When pride still matters

Chapter 172 Reebok Derby
Before the start of Game 76 between the Bucks and the [-]ers, Reebok arranged for Yu Fei and Iverson to do activities together.

Moreover, this event was personally organized by the company's executive Paul Farman (Paul Farman), with the purpose of reducing the smell of gunpowder between Yu Fei and Iverson.

In fact, they were overthinking it. The conflict between Yu Fei and Iverson only ended on the court. They are both people with a clear distinction between public and private matters.

Even if Yu Fei disdains Iverson's personal ethics, he has always kept in mind the way he has taken care of him in various activities and public events over the past two years.

What Yu Fei had to admit was that Iverson was the kind of friend that everyone wanted.

As long as people around him encounter problems, he is always able to contribute and have money to contribute.

But he never thought that one day in the future, these blood-sucking people attached to him would drain him dry.

Yu Fei heard such a thing from his agent Arne Trime. Iverson had 14 cars in his name, only 4 of which were his own, and the others were given to relatives and others by him. friend.

Iverson had to pay the insurance premiums on these cars every year, a bill that might be sky-high for a minimum-salary NBA player, but he could pay it without frowning.

Because compared to this, the other bills that the vampires kept bringing back were unbearable.

Trem often uses Iverson's example to make Yu Fei understand the importance of financial management.

Yu Fei felt it was unnecessary. There were no vampires around him. Even Lawson and Clark only received normal salaries. They would not bring extra bills to Yu Fei.

Since entering the NBA, except for using part of his salary to support his mother's store in DC, Yu Fei has basically had no major expenses.

He has no bad habits, nor is he lavish with money, nor does he lead a large group of people like Iverson to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in nightclubs to prove his desire to "have money and dare to play."

At the end of the event, Falman told Yu Fei and Iverson that he would go to the scene to support them tonight.

Yu Fei asked: "Paul, who do you want to win?"

Iverson looked at Falman with equal interest.

For some time, there have been rumors that Yu Fei will replace Iverson within Reebok.Even if Iverson doesn't care, people around Iverson will remind him of the importance of this.

Therefore, everything Falman says is likely to be misunderstood.

Falman knew it well, so he just smiled and said: "For the company, like the first game is the best result. Frye has a better team, so the Bucks won the game and lacked helpers. Although the AI ​​lost, it got better data.”

"This may be the best for the company, but not necessarily for me." Yu Fei looked at Iverson, "AI, if Sophie Marceau and Monica Bellucci invite you on the same night What would you choose to spend a good night together?"

Iverson said humorously: "You know, brother, I'm married, so this is not a good question. What's more, these two people are not on my 'Freebie List' (Freebie List). If you put these two I would consider changing the names to Mariah Carey and Halle Berry."

"OK" Yu Fei didn't want to argue with Iverson about aesthetic issues. He had tried his best to name two names that fit the public's aesthetics. The key point was "If it were me, I would not refuse anyone. I want them all. This is My choice is what I’m going to do tonight.”

This is a very straightforward answer.

Yu Fei wants to take away the game, but also the data.

Iverson said with a smile: "It's not that easy."

"Indeed." Yu Fei said jokingly, "It must be much harder to do this than sending you home to fish 4-0."

The game that night was exactly what George Karl predicted before the game.

Dick Bavetta came with a mission and called four fouls on the Bucks in less than 3 minutes of the game.

Iverson's body is almost untouchable, and every touch will cause a foul.

Despite being so tough on the defensive end, the Bucks were not defeated immediately by their opponents.

This is mainly due to the performance of two people.

One is Yu Fei and the other is Ray Allen.

As the leader on the surface, Ray Allen was extremely brave in the away game. He almost ate every piece of Yu Fei's breakthrough. He also dribbled to the basket and dunked to create a 2+1 performance.

As far as the first quarter is concerned, Ray Allen is better than Yu Fei.

With sudden shots available, Ray Allen can briefly rank among the four major shooting guards.

"Are you so excited tonight?" Yu Fei said to Allen at the end of the first quarter.

Allen just said seriously: "I will not miss any opportunity to sweep the 76ers."

"Why, do you hate Philadelphia?"

"it's OK."

