning its nightlife.
But in the underground passages of the Mediolanum Forum, there is not a trace of the romance that belongs to the Apennine Peninsula.
Inside the home arena, the game between the Boston Celtics and Olympia Milan has ended. Most of the players are gathered in the physiotherapy room getting ice packs or enjoying a post-game meal prepared by the nutritionist while bragging about the highlights of the game.
But in the secluded side court of the stadium, the dull thud of dribbling and the swishing sound of the basketball going through the net still echoed rhythmically. Because the main court lights were not on, the side court was dimly lit, with only a few halogen lamps near the baskets casting their light on the wooden floor.
Lin Qi walked over quietly and stood on the sidelines, watching everything unfold.
On the court, Dwyane Wade was drenched in sweat. His once loose gray training vest now clung tightly to his body, clearly outlining his cheetah-like, angular muscles. After a year apart, Lin Qi keenly noticed that Wade's shoulders were a whole size wider than when he was drafted, and the thickness of his core muscles had also visibly increased.
Sweat dripped from Wade's chin onto the floor, but he seemed oblivious. He was repeating the same action in a monotonous, even self-destructive way.
Receive the ball at the top of the key, drop your shoulder, and accelerate explosively.
He took a strong step to the right, his sneakers screeching as they rubbed against the floor.
He braked suddenly, his feet stopped on the floor, then jumped and launched a mid-range shot.
"Whoosh."
The basketball went through the net cleanly.
Shooting coach Mark Price, who was in charge of retrieving the ball, immediately picked it up and passed it back to Wade's chest.
Wade received the ball, instinctively wiped the sweat from his eyes with the back of his hand, returned to the top of the key, and repeated the same action.
Head coach Rick Carlisle and another shooting coach Chip Engelland, stood on the sidelines with their arms crossed, watching Wade's every move.
"I heard that this kid has been working himself to the bone these past few days?" Lin Qi approached the two men and spoke in a low voice.
Rick Carlisle turned around and saw Lin Qi, the owner who hadn't been able to get involved in the team's affairs for an entire season. A relieved smile appeared on his stern face.
"It's not just been these past few days, Lin," Rick Carlisle sighed, pointing to Wade on the court, "It's been two whole months since the NBA Finals ended in June. He's barely been home, spending almost all his time in the gym except for eating, sleeping, and physical therapy."
Rick Carlisle glanced at the training schedule in his hand. "After such a high-intensity game in Milan today, he should be resting. But he insists on doing extra training on his own. He has to make shots, not just the number of shots, but at least five hundred pull-up mid-range shots with a specific rhythm before he'll go back to sleep."
"Was he this obsessed with practicing shooting last season?" Lin Qi asked, hands in his coat pockets, watching Wade pull up for another shot. The ball bounced off the rim and swished through the net. "I missed the whole year, completely missing his rookie season, so I didn't witness his daily training regimen in person."
Hearing this, Rick Carlisle shook his head helplessly, a bitter smile appearing on his lips.
"Quite the opposite. When he first entered the league last season, he was a stubborn troublemaker. He had a set of seemingly profound but actually flawed theories about shooting."
Rick Carlisle recalled the scene from a few months ago and explained to Lin Qi, "This kid was extremely confident in his historic first step. He felt that once he got going, no one in the league could stop him from driving to the basket. He kept complaining to me that if he deliberately practiced a consistent three-pointer and mid-range shot, he would become dependent on them when he drove to the basket, and his first step wouldn't be as decisive."
"He even believes that taking mid-range shots is a compromise. Once he has this option, his threat to attack the paint and draw fouls will decrease."
Rick Carlisle mimicked Wade's rebellious tone from his rookie days. "In his own words, 'When driving to the basket and throwing myself into the air to battle those inside players becomes my only option, then I'll rack my brains and do everything I can to put the ball in the hoop. Floating around on the perimeter to shoot? That's something only cowards do.'"
Chip Engelland, standing to the side, couldn't help but interject with a wry smile upon hearing this. As one of the league's top shooting mechanics masters, he rarely encountered perimeter players who were so fundamentally averse to shooting.
"Under this bizarre logic, his shooting practice last season was simply indescribable," Engelland complained.
"The boss, on the surface, seems very 'professional.' He's very patient with my and Mark Price's requests to correct his shooting mechanism, such as lowering his release point and adjusting his footwork, and he also completes the prescribed training volume step by step."
Engelland shrugged. "But you can just sense that the kid wasn't really putting his heart into this. How should I put it... it was like he was just going through the motions of doing homework. He was just going through the motions, and he didn't really believe that a mid-range shot could kill the game in the final moments."
Lin Qi looked at the tireless figure on the field and asked knowingly, "Then what's with this crazy, ascetic-like energy?"
