When pride still matters

Chapter 356 Impossible Mission
Just as the Dream Team was preparing to show its new look to the world, American sports were not at peace during the same period.

In other words, this year has been a nightmare for sports fans.

David Beckham's arrival in America was overhyped to the point of being obnoxious; Barry Bonds, accused of using drugs to enhance himself, broke Hank Aaron's home run record , but it puts a mark of shame on this glorious record; in comparison, NFL star Michael Vick’s illegal dog fighting crimes don’t seem so heinous.

The NBA looks calm, which is the state David Stern wants.

His league is recovering quickly. Although it has not yet reached the peak of Jordan's era, Yu Fei's rise has injected a new vitality into professional basketball.

As long as a scandal like the one in Eagle County in the summer of 2003 doesn't happen again, Stern has a feeling they'll be back to where they were in the early 90s within a few years.

You know, at that time, the old king was in decline, and the new king, Jordan, was waiting to ascend the throne. The eyes of the entire basketball world fell on him.

However, Yu Fei's situation is different from that of Jordan. He is facing an unprecedented dilemma, redeeming the Dream Team, saving the SuperSonics, and revitalizing the league that has been deteriorating since the 1998 lockout.

In Stern's view, it is impossible to do everything, but Yu Fei only needs to do one of them to establish his status as the undisputed No. 1 player of this generation.

Just when Stern and league practitioners were entering fantasy time, an NBA referee named Tim Donaghy was arrested.

This may be the only thing that makes league practitioners happy. Their best player is finally willing to shoulder the mission of the Star-Spangled Banner and set an example for others.

Stern asked, "Did it go smoothly?"

reason? Suspected of illegal gambling.

Stern had no choice, and it was all he could do to keep things from getting worse.

Donaghy's shadow appears on every bad call.

The NBA can control the situation, but the negative impact is already huge enough. This is more terrifying than the Eagle County incident because fans will question the correctness of the game.

Of course, this cannot but take into account the impact of the league's continued decline in attractiveness since the lockout in the summer of 1998.

Since Game 2002 of the Western Conference Finals, the outside world has been questioning the ability of NBA referees to enforce the law.

While league officials insist — and the evidence so far bears out — that Donaghy is an “isolated rogue criminal” (Stern’s preferred expression), the troubling uproar must be addressed. Taking no action would be a missed opportunity to rehabilitate the image, as Stern said, "We're going to spend a lot of time improving the [officiating] system and dealing with recruiting, education, coaching, teaching and rules on and off the field."

But no matter what the media or fans say, they have no evidence to prove that the referee blew the whistle for some kind of benefit. The appearance of Donaghy gave the victims ample reason to believe that NBA games are controlled.

Before the Donaghy affair, Stern's biggest struggle was that his best players were playing in a small market where basketball wasn't the No. 1 sport.

"There is almost no suspense." Jackson said, "Fry is more adaptable to FIBA ​​than imagined."

Even if Donaghy insists that he has never blown a black whistle for betting on football, but only made highly accurate predictions based on his understanding of the grievances between referees and teams, this kind of defense is ridiculous, just like the thief saying "I When you do that, you just dabble and don’t get in.”

After all, the only finals without Yu Fei in the past five years had the lowest ratings in history.

Without Yu Fei, perhaps the ratings in these years would be even worse.

However, the impact has already appeared.

Kobe's thunder is louder than his rain, James may need time, maybe it's just a bubble, the Celtics' Big Three lack traffic effect, Stern's entire hope is on Fei Fei, but the problem is, Yu Fei is now in Seattle, his goal Is it to save the Sonics?
Thinking of this, Stern's face became more solemn.

Although Yu Fei has been involved in many controversial incidents and staged many revenge dramas that the people love to see, the low appeal of the Bucks has significantly hurt the ratings.

In Yu Fei's four finals with the Bucks, except for the first time against the Spurs and the 2006 against the Mavericks, the ratings were higher than the historical average. The other two finals barely reached the average.

"David." Vice President Stu Jackson said, "The Dream Team won the qualifiers and Frye was elected MVP."

He can feel that the prosperous league is moving away from him, and the explosive business growth of the Jordan era may be gone forever.

This is an impossible task.

※※※

Fei was a bit overworked this summer.

In the past, he could always take advantage of the summer to get enough rest, but now, he didn't have a vacation until the end of August.

From the warm-up matches to the Olympic qualifying matches, plus half a month of training, Yu Fei spent a few extra months, and finally won the dream team's ticket to the Beijing Olympics with a complete victory.

During this period, Yu Fei averaged 18 points, 8 rebounds and 6 assists per game, ranking first in the team in all statistics, and worthy of the hype of Captain America.

