Garnett, Kobe, Hamilton, Bibby, Jermaine O’Neal... but most people still don’t recognize them—there are over a hundred people, after all.

Henry Bolton thought about how quickly his mid-range shot had improved... He hadn’t expected much from the Adidas training camp at first, but now he did. He was good at moving without the ball and catching and shooting. If he could get a teammate who passed well and build a good relationship, maybe he could make it into the final roster of 18?

That would greatly increase his chances of joining an NCAA Division I college team!

Chapter 6: Paul, A Man Must Always Keep His Word

“Special contract player Henry Bolton ability rating: 62

Physical attributes: speed 90, strength 72, vertical 93, agility 96, stamina 90...

Shooting: three-point 45, mid-range 79, layup 83...

Skills: ball handling 54, passing 43, catch-and-shoot 85...”

Henry Bolton looked at his latest ability rating: ball handling up by two points, strength up by two, mid-range up by four, layup up by three, and his overall rating up by two.

He hadn’t really practiced ball handling or layups, but the increase in strength had also brought some improvement to those areas.

And this was just the result of six days of training!

Unlike what Henry Bolton initially thought—that only his shooting would improve—once he started training his lats and core, he realized the improvements wouldn’t be limited to just mid-range shooting. Maybe the other areas wouldn’t improve as much since he wasn’t focusing on them, but the training would still drive progress in other abilities.

Henry Bolton really wished he could find another “golden finger” bug and get more special rewards. Clearly, the regular mission rewards were related to lifespan. Whether there were other types of rewards, he didn’t know yet.

And then there was “available lifespan”... What exactly did “available” mean? He still didn’t know.

Now, Henry Bolton wasn’t in a hurry. After learning that participating in events as a special contract player could benefit him, he started paying attention to all sorts of competitions—some he hadn’t cared about before, but now he did. For now, he was just observing; he needed to focus on improving his mid-range shot, and also prepare for the upcoming dunk contest and training camp. He had to find a way to make the most of these opportunities. Even if he didn’t get anything in the end, getting to know more high school basketball prodigies would still be great.

Since he’d decided to participate and already signed up, Henry Bolton naturally had to consider what he could get out of it. Even the smallest gain was still something. Building relationships with people who were sure to succeed in the future—even just becoming a familiar face—couldn’t hurt.

Suddenly, Henry Bolton remembered something: that player detection function. Could he use it to check out Pierce’s abilities?

Henry Bolton was really curious!

The subtitles quickly responded.

“Paul Pierce, height 195 cm, weight 108 kg, ability rating 67, offense 72, defense 61.

Physical attributes: speed 85, strength 85, vertical 72...

Shooting: three-point 68, mid-range 69, layup 87...

Skills: ball handling 82, passing 63, low-post backdown 63, high-post backdown 65...”

It really could detect!

Henry Bolton saw that Pierce’s rating was a full five points higher than his own, but he wasn’t surprised. Pierce had so many more skills, and his game was much more versatile than Henry Bolton’s straightforward catch-and-shoot style.

It was true that Henry Bolton’s specialty—moving without the ball and catch-and-shoot—was excellent, even better than Pierce’s, and his athleticism was superior too. But Pierce’s skills were just so well-rounded. He’d grown up with two older brothers who were both athletes. After his brothers showed potential to become pro players, as the saying goes, “birds of a feather flock together”—the people around them gradually all became young men with at least Division I college-level ability, and they often brought Pierce along. Among them were some of the best basketball players in their schools. Over time, Pierce’s skills became more and more complete.

If they both spent two or three years developing in college, a player like Pierce, who had a solid foundation in every area, would clearly have a better chance of making it to the NBA than Henry Bolton.

These past few days, Henry Bolton had also been learning to adapt to this era. At first, it was really hard to accept not having a smartphone, and hard to accept how slow information exchange was. He’d lived like this as a kid, but “it’s hard to go from luxury to frugality.” After so many years in an age where information was so easy to get, suddenly going back to this era was really tough.

But there was no choice—he just had to adapt, little by little.

One way to adapt was to learn about things through newspapers and TV news, mainly focusing on NBA draft news and NCAA powerhouses competing for high school basketball prodigies.

Sure enough, after finishing their pizza, Pierce kept playing video games, and Henry Bolton turned on the TV to watch the midday news on the American cable sports channel.

“According to front-line reporter Aleka Spencer, this year’s top favorite for the NBA draft’s number one pick, Wake Forest University Demon Deacons’ 19-year-old star center Tim Duncan, has declined to enter the draft early...”

The anchor read the news, and the screen switched to Tim Duncan’s sophomore season highlights. He was just unbelievably dominant! He could do everything—fly, leap, you name it. Henry Bolton watched the man on the screen—not the stone-faced guy with rock-solid fundamentals, but someone who looked more like Howard or David Robinson, able to run and jump, and fierce!

To stop Duncan, you’d have to keep him from getting the ball, or have two or three guys hanging on him. With that physique, he was simply unstoppable in college. The visual impact was on par with Shaquille O’Neal.