"Then what do you hate about them?"

Ray Allen didn't say anything, but Yu Fei noticed that he looked at Iverson with strong hostility.

Although I don’t know what the story behind it is, it is certain that Ray Allen hates Iverson. As for whether the conflict between the two parties was left in the 2001 Eastern Conference Finals, or whether it was earlier, it is unknown.

At the beginning of the second quarter, Yu Fei gave Iverson some intensity.

Bavita followed suit.

It goes to show that "Iverson is untouchable" is the rule tonight.

"Dick, you don't want something like last year's Western Conference Finals to happen again, right?" Yu Fei calmly communicated with him, "You have to give us some space to defend."

Bavetta said calmly: "Don't talk to me."

"OK, let's not talk about it."

Yu Fei quickly proved that Bavetta didn't want to hack the stag like he had hacked the king until his heart was broken.

The way to prove it is to show strength to the rest of the 76ers.

As a result, the whistle did not sound.

The untouchable penalty scale belongs to Iverson alone.

The meaning is very clear. No one can be strong against Iverson now, so how many points he scores depends entirely on Iverson himself.If he loses in this situation, he has only himself to blame.

However, Iverson didn't have a good shooting touch today. Although his breakthrough was easy, there would be big men to help defend and interfere with him every time he went to the basket.

Don't touch if you can't help it. Anyway, he is short and can always interfere a little.

Iverson used the penalty scale to hit a very high shooting percentage at the basket, but his teammates were also unable to withstand the Bucks' offensive.

Yu Fei's pick-and-roll roll call was always accurate when he found the wrong position.

Ray Allen doesn't know if he took the wrong medicine. Without getting a few free throws, he used fewer shots to produce an offensive output that surpassed Iverson.

It is impossible for the partial whistle to last for the whole game.

Even if it's the referee's intention, they will change the scale in certain situations.To put it bluntly, no team can get a partial whistle that lasts for the whole game (if it lasts for the whole game, it should be called a black whistle).

Experienced referees will choose to blow the whistle in the opening and closing stages, and Bavetta is such a person.

If the biased whistle does not work, or if the team that benefited from the penalty is bandaged when the scale returns to normal, the referee will not look for the biased whistle in the final quarter.

This is what happened to the 76ers.

At the beginning, with the help of Bavetta, the seven players were amazingly popular, but the referee's help began to disappear at some stage in the second quarter.

The Bucks seized the game and quickly took the lead in the normal whistle in the next few minutes.

At halftime, the Bucks led the 48ers by 43 points, 76-5.

Yu Fei became the best player in the half with 12 points, 6 rebounds and 6 assists.

Ray Allen was chasing Iverson with 19 points in the half. He and Yu Fei were the main reasons why the Bucks held on to the score at the buzzer.

During halftime, Yu Fei asked Ray Allen about his grievances with Iverson.

As it turned out, they had a really unhappy past.

That was what happened before the two entered the NBA. At that time, both Ray Allen and Iverson competed in college games as members of the US team.During the training camp, the two quarreled because of different ideas. Iverson was the first to take action. He threw Ray Allen, who couldn't fight, to the ground and choked him with his hands.

"I think he really wanted to kill me." Ray Allen responded with lingering fear.

"Did something like this happen?" Yu Fei pretended to be surprised, but this was the world after the attack caused by Iverson, and everyone knew what kind of scum he was. "No wonder you're so angry."

Ray Allen took a deep breath, "If you give me the chance to sweep him, I will never let it go."

George Karl nodded happily: "Well said."

In several years, he had never seen such a manly Ray Allen.

It seems that being a scumbag not only stirs up a sense of justice in humans, but also hardens soft eggs.

Yu Fei really doesn't know why every time he changes his mind about Iverson, he hears bad news about him.

It is still difficult to achieve "No matter how he treats others, just remember how he treats me", because they really don't have such a deep friendship foundation. There is no guarantee that one day Iverson will end up because of his trash talk. Go crazy on the court and do horrible things.

In the second half, Yu Fei took more outside shots.

As the Bucks took the lead, the 76ers did not have enough defensive intensity. Yu Fei, who was relaxed enough, shot 50% of his three-pointers and easily overtook Iverson in scoring.

