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來源: ESPN
網址: https://tinyurl.com/2p9c7ftd

How a lifelong struggle paved the way for Gary Payton II's success with the
Golden State Warriors
人生困境如何成為Gary Payton II成功的養分

JUST SEVEN MONTHS ago, one of the most important role players on a club
desperate to return to its dynastic reign and the son of the legendary
Seattle SuperSonics guard Gary Payton, was preparing to apply for a desk job
in the team's video department.
就在七個月前，一個球隊裡面最重要的角色球員之一迫切的想回到球隊，這位西雅圖超
音速傳奇後衛Gary Payton之子，正準備要應徵球隊影像部門的辦公室工作。

Seven months ago.
就在七個月前。

Gary Payton II, 29, has had a basketball career full of rejection. He has
been cut from teams four times in six years and spent five years toiling in
the NBA's G League.
29歲的GP2，籃球生涯都是充滿被拒的情況，六年內被球隊裁掉過四次，五年在G-league
浪跡。

And he'd just been cut again.
然後那時他又被裁掉了。

Payton knew there was an opening in the Golden State Warriors' video
coordination department, so he approached assistant coach Jama Mahlalela.

那時他認為這是個機會，可以繼續貢獻跟參與籃球。

"I was dead serious," Payton says. "If I get cut, I'm going to audition for
that job. ... I was just trying to stay around. I'd still be around the game,
I could still help, travel whatnot. And then figure it out from there."


But Mahlalela had other plans.
但是助理教練Mahlalela有不同的計劃。

"I just talked to him about the criteria for the video room: A willing
learner, someone who can get on the court still and play, whatever. And he's
like, 'I'll do that,'" Mahlalela says. "And I'm like, Gary, I'm not letting
you do that. There is no chance in the world you are going to do that. You
are playing for this team."


Payton was ready to do what he'd always done: adapt.
GP2已經準備好了他一直在做的事：適應。

When he was in the second grade, Payton was diagnosed with dyslexia, a
learning disorder that affects 10% to 15% of the U.S. population. Those with
it often struggle with word recognition, spelling, reading comprehension,
language and visual processing.
當GP2二年級的時候被診斷有有閱讀障礙，這是種學習疾症，全美約有10%~15%人有這種
狀況。這些人在閱讀，拼字，了解辭意，語言跟影像認知會有問題。

After nearly two decades of learning to adapt in the face of adversity,
Payton was signed to Golden State's 15th and final roster spot four days
after his conversation with Mahlalela.
在經過二十多年適應並面對自己的疾病後，跟助教Mahlalela談完四天，GP2跟勇士簽約，
補上球員名單裡的最後一個位置。

He has finally found a home in the NBA and become one of the best defensive
guards in the sport.
他終於在NBA裡面找到家，成為籃球裡面最佳防守後衛之一。

WHEN THE THREE Payton kids were young, their mother, Monique, made them read
30 minutes each night. Gary's brother, Julian, and sister, Raquel, had no
problem completing the task. But Gary struggled and couldn't figure out why.
Monique constantly heard him mumbling to himself as he tried to get through
the pages.
GP2的媽媽Monique在他們小時候每晚會要他們念書半小時，GP2的弟弟Julian跟妹妹
Raquel都沒有問題，但是GP2一直都念的很痛苦，但是找不出原因。當GP2試著一頁頁的
念過去的時候，Monique一直都會聽到GP2在碎念。

"Speak up, speak clearly," she implored her son. But no matter how many times
she reminded him, Gary continued to stumble.
「講大聲點，念清楚點，」她鼓勵GP2。但是不管她提醒多少次，GP2一直都沒辦法。

When he was in second grade, his teacher approached Monique and suggested
that Gary be tested for dyslexia. At first, Monique was defensive. She didn't
want to think anything was wrong with her son, she says now.
當GP2二年級的時候，他的老師找了Monique並建議她應該帶GP2去檢查看看是不是有閱讀
障礙。起初她很抗拒，她不想認為自己的小孩有問題。

"I remember crying because I had been so hard on him," Monique says. "I
didn't realize he had a learning disability."
「我記得我因為那時候對他太嚴厲而哭過，」Monique說。「我那時並不知道他有學習
障礙。」

Gary struggled to read. His brain often swapped letters, particularly Ds and
Bs. When he was asked to read out loud in class, he tried to count ahead to
which paragraph he would be assigned, so he could practice ahead of time and
identify words he didn't know. He had a hard time learning the chronology of
things, like the order of the seasons.


