The Way of the Center

Lillard anxiously looked for vacant parking spaces in the parking lot of Moda Center. This was the first time that he had become disgusted with the city of Portland because of traffic problems.

Finally seeing an empty place, Lillard was ecstatic, he slammed the steering wheel, but found that his Hummer wanted to stop in, at least he had to move it back and forth three or four times.

However, the impatient Lillard moved the car a total of five times before finally "stuffing" the huge Hummer into the parking space.

Take down the key and take your backpack. Lillard trot all the way from the parking lot to the elevator. At this time, there were only 10 minutes left before the team's new day of training began.

"5...4...3...2...1!" Lillard looked at his watch, and he pushed hard at the last second before the training started. The door to the dressing room was opened.

After rushing into the locker room, everyone looked at Lillard in amazement. Lillard also looked at the locker room in surprise.

Obviously training is about to begin, so why are your teammates relaxing here to rest and change clothes?

"What are you doing Damien? Did you learn from LaMarcus and Ann to run outside the Moda Center in the morning?" Iguodala asked.

"No... isn't the training going to start soon?"

"It's still half an hour before it starts." Matthews said, pointing to the big clock in the dressing room.

Lillard looked at the clock and then at his watch. He can be sure that his watch was out of power, which caused it to "rest" for half an hour last night.

"Damn it! Scared me to death!" Lillard let out a sigh, being late for training is a big taboo in the Trail Blazers. He doesn't want to run back and forth on the sidelines alone when his teammates are fighting against training.

Lillard was still in shock, but the door of the dressing room behind him was pushed open again.

Needless to say, those who came to the locker room at this point must be Anjie and Aldridge who came back from the morning run.

"What's the matter, Damien, sweating profusely. Are you also running in the morning outside the Moda Center? Why didn't I see you." Aldridge kindly embraced Lillard's shoulder, and An Jie walked straight. When I arrived at my cabinet, I seemed to be looking for something.

"The watch is out of power. It made me half an hour faster than you both. I rushed to the locker room from the second floor with the speed of breaking through Westbrook." Lillard opened himself Made a joke.

There was laughter in the locker room, almost before the start of training, the players changed their clothes and put on the equipment. One day of training is about to begin, and they will go all out as usual!

At this moment, An Jie seemed to walk to the middle of the dressing room with a small red thing on the couch.

The locker room leader of the defending champion cleared his throat and began to speak. "guys!"

Suddenly, everyone stopped their movements and looked up at An Jie.

"Guys, it is the Chinese Lunar New Year. I wish you all a happy Chinese New Year and all the best. In China, we have the custom of giving red envelopes. So today, I also brought you a few."

In fact, the Spring Festival has already gained considerable popularity in the United States. Every Spring Festival, the NBA will convene a wave of stars to shoot advertisements that say bad "Happy New Year" blessings. Therefore, Lillard and others actually know what a red envelope is.

"The money is not much, it's mainly to bring some good omen to everyone." An Jie finished speaking, and began to hand out red packets with a grin.

The new Trail Blazers players were scrambling for this, and this group of athletes suddenly became aunts scrambling for merchandise during the supermarket's big sales promotion.

Some of them opened the red envelope with excitement, happily showing off the few banknotes in it, but full of sincerity.

Some raised the red envelopes and took a selfie with themselves by the way.

For a while, the entire locker room became noisy. Ricard was just across the door and heard the noisy shouts immediately.

"What the **** are these boys?" Ricard opened the locker room door curiously, but Ricard was taken aback by the messy pictures inside.

Seeing that Ricard and Divac were also here, Anjie immediately got rid of the crowd and walked in front of Ricard and Divac with the last two red packets.

"Boss, Vlad, the last two are for you."

Ricard looked at the red paper envelope in An Jie's hand, and didn't realize what was going on for a while.

Divac understood, he smiled and took the red envelope, and said happy new year to Anjie.

But when Divac opened the red envelope, he found only six dollars in it.

"Hey, I remember Yao Ke said that in China, you have to pay at least ten yuan to get in." Divac and Anjie joked.

"Okay Vlad, you don't want me to become the second bankrupt Pippen." An Jie responded to his teacher humorously.

Today is January 30, the traditional Chinese New Year’s Eve, and it is also the beginning of the Spring Festival.

Due to the excellent record of the team this season and the reason why An Jie did not have a game during the Spring Festival this year, An Jie decided to do something special in the locker room to relax your nervous nerves.

Since the victory over the Bobcats after New Year's Day, the Trail Blazers are still advancing. Although they experienced three back-to-backs in January, although they began to fight away more and more frequently.

But under Anjie's leadership, the Trail Blazers still achieved 14 games and 12 wins in January. As of the Spring Festival today, the Trail Blazers' record has officially become an excellent 31 wins and 5 losses. There is no doubt that from the beginning of the new season to the present. Whether it is ESPN's strength rankings or other media's strength rankings, the Blazers have consistently ranked first.

The NBA's official team record rankings, the Blazers have also occupied the top of the list until now.

Last season, the Trail Blazers scored 69 wins. So this year, people are discussing whether the Bulls’ incredible 72-win record will be broken by the Trail Blazers this year.

Of course, there are not so many things to worry about in the current Blazers locker room. Because of Anjie’s distribution of red envelopes, the whole dressing room was filled with a festive atmosphere, and the whole team was in a good state of relaxation. For a championship-level team, it is better to relax the nerves than to be tight. Pressure can crush a strong team, but relaxation will not make these self-disciplined teams regress.

One day of training kicked off in this cheerful atmosphere. Ricard's cough is still the same, but he is about to quit the habit of shouting. Because of the Trail Blazers' training, he will always do so that he can't fault him too much.

At night, when Anjie drove back to his door, he couldn't help taking out his phone and taking a picture of his door.

Because he was on the door and saw a set of couplets that were incompatible with the surrounding small bungalows. The combination of a Western-style villa and traditional Chinese Spring Festival couplets ~www.NovelMTL.com~ is really strange.

But this sense of disobedience made An Jie feel warm. He even almost forgot that he had been working abroad for so many years. This was the first time An Jie had a good Spring Festival...

"Dad, Mom, I'm back." An Jie walked into the door. Since his parents have lived here for nearly a month, the house is no longer as lifeless as before.

"Come back! Let's take a rest, the dumplings will be ready soon!" An Jie's mother's voice came from the kitchen. At this moment, it seemed that An Jie had returned to his childhood, back to the time when all three of them were still living in China.

After a while, a large plate of fragrant dumplings was brought to An Jie. An Jie did not drool, but tears kept rolling in his eyes.

If it weren't for holding back, the two lines of tears might have flowed down An Jie's cheeks now.

From 2008 to 2014, Anjie finally celebrated the Chinese New Year!

"Dad, mom..." An Jie raised his head and looked at his parents with a smile. If I didn't look closely, I didn't notice that the wrinkles on my parents' faces seemed to have really increased a lot.

"What's the matter son?"

"Happy Chinese New Year." An Jie stood up and hugged his parents. His strong arms can already make these two older people feel at ease to rely on.

"Happy new year."

The temperature in Portland is still very low today, and the heavy snow still makes many roads slow. It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the coldest winter in Portland in the past five years.

But in this small, usually empty villa, An Jie spent his warmest winter...

There is no Spring Festival Gala, no lively atmosphere, or even fireworks at midnight. But Anjie was already satisfied.