Iverson seemed to have not eaten enough of the off-whistle bonus, and wanted to get the same royal VIP treatment as he did at the beginning of the third quarter.

However, the referee actually allowed the Bucks player to touch him.

Because the referee did not blow the whistle, Iverson, who was bent on causing a foul, became mentally unbalanced: "Why didn't you blow the whistle? Isn't this a fucking foul?!"

To deal with this kind of scumbag, the scumbags in the refereeing world directly gave him a T so that he could understand how to talk to his benefactor who blew him a half-whistle.

"Technical foul? Are you fucking kidding me? Are you kidding me? This is our fucking home court!"

Iverson seemed to be confused about the situation and took Bavetta's warning T as an offense to himself.

After playing in the NBA for so many years, he still knows nothing about the standards and habits of referees. Just like he spends a lot of money in nightclubs, he feels that he deserves Jordan-level respect on the court.

He has the right to express dissatisfaction.

Bavetta doesn't want to send him off, but if he rushes in front of the referee, speaks offensive language, and uses threatening body movements, then the referee must take action.

With the 76ers trailing by 13 points, Iverson was ejected.

He kept cursing Bavetta and instigated all the fans to join in the curse battle.

This proves Bavetta's point about superstardom.

No amount of preferential treatment is enough, no amount of sweetness is enough, and as long as a penalty does not go their way, they will in turn greet the referee's family.

Who created this sick relationship?

Iverson was ejected.

This basically ruined the 76ers' hopes of winning.

This is the third game of the series. The 76ers are already 0-2 behind, and they have no room for error.

Once you lose this game, it's over.

Even if they were as strong as the Trail Blazers in the first round of the Western Conference, they would not be able to complete a comeback.

The Trail Blazers have proved with blood and tears that even if they catch up from 0 to 3 behind to 3 to 3, they will be defeated because they can't catch up.

Reebok executive Paul Fahlman witnessed the scene.

Iverson is still the typical Iverson, so arrogant that he seems to be pampered by God.This positioning was appropriate when he was young and powerful. Once he is no longer youthful, it would be dangerous if he still maintains this mentality.

It was Yu Fei's performance that surprised Farman.

Yu Fei neither broke the defense nor lost control due to the penalty scale at the beginning, and calmly waited until the end of the whistle time, and gradually took control of the situation by communicating with the referee.

Insulting a referee is the stupidest way to confront a referee.

What's the best way?Be like Kobe and tell the referee "You just missed me, it's time to give it back to me", or like Jordan during the Bulls period, talk to the referee about life, interests and family, so that they will subtly regard Jordan as their friend. Since they are friends, then the referee can pimp Jordan. If he can even pimp him, does it matter if he blows the whistle for him on the court?
There was something that Iverson had not understood for many years, but Yu Fei seemed to have known it from the beginning.

Then, he took advantage of the "garbage time" when Iverson came off the court, and before the official garbage time arrived 7 minutes before the end of the fourth quarter, his personal data reached 44 points, 15 rebounds and 11 assists.

In the history of the Milwaukee Bucks, the last person to get a major triple-double in the playoffs was Lou Alcindor.

Iverson's data, which was expelled, was fixed at 24 points, 3 rebounds and 4 assists. Not only did he lose the game, he also lost the data.

In the not-too-distant future, he will lose everything, just like Jordan during the Wizards period, leaving only a false name, like a zombie, and a meaningless existence except for the still arrogant self.

Falman turned around and walked out of the box. There was no need to answer the multiple-choice question before him. The question was how to make Yu Fei belong to and identify with the company.

What is certain is that for a super star who has brought dozens of times of profits to the company, receiving only US$300 million in endorsement fees every year will never give him ownership and recognition.

This problem and the risks that come with it must be addressed.

⑴The Freebie List comes from "Friends" and roughly means "Which five celebrities would you like to sleep with, regardless of other factors?"

⑵ From a sensory point of view, the 03 Trail Blazers' 23-on-23 chase was closer to the mythical comeback than [-] Kai's on [-]-on-[-] (because [-] Kai's Game [-] was terrible from the start).

(End of this chapter)