Two years after his diagnosis, the Payton family moved from Seattle to Los
Angeles. On the trip there, Monique saw her oldest son crying on the plane.
在診斷出閱讀障礙後兩年，GP2一家從西雅圖搬到了洛杉磯。在飛機上，Monique看到他
的大兒子哭了。

"He said, 'I don't want to be dumb,'" Monique says. "I'm like babe, you're
not dumb. You learn differently."
「他說，『我不想當笨蛋~~』」Monique說。「我回他，『寶貝~~你不是笨蛋，你只是
學習的方式跟別人不一樣而已。』」

Accepting this difference did not come easily to Gary, who says he struggled
academically.
對GP2來說接受這個"不一樣"很困難，他說他在學業上很掙扎。

"After I found out about it, I was more embarrassed to ask questions and
speak out in class because my classmates didn't know, and I didn't want to
hint to them that I had a disability," Gary says. "I just wasn't trying to be
different than everyone else."
「當我知道我有這問題後，我反而覺得問問題更不好意思，在教室更不敢說話，因為我
的同學們不知道我有這疾病。我不想讓他們知道我有障礙，我只是不想跟別人不一樣，」
GP2說。

Gary says he struggled to understand concepts when teachers explained them
verbally. He says he often approached them after class to ask follow-up
questions. Eventually, he learned to ask for the concepts to be written out
so he could see them.
GP2說對於老師用講的東西，他很難理解。他說他常常在下課後去問問題，後來，他了解
了他得要請他們把概念寫出來，所以他才能懂。

After their move to L.A., the Paytons enrolled Gary in an academic tutoring
program tailored to young kids with learning disabilities. Shortly
thereafter, they learned their son was a visual learner, common for those
with dyslexia. The news wasn't surprising -- Gary always had a knack for
picking up new hobbies after watching them a few times.
在搬來洛杉磯後，他們家把GP2送進了一個學習加強課程，專門是給有學習障礙的小朋
友的。很快他們就了解到，GP2是個靠視覺學習的小孩，這在學習障礙的小孩很常見。這
對Payton家不是新鮮事--GP2常常在看過一些事情幾次後很快就會上手。

"If you could just write it out and show me, I will get it," Gary remembers
telling his teachers.
「如果東西可以寫下來或者表演給我看的話，我就會懂，」GP2記得那時候是跟老師這
樣說。

He still does this today. When he needs to spell something, he has to write
it out, even if it's in the air, or he will ask Siri on his phone.
他現在也還是這樣，當他要拼寫一些事情的時候，他會寫出來，即使是在寫空氣字，或者
他會用Siri幫他。

"If you look at the phenomenology of visual learners versus auditory learners
and kinesthetic learners, the current understanding is that we all learn in
all ways, we just have preferences," says Dr. Francesco Dandekar, the
associate director of sports psychiatry at Stanford University. "And we also
have ways of compensating for potential deficits. So often when people say
they're visual learners, it's more that they have difficulty processing
auditory input ... so they'll gravitate toward things that they can see."
「若是去看靠視覺學習，跟聽覺學習或是動態學習，目前的概念是一般人可以從所有的
方面來學，只是我們會有偏好，」史丹佛大學運動心理學副教授Francesco Dandekar說。
「然後我們大家會找方式去克服某些障礙，所以很常會聽到有人說他們是視覺學習，那
比較像是在講他們對於聽覺方面的處理有困難...所以他們會傾向去看他們可以看得東
西。」

Gary and his mom, a former player herself, watched his dad's games together
-- over and over again. On his own, he'd watch other games and footage of
other players. He'd study them, picking up parts of their game he liked. To
this day, Gary says, he incorporates moves that he saw from the late 1990s
and early 2000s.