As soon as the dream team's game mission was over, while there was still some time, Reebok arranged a trip to China for Yu Fei.

Yu Fei's market in Asia is larger than that in the United States, and the Chinese market accounts for the largest part.

Many factors led to Yu Fei's popularity in China, his strength, his skin color, his Chinese with no accent, his understanding and respect for this place, and his close relationship with Yao Huang. Unless it was Fans of James, Jordan and O'Neal, otherwise Yu Fei has almost no qualities that offend Chinese fans.

Yu Fei visited the unfinished Bird's Nest, ate Chinese food that would never be available in the United States without any taboos, and finally accepted an exclusive interview with "Basketball Park" before leaving.

What he didn't expect was that the person interviewing him was Yu Jia.

As long as you watch basketball games in China, even if you don't know this person, you will have heard his voice.

"You know before this summer, there were many Chinese fans who believed that you would wear the Chinese team's jersey." Yu Jia asked in a joking tone, "Have you ever considered this?"

"I really thought about it." Yu Fei also responded with a joke, "Then I studied the Chinese team and found that they spend half a year training each time. This made me decide to only support them mentally."

Yu Jia asked: "What made you decide to hold a large-scale sports meeting in Sichuan in your own name?" "My grandfather's grandfather is from Sichuan, so strictly speaking, I am also a child of Sichuan."

"Can you speak Sichuan dialect?"

"I know a few words."

Yu Jia showed an expectant expression.

"Xianren Banban. Guawazi."

A week later, Yu Fei returned to the United States.

On the plane, Lawson showed him a piece of ESPN news.

It read: LeBron had an intimate meeting with Michael.

"It seems that he has really fallen into MJ's arms." Lawson laughed. "He doesn't think that after listening to MJ for a few words, his skills will be as good as MJ, right?"

Now that the two sides have clearly broken up and are at odds with each other, James naturally does not need to worry about Yu Fei's reaction.

This really made Yu Fei feel ironic.

In his previous life, James was very sensitive to Jordan, because the media wanted him to surpass Jordan, and he himself had this goal. Although the two never competed on the same court, there were many overt and covert rivalries.

Jordan chose to do math problems in the comparison of Jenko: I don’t know who is better, but I know that 5 is greater than 3 (before 2020).

James doesn't want to compare with Kobe, because comparing with Kobe means that he has not clearly surpassed Kobe. How can he compare with Jordan?
Therefore, he directly declared himself GOAT on the show.

Unexpectedly, the two people who were supposed to be at odds with each other actually became allies because of his appearance.

Yu Fei didn't know whether to lament that he was too powerful or that things were unpredictable.

However, he couldn't care about James for the time being. The Cavaliers' lineup doesn't look like it can compete for the championship. In other words, James is not even qualified to enter his track.

He has more important things to do.

Before the Sonics' preseason training camp began in mid-September, Yu Fei noticed obvious changes in the coaching staff.

Karl came to Seattle with him, and naturally brought his own coaching staff, which was no problem.

But Yu Fei noticed that some old people who had worked for the Sonics for many years were fired.

Among them are Lenny Wilkens, who is very prestigious in the local area, and Jack Sikma C, who is very interested in Yu Fei.

Yu Fei has been practicing low-post offense in the past two years. Although he has made some small achievements, if he can have the guidance of a low-post master like Hikma, his progress will be faster.

So he went straight to general manager Sam Presti and asked him why Sikma was leaving the team.

Presti didn't expect Yu Fei to care so much about an old man who left the team. "After George's team came in, our coaching staff was a little bloated. Due to financial considerations, we had to lay off some personnel."

Is this Carl's fault?

Yu Fei asked back: "Then why did Lenny Wilkens leave? You don't want to tell me that he is also a member of the coaching staff, do you?"

Sam Presti comes from the Spurs, a place where the front office, coaching staff and players all perform their duties.

Popovich is the center of power, others only have to provide input.

Players don’t tell management what to do.

Presti left the Spurs because Clay Bennett gave him Popovich-like authority.

But the appearance of Yu Fei broke the established balance.

Both are superstars, but Yu Fei and Duncan are completely different beings.

He would speak out what he disagreed with, blatantly opposed management's operations, and dictate everything until he was satisfied.

Presti suppressed his dissatisfaction with Fei's condescending attitude and explained: "This is the boss's decision."

"That's okay."

In Presti's opinion, Yu Fei's reaction perfectly explained what management looked like in his eyes.

A tool that must obey him and nothing more.

If the directive comes from the top—the boss—then he won’t waste his breath on management; he’ll go straight to the person who can solve the problem.

After Yu Fei left, Presti felt that he could breathe normally again.

This season is going to be long.

PS: The second update will also be 30 minutes to 60 minutes slower.

(End of this chapter)