no shortcuts in basketball

Chapter 107 The inside story exposed
After the game against the Raptors, the Bulls returned to Chicago.

At this time, the league announced the awards for December.

Although Xu Yong's personal data in December has declined, he still won the best rookie of the month without any suspense.

There really is no one in the East who can beat them.

From Xu Yong's point of view, even without him, the final achievements of the 2009 class: a historical super giant Curry, a super giant Harden, two All-Stars Griffin and DeRozan, and many other outstanding performances rotation players.

But as far as their rookie seasons go, they weren't all that great.

And the eastern side was originally competitive. Jennings, the former No. 55 high school student in the United States who scored [-] points in a single game, also went to the Suns because of his appearance.

However, in the West, Evans' performance in December was a blast. He averaged 12 points, 22.1 rebounds and 5.2 assists per game, and he also won the best of the week in the Western Conference.

Although, the Kings have begun to dive for the lottery zone.

But this is the benefit of playing a bad team, unlimited firepower, earning money if you play it, and continuing next year if you can't play it.

Evans, this is obviously a momentum.

Both of them have won the title, so it is inevitable that Xu Yong and Evans, the two best rookies in the past two months, will be drawn out for comparison.

Fans who support Xu Yong are complaining about Evans' statistics. After all, the Kings are now ranked fourth from the bottom in the West, while the Bulls are seventh in the East.

Fans who support Evans say that those who support Xu Yong can't eat grapes and say that grapes are sour, and the intensity of the competition in the West is much higher than that in the East.

Just a few days later, a video related to Joe Maloof, one of the Kings owner Maloof brothers, went viral on social media.

That was Maruf chatting with his friends, although Maruf probably didn't know that a friend was secretly videotaping.

They chatted about Evans' back-to-back Rookie of the Year award.

You must know that Evans not only scores more points, but also has a lot of rebounds and assists. He has a good chance to become the fourth player to reach 20+5+5 in his rookie season after Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James .

This is not just as simple as selecting a best rookie, but selecting a rookie at a historical level.

Maruf naturally couldn't hide his complacency.

"Joe (Petrie) told me he bet his entire manager career that Xu Yong would be the best choice, but I insisted on Tyreke, who would be crazy enough to use the fourth pick to pick a yellow outsider ?” Maruf spread his hands and smoked a cigar with a smile.

"Didn't you agree with the selection of Xu before? It seems that you also promised to draft?"

"Yes, I respected Geoff, but at the last minute I exercised my power."

"What a great power move, Tyreke will give Sacramento its own king."

"Haha, I have to thank those guys in Chicago, otherwise I would be really worried that Joef would go against my wishes." Maloof laughed while holding a cigar.

"Will he?"

"People stay in one place for too long, and they don't know who is the real owner of this team."

……

This is a "friendship" incident that often occurs in American celebrity circles. The reason why it has been widely spread is not only because of the competition for the best rookie, but also because it revealed the behind-the-scenes events of this year's draft.

These things are impossible for ordinary people to see.

The person who bears the brunt of this video is Kings president Geoff Petrie.

The manager who worked hard in the Kings for 15 years and built the Princeton Kings team didn't expect the boss to see him that way.

His dedication and hard work to this team are worthless in the eyes of the capitalist boss.

Even the gambles he was about to make had already been seen through by the boss.

After all, after more than ten years of getting along, who doesn't know who?

It was fine if the video didn't come out, but Petrie would be in an embarrassing situation if it came out.

Although the Maloof brothers quickly issued a statement, expressing their unlimited trust in Petrie, they did enough to save face.

But this kind of statement is like a woman who loves you and then comes to say that she loves you. It seems that nothing has changed, but in fact everything has changed.

Secondly, it is Xu Yong.

Before the draft started, he felt that he and the Kings were going in both directions, and he basically felt that he was going to Sacramento.

After all, the other party gave him a draft promise.

If this matter doesn't come out, he still feels a little regretful that he didn't make it to Sacramento.

But when the explosion came out, he suddenly felt like someone had thrown cold water on him.

It turns out that if the Bulls don't select him, he won't be able to go to the Kings because the boss doesn't like him at all.

Although this is someone else's right, and because of the Bulls' severance, the matter of [promising for the draft but not being selected] did not really happen, but now that it has exploded, it is no different from what happened.

Finally, there are the fans.

Because the Bulls had a game against the Kings in January, the matchup between the "best rookies" was already quite interesting, and with this incident, this game was full of direct attention.