"Watching basketball, I mean, you can see it," Gary says. "You can see what
works and what doesn't. It's a really big help. I think it's easier for me to
visualize something and then apply it to my game than the other way around. I
try to watch as much film as possible."


But his love for the game, and the preparation it requires, didn't come
naturally -- or easily.
但是他對籃球的熱愛，以及準備打籃球所需的技能，準備這一切並不是自然而然的--或者
說很容易的。

"I wanted to get away from the sport because of who my dad is, living up to
the hype, whatever," Payton says. "I just didn't want to deal with it."
「我那時想逃離籃球，因為我老爸的關係，大家會期待我跟他一樣，我不想面對這些，」
GP2說。

But by middle school, Payton decided to give it a try.
但是到中學的時候，GP2決定試試看。

"He was very lackadaisical," Monique says. "I'm like dude, we're dogs on the
court. You're either in or you're out. Are you playing or playing? Are you
serious?"
「他那時候很懶散，」GP2媽媽說。「我跟他講，我們都是場上的戰士，要嘛上場，要嘛
不幹，你到底要不要？你認真嗎？」

When Gary was a junior in high school, he decided to meet with Darrel Jordan,
a family friend and basketball coach who was working with Julian in the AAU
circuit. It was with Jordan that Gary's footwork and other fundamentals of
the game started to improve.
「當GP2高二的時候，他決定跟家庭好友同時也是AAU教練Darrel Jordan碰面，那也是
之後GP2的腳步以及其他籃球基本功開始變好的開始。

Gary received three scholarship offers from mid-major schools: Florida Gulf
Coast, Florida International and Florida A&M. But he didn't qualify
academically. The voices from his childhood, telling him he wasn't smart
enough, returned, filling him with doubt.
GP2後來收到三所不錯學校的獎學金機會，但是他的成績不夠格。那從小就出現在他腦
子裡的聲音，說他不夠聰明，又出現了；這讓他對自己充滿了懷疑。

From Westwind Preparatory Academy in Phoenix, Gary landed at Salt Lake
Community College. And by 2013, his sophomore season, he visited Saint Mary's
College in Moraga, California. The size of the school felt right, it was
close to his parents in Oakland and Saint Mary's was one of the top teams in
the West Coast Conference.


But his dad asked him to hold off on making a decision on Saint Mary's,
requesting that they visit Oregon State, where he was an All-Pac-10 selection
and both the Pac-10 Defensive Player of the Year and conference Freshman of
the Year in 1987. Former Beavers head coach Craig Robinson had made his own
pitch, a tantalizing one that made it hard for Gary to turn down: He could be
the difference-maker, Robinson said, to carry OSU back to national prominence.


It worked. Gary joined the Beavers in 2014 and played an integral part of
leading the Beavers to their first NCAA tournament appearance since 1990,
becoming the first player to be voted the Pac-12 Defensive Player of the Year
two times.
這計畫成功了，GP2在2014年加入奧勒岡州大，在球隊擔任重要位置，率領他們在1990
年後首次進入NCAA錦標賽，並且成為首位在Pac-12獲選兩次年度防守球員。

Yet, during all of these highs, the voice that filled him with doubt -- that
he wasn't good enough, that he wasn't smart enough, that he wasn't on any
draft boards, the one he'd spent more than a decade trying to silence --
remained.
不過，儘管有這些優秀時刻，那讓他對自己充滿懷疑的聲音--他不夠好，不夠聰明，他
沒有在選秀名單，那些他花了10多年想要平息的聲音--始終都在。

"I didn't know what I was going to be doing after school," he says. "I
[didn't] know what I'm going to do if basketball doesn't work."
「畢業後我不知道我要做什麼，若籃球這條路走不通，我真的不知道我要做什麼，」GP2
說。

AS THE FIRST quarter was drawing to a close in Monday's Game 2 against the
Denver Nuggets, the Warriors trailed by eight points.
星期一面對金塊Game 2的第一節末段，勇士落後8分。

