When pride still matters

Chapter 228 There is a force in the universe

Yu Fei's joke prompted Celtics fans to launch a series of attacks on team general manager Danny Ainge.

Although this is Angie's first year with the Celtics, fans have already seen his insidiousness.

Angie is an activist who will go for it as long as she has a clear goal and doesn't care what anyone thinks.

From the moment he took over the Green Army, he knew that the current lineup of this team had reached its upper limit, and he could only make do with it and have fun in the playoffs.

Therefore, he performed major surgery on the team's lineup, explicitly refused to renew Antoine Walker's contract, then sent him away, and then traded for Ricky Davis from the Cavaliers - a move that completely shattered the Celtics' leadership. The defensive mind of Jim O'Brien, the credited coach who walked out of Rick Pitino's nightmare.

O'Brien chose to resign, and his reaction was well within Ainge's expectations.

However, Anji did not expect that the competitiveness of the Eastern Conference would be so low.

He obviously dismantled the team, but the Celtics still entered the playoffs ranked eighth in the Eastern Conference.

Then, after being blown away by the Bucks in the first game, Yu Fei made the comment that he "recommended to renew Ricky Davis' contract for 20 years."

Therefore, there were countless people who broke through the defense, and the one who reacted the most fiercely was naturally Bill Simmons.

The next day this person published a column titled "How a Foolish General Manager Ruined My Favorite Team in a Few Months" charging Danny Ainge with seven deadly sins.

Yu Fei had no other intention except to laugh at the Celtics. The only thing he wanted to do was to sweep them away and advance to the second round early without causing any problems.

There was no suspense in the second and third games of the playoffs. The Bucks won both games by more than 20 points.

In the fourth game, there was a bit of suspense.

Pierce scored his highest score since the start of the series, 38 points.

However, for the Bucks, Yu Fei also responded with 38 points.

In addition to Yu Fei, Ray Allen scored 30 points and Sprewell scored 20 points.

The Bucks' three major perimeter players took turns firing, and the offense swept through the Greens like a tsunami.

The Celtics were swept out of the game, and the wailing in the center of the fleet was as shrill as an era had come to an end.

Yu Fei stood on the sidelines and felt nothing about it.

In addition to asking Yu Fei how he felt about advancing to the semifinals, the ABC reporter also asked something special: "Fry, if the Dream Team invites you again during the offseason, will you accept the invitation?"

As a player whose goal is to become the most valuable player in history, Yu Fei sincerely believes that he should not play on behalf of the national team and that it is proper to take a good rest during the offseason.

But this cannot be said publicly.

"I don't know. Coach Larry Brown keeps criticizing me for this matter, which makes me heartbroken." Yu Fei said helplessly, "He obviously misjudged me, and I don't want to be blamed for someone who views me like this." Coaching effectiveness.”

"So, this is a personal matter between you and Coach Brown?"

"You can think so."

"Would your opinion on this matter change if the head coach of the future Dream Team was someone else?"

"Maybe."

Yu Fei's words were tantamount to rejecting this summer's call-up again.

But for the American Basketball Association, Yu Fei's refusal is already expected. After all, this is not the first time he has refused to be called up.

Strangely, in addition to Yu Fei, high school superstars such as Kevin Garnett and Tracy McGrady also rejected calls to the national team.

Moreover, the reasons are very formal.

Garnett cited marriage and the length of the NBA season - this season will be the first time since 1995 that he hasn't gone home to fish during the semifinals.

It's even simpler for McGrady. He has a back injury, a falling out with the team, and has to apply for a trade. He is not in the mood to play for the national team.

Kobe, who seemed to be the most patriotic, was in trouble because of the Eagle County incident. He had to compete with the Lakers for his contract extension, and he couldn't waste his energy playing for the national team.

Why do players who come from high school alone have so many troubles?

It’s no big deal for others to stereotype them even if they don’t think so.

Yu Fei was surprised (happy) that so many people showed up.

If everyone has no problem, but he has a lot of reasons for himself, it will give people a bad impression. Now there are so many people joining him in joining the USA Basketball Association. Even if he is scolded in the future, he will be scolded together.

And, it blew by like the wind.

The first round of the playoffs has not yet been completed, and strong teams such as the Bucks have swept away their opponents and are waiting for the semifinals to begin, and the NBA selects the Rookie of the Year at this time.

Although the appearance of Yu Fei caused the Cavaliers to lose two more games this season than in the previous life, the process of James being elected as the Rookie of the Year has not changed.

If Yu Fei was not Xiao Zhan's eldest brother and asked him to vote with an absolutely neutral attitude, he might choose Anthony. However, in the media voting area, James gained an overwhelming advantage.

Ironically, for this originally very serious personal award, the reporters with voting rights chose James from a non-basketball perspective.