According to official news from the Kings, the tickets for the game in mid-January have been sold out.

This also perfectly interprets a major feature of the NBA: topic/traffic.

The NBA is a commercial league. In addition to competition, these off-court topics have an unprecedented impact on the game.

Even because of this, many players put their energy on how to generate traffic. Of course, that is what happened after the players "awakened".

All in all, the attention this game received was absolutely unprecedented.

……

Time flies, and it is already mid-January in a blink of an eye.

The Bulls flew to Sacramento and faced off against the Kings the next night.

This game is not only concerned by the fans, but even the media is smelling the traffic.

TNT, as the broadcaster of this game, even directly sent the ace combination of Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith to come to the scene to explain.

Before the game started, the two had already started talking loudly about the tape.

"If I were Jeff, I would definitely leave. He shaped the team culture of the Kings. It is extremely unfair to be treated like this." Barkley's "big mouth" fully demonstrated that watching the excitement is not too big a deal. Heart.

Of course, this matter has been a hot topic recently, and it is inappropriate not to rub it for a while.

"Charles, we are all adults, this video was just an accident." Smith tried his best to cheer himself up.

The implication of his words is also obvious. This is the relationship between capitalists and employees. You don’t really expect capitalists to treat you as your own, do you?

However, their discussion was heated, and the most embarrassing thing was Petrie who came to the scene at this time.

As the president and general manager of the Kings, he must appear on the cusp of such a crisis to stabilize the morale of the army.

It's just that judging from his dark circles and haggard appearance, he has been under tremendous pressure during this period.

At this moment, players from both sides began to enter the arena to warm up one after another.

The scene immediately showed Xu Yong and Evans a split shot, which caused a burst of boos from the fans.

In fact, it’s not just Sacramento fans who came to the scene today. The Kings have had poor performance in recent years, and the attendance rate at home has never been high. A large part of these fans came to watch the fun, and of course many came to support Xu. Forever.

There were some fans from Tempe, many Chinese from all over the country, and some even came from China.

"Charles, who do you think will be the winner tonight?" After seeing this, Smith ended the topic and asked instead.

That's right, it's about who is going to be the winner, not which team is going to win.

Compared with the outcome of the game, what attracted more attention in this game was the performance of Xu Yong and Evans.

"You know, I've always been a fan of Xu, and he will be a big winner." Barkley said with a serious expression.

Since the videotape incident was exposed, the voices on social media have mostly favored Evans. After all, Evans is playing better now.

In this era, this season, he averaged 22 points per game, ranking 11th in the league!
Not to mention 5 rebounds and 5 assists, Maruf's pride is not without reason.

So this is Barkley's consistent style, which is the opposite of the mainstream voice.

And he uses big winner here, which means he not only thinks Xu Yong will win the data, but also the game.

"No, Charles, you are baseless." Smith kept shaking his head aside.

"Twice." Barkley suddenly stretched out his hand and made a gesture.

Smith looked puzzled.

"In the NCAA, they met twice, and the winner was Xu." Barkley said a historical data.

Although he may be a loudmouth, his arguments are well-founded.

Back then he bet that Yao Ming would not score 19 points. At that time, Yao Ming had 0 points in two games and 2 points in one game. The highest score in a single game was 10 points.

Smith nodded with a smile, but couldn't help but cast a caring look at Xu Yong.

Being favored by Barkley is not a good thing!
On the field, the players on both sides have finished their warm-up, and the opening ceremony also began.

The Bulls took the lead as the visiting team. When Xu Yong made his first appearance, he received warm cheers from the fans who came to support him.

Rose, Xu Yong, Deng, Gibson, Noah, the Bulls are the regular starting five.

After the visiting team, the home team, the Kings' entrance ceremony.

Evans is also the first to appear on the court. His current scoring average is the highest in the Kings, but the king's current highest status is still Kevin Martin, who has played for the team for many years.

Evans, Martin, Dante Green, Jason Thompson, Spencer Hawes, the starting five of the Kings.

Another basis for Barkley's remarks, regardless of the East and West, in terms of strength, the Bulls are indeed stronger than the Kings now.

At the end of the opening ceremony, the starting players of both sides appeared one after another.

"Xu Yong, come on!"

At this moment, the Chinese fans who came thousands of miles away from the scene shouted loudly.

This shout attracted Xu Yong's attention. He turned his head in the direction of the fans and made a fist bump gesture.

Then, like a hunter, he looked at Evans in the opposite half.

come on!

(End of this chapter)