Bones Hyland pulled up near the top of the key, looking to extend the
Nuggets' lead to double digits. After his shot clanked off the rim, reigning
MVP Nikola Jokic grabbed the rebound.
金塊Bones Hyland跳投，希望可以把領先分數變成2位數，但是這球打到了籃框，MVP
Nikola Jokic搶到了籃板。

As Jokic went in for the dunk, Payton -- giving up 90 pounds and nine inches
-- came over the top and blocked Jokic's shot clean. Otto Porter Jr.
corralled the loose ball, took it down the court and passed it to Andrew
Wiggins, who fed it back to Porter for a 3, cutting the Nuggets' lead to five
and forcing Denver coach Michael Malone to call a timeout. As Jokic headed to
the huddle, Payton passed him with a slap on the butt, to which Jokic did not
take kindly.


Payton headed to the bench and didn't look back as Stephen Curry restrained
the upset center, who is no stranger to meeting Payton at the rim.
GP2則是回到板凳區，沒有看到咖哩拉住了這位生氣的大個，這大個子對於在籃框附近
碰到GP2並不陌生。

In a mid-February game, Jokic caught the ball up high, this time outside the
key. With less than five minutes remaining in the first half, he turned and
faced a familiar foe: Payton.
在二月中的一場比賽，Jokic在高位拿到球。上半場剩下不到五分鐘，他轉身看到一個
熟悉的臉：GP2。

影片: https://youtu.be/Vv7pOJ0DBxc

Trying to back him down, Jokic instead turned to attempt his patented
turnaround, one-legged fadeaway.
Jokic嘗試要吃掉GP2，他轉身然後要用他的招牌單腳後仰投籃。

But as he rose, there was Payton, who matched the timing of the rise -- and
then the ball -- and swatted it away.
但是當Jokic跳起來的時候，GP2也在那邊，抓準時間，把球給拍掉。

Payton's ability to slow Jokic is no coincidence.
GP2讓Jokic慢下來的能力並不是偶然。

"Film doesn't lie," Payton says.
「影片是不會說謊的，」GP2說。

Jokic has all but mastered spinning off defenders -- a move that has become
foundational to his offensive repertoire. But through the hours of film
Payton and Mahlalela watched, they discovered how Payton's size could throw
Jokic off of his spin. It's quite simple, they realized: it would present
Jokic with a defense he rarely sees and doesn't have to fight through very
often.
Jokic對於轉身晃掉防守者非常厲害--這已經成為Jokic攻擊手段的基本動作。但是GP2跟
Mahlalela看過了數小時的影片後，他們發現如何讓GP2的體型去讓Jokic的轉身失去重
心。那很簡單，就是：就是讓Jokic面對一個他很少看到的防守，然後不需要太多的對
抗。

"The leverage he normally uses is against much bigger players," Mahlalela
says. "He has a completely different center of gravity with Gary guarding
him. It's all about learning and understanding how the game works. And
knowing the players and knowing how he fits into the team really makes a
difference."


Ask almost anyone and they will tell you what makes Payton such a special
player is his basketball IQ, something he has developed his entire life by
the unique way he studies the game.
若是去問任何一個人，他們都會說GP2獨特的地方是他的球商，這是他一直以來都在用他
獨特方式去研究比賽所得來的。

"In dyslexia, there's no link to IQ," Dr. Dandekar says. "It's just something
that your brain has a little more trouble processing. There's this
misconception that success means you do everything well. Success is actually
a lot more about understanding what you do well, understanding what you don't
do as well, playing to your strengths and finding ways to help yourself in
things that you're not as strong at."


Payton has finally found success in the NBA, on a Warriors team that has a
commanding 2-0 lead over Jokic and the Nuggets.
GP2終於在聯盟裡找到成功的方式，在勇士隊，目前2-0領先金塊。

"They let me be me," Payton says.
「他們讓我做自己，」GP2說。

Seven months ago, he was preparing for yet another rejection, another
instance where the lifelong whispers of doubt would again fill his mind. He
had no idea if he'd be filling an opening in the Warriors' lineup, or one in
the club's video coordination department.

coach Steve Kerr says. "He's been released so many times. It's just him
preparing for whatever is next. But he played so well for us, that was never
going to be a possibility."


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成功是了解自己

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