"Sports Illustrated" selected James as the Rookie of the Year in its award prediction article.

reason?

"LeBron has basically delivered on people's expectations as the most anticipated rookie in history."

ESPN announced that they would vote for James, and they also knew that doing so would arouse the anger of Gua Xiaozi, so they wrote in an unsigned article: "Let us make a hypothesis. Everyone who thinks Melo should become The ROY guys all had the same reason because Melo's team made the playoffs. So, let's assume LeBron plays for the Nuggets and Melo plays for the Cavaliers. Seriously tell me, Melo Can we lead the Cavaliers into the playoffs?"

Then, writer David Aldridge, also from ESPN, wrote; “No one — including Jordan, Magic, Kareem, Russell and Wilt — has done this as well as LeBron James. He entered the NBA with so much attention and enthusiasm, and he performed well almost every night. His performance at the point guard position exceeded expectations, and when he returned to the forward position, he brought an unprecedented level of performance. Breakout. Yes, LeBron's Cavaliers struggled in a weaker league. But that had nothing to do with LeBron. He played what everyone expected of him. It was amazing."

All those who support James' election as ROY have similar confessions.

You can extract the same from their rhetoric.

It's nothing more than that James lacks helpers. James played an elite rookie season under unprecedented pressure. James is more comprehensive than Anthony (a little bit/at this stage of the rookie season), so he should be elected ROY.

The biggest problem is that few of the factors that contributed to James being elected ROY have purely basketball reasons.

Excessive pressure and external expectations.?

Statistics, records, these most real things were ignored on the grounds of "lack of helpers", so the basketball reasons failed and non-basketball reasons took over.

Yu Fei was happy that his younger brother was elected, but after seeing the reasons why the media supported his younger brother as ROY, he inevitably felt aggrieved for another person.

Last season, there was a rookie who combined James and Anthony in terms of objective conditions and personal performance. As a result, he was not selected for ROY.

If pressure and expectations are so important, why did Yao Wei lose to ROY? Who in NBA history has endured more pressure than him? After O'Neal and before James, who has greater expectations than Yao Huang? Moreover, his personal performance is not bad, but considering external factors, internal factors, and this year's selection criteria, shouldn't Yao Shuan be selected as ROY 100%?

Behind the inconsistent standards, there must be a clear standard that will not be put on the table.

But Yu Fei has no time to continue worrying about this matter. He can only believe that there is a force in the universe and he must let his little brother be elected as ROY. That's fine.

In the second round of the playoffs, the Bucks met their old friends the Philadelphia 76ers.

Before the All-Star Weekend, the 76ers were still outside the playoffs. The team was planning to sell Iverson, but in the end, no one wanted him.

Since Iverson is going to die in their hands, the 76ers must coax him to play well. It just so happens that after Kidd left, the Nets, whose record was not good, were ready to rebuild, so they took over at the trade deadline. Kenyon Martin.

Although the 76ers paid three first-round picks, the arrival of Martin really put the 3ers in winning mode.

They rushed from tenth in the Eastern Conference to fifth in the Eastern Conference. They had just eliminated the fourth-placed Miami Heat in the Eastern Conference in the first round and faced the Bucks again.

Yu Fei VS Iverson.

This is the second season of the Reebok Derby, just less explosive than the first.

Because Yu Fei had successfully seized the top spot from Iverson last season.

Although the 76ers are stronger than before after reinforcements, they still cannot reach the height of the top three in the Eastern Conference.

In the first two games of the series, Yu Fei averaged a triple-double, and the Bucks won easily.

In the third game in Philadelphia, Yu Fei scored 40 points. The Bucks captured the match point and basically locked a ticket to the conference finals.

The 76ers were about to be eliminated. On the same night, the league announced the winners of various awards.

Yu Fei, playing the point guard position, was selected to the All-NBA team along with Kobe, Garnett, Duncan and O'Neal.

This is also the second consecutive year that Yu Fei has been selected to the best team.

Ironically, as the five-person group standing at the top of the basketball kingdom, on the night they won the season award, they were once again asked whether they would participate in the national team during the offseason.

Three of them refused on the spot.

Duncan, who suffered a hallucination while abusing food in a pond at the America's Cup last summer, said: "If my body allows me, I would love to play for Team USA. It would be fun."

Another person who did not refuse was Yu Fei, but everyone basically agreed that he was insulated from the national team.

But Yu Fei still didn't mean what he said, and even made fun of it: "If coach Larry Brown lets his players be defenseless against me in the Eastern Conference finals, I might think about it."

"But Frye, you haven't eliminated the 76ers yet."

"We're all 3-0. Let's think about it in advance. What's going on in the Eastern Conference Finals?"

"."

(End of this chapter)