Rick Carlisle watched the field, a complex emotion flashing in his eyes. That emotion was a mixture of regret, resentment, and expectation that his young disciple had finally come to his senses.
He seemed to be recalling the suffocating battle from two months ago.
" The NBA Finals, double overtime, that mid-range jumper in the final moments." Rick Carlisle's voice lowered, sounding particularly heavy in the empty secondary court.
That was the Boston Celtics' closest shot to the championship last season; if they had made it, they would have won their fifth consecutive title.
That was also Wade's most painful and least memorable rookie season.
"It was probably the sound of the ball hitting the back of the rim that really woke him up."
Rick Carlisle looked at Wade, who was drenched in sweat on the court, and his tone was filled with deep admiration. "That missed game-winner was more effective than Engelland pleading with him a thousand times. After that game, he didn't even take a shower. He just sat in front of the locker in the locker room for two hours, wearing his soaked jersey."
He finally understood a fact: in the life-or-death situations on the highest stage, the best defenders are those who can shut down his driving lanes.
Rick Carlisle gestured with his hand, indicating a collapsing defensive stance. "When the opposing defensive anchor deliberately takes two big steps back, blocking the edge of the paint in an almost humiliatingly open manner, without that pull-up jumper that can draw out big men, his prized drives are useless in the final moments. He can only throw himself into the air, gambling on a whistle the referee is unwilling to blow at that point."
Rick Carlisle took a deep breath and ended his recollection. "Ever since the night we lost the NBA Finals, he's been like a madman. He no longer talks about those fallacies about 'affecting driving power.' He only has one goal now: to turn this position that once caused his downfall into his most reliable means of punishment."
Lin Qi listened quietly, his gaze never leaving Wade.
At this moment, Wade's eyes no longer held the blind confidence and arrogance of his rookie days; instead, they held a focused, fierce, and restrained killing intent.
When a guard with top-tier athletic talent stops relying solely on his physical gifts and begins to genuinely hone his mid-range shooting ability—a true "killer skill"—he has finally opened the door to becoming a superstar.
"By the way," Lin Qi turned his attention back to the team's offseason acquisitions and internal mentoring programs, "Although I wasn't there last season, the management brought in veteran guards Mark Jackson and Rod Strickland as mentors for Wade, as planned. How did it go? Did they teach the kid well?"
Mentioning those two names, Rick Carlisle couldn't help but laugh out loud, shaking his head repeatedly, as if recalling some extremely absurd yet delightful scene.
"The results? The results are simply too good, even exceeding our coaching staff's expectations."
Rick Carlisle recalled the daily coaching sessions in the Boston locker room over the past season, " Mark Jackson was like a nagging old father. You know, even when that guy couldn't run anymore, he could still control the pace of the game with his brain. Every day in the locker room and weight room, he would instill in Wade how to utilize his heavy guard size."
"He taught Wade how to use his broad back and hindquarters to create space and overpower those skinny point guards in the low post. He taught him how to deliberately create a momentary pause after a pick-and-roll to trap the defender behind him and read the opposing center's center of gravity. Jackson told him that speed is not just about being fast, but also about the rhythm of switching between fast and slow."
Rick Carlisle paused, seemingly searching for a more precise adjective to describe another person. "As for Rod Strickland... that old guy is practically a 'baseball boxing mentor'."
Engelland nearby, couldn't help but laugh out loud when he heard this analogy.
" Strickland unreservedly shared with Wade all the tricks he used to survive on New York streetball courts and in the meat grinder-like paint of the 90s."
Rick Carlisle pointed to the baseline area on the court, gesturing. "How to subtly clamp the defender's arm with your non-ball-handling hand on the first step of a drive, preventing them from jumping. How to use torso twisting during aerial contact to protect the ball and draw a foul. How to use incorrect footwork to disrupt the blocker's jump timing. Even how to use eye contact and fakes to fool the referee at the baseline... He taught everything. Some of the moves, even I, the head coach, thought were a bit excessive."
"But this kid is like a greedy sponge, absorbing all the completely different, even contradictory, aspects of these two old foxes."
Rick Carlisle concluded, his voice brimming with excitement. " Strickland's cunning and street smarts, combined with Mark Jackson's strategic vision of positional warfare, and his own historic explosiveness... Lin, you really have no idea what you missed during that year you were gone."
"It sounds like I really missed a good show."
Lin Qi listened quietly to Rick Carlisle's report. He then turned his gaze back to the field.
With another crisp "swish," Wade finally made his 500th pull-up jumper of the night.
He stopped, his hands resting on his sweat-soaked knees, panting heavily. Sweat dripped down his face, pooling on the floor in a small puddle.
Lin Qi looked at the young man and couldn't help but think to himself.
Is it possible for this kid to establish a dynasty?
How about making a run for a fifth consecutive title?