When pride still matters

Chapter 402 The idea is clear
Yu Fei's pressure on Paul caused the Hornets to get into chaos.

When the Hornets lost their usual rhythm of the game because Paul went crazy, the Sonics were unstoppable and led by 18 points before halftime.

Byron Scott said to Paul, "Chris, you see, right? If you don't keep your wits about us, we're going to be vulnerable."

Paul saw it, but what could he do?
It was difficult to stay calm in front of Yu Fei.

In the second half, the Hornets chased some points under the leadership of Paul, but were quickly interrupted by Yu Fei and Roy.

Yu Fei fired from the outside, and Roy defeated Paul's defense one-on-one.

When the Sonics' dual-core outsiders work at the same time, it's almost impossible for them to lose.

At the end of the third quarter, the Sonics led the Hornets by 15 points.

At the beginning of the fourth quarter, others in the SuperSonics also exerted their strength.

The neglected Durant made jump shots and breakthroughs in the position battle, Kwame Brown took advantage of the gravity of the star to continuously eat cakes, and the ubiquitous Marion filled up the statistics.

Yu Fei recalled the game and clearly remembered that when he used Paul's grandfather to talk trash, the opponent broke through the defense.

What's impressive is the intensity of the animosity between the Sonics and the Hornets.

In the end, the Sonics defeated the Hornets at home, 111-98, and won the first game of the series.

Paul's loss of control also exposed the Hornets' Achilles' heel.

So Yu Fei asked people around him to find out what the relationship between Paul and his grandfather was. Unexpectedly, he learned that the opponent's grandfather had passed away when he was in high school. Paul even scored 61 points in a single game to commemorate his grandfather when he passed away.

MVP is not new to Fei himself. He has already won several in Milwaukee, but to Seattle, the MVP of professional basketball is very new.

Their last MVP was Dennis Johnson, the 1979 Finals MVP, and their last MVP was Lenny Wilkens, the 1971 All-Star Game MVP. But whether it is FMVP or AMVP, both difficulty and gold content are the same. Can't be compared to MVP. The latter requires a sample of 82 games, while the former only requires a sample of one series and one exhibition game.

Otherwise, it will inevitably be suspected of using garbage time to gain points.

After the game, there were no hugs or handshakes, both sides went their separate ways.

Although the team has a forty-year history in the Emerald City, it has never had a regular-season MVP.

Now there is really no talent but no virtue.

Even if Paul starts to hit three-pointers, Yu Fei can still complete jump shots when singled out, and he can still find space for layups in the face of Brown's help defense. But if the star takes over the game and wants to reverse it, he needs to limit his opponent at the same time.

"When they want to compete, all we can do is respond." Yu Fei said about Paul's loss of control on the court, "I may have said some outrageous things, but I will not shut up just because the other party feels hurt."

Once Paul loses control of the team, as he did tonight, they're an average team.

The smaller the sample, the higher the chance of chance.

Of course he won't continue to talk about Paul's grandfather, but he doesn't intend to apologize for it. After all, he originally smiled at each other before the game started, but Paul's face of "Give me back my MVP" made him He couldn't help but start to fight back.

In the following days, the Seattle sports market was immersed in a crazy atmosphere.

Da Fei thought mockingly after learning the answer.

They succeeded and Paul failed.

Yu Fei really doesn't understand Paul's resentment towards MVP.

Obviously he was only ranked third in the MVP voting, but if he doesn't get angry with the second-ranked MVP, why should he compete with him?

The commercial value generated by Yu Fei has ushered in a bull market for sports products near the Key Arena.

MVP exacerbates this phenomenon.

Most of the products related to Yu Fei are ordered before they are put on the shelves, and jerseys are even more difficult to find.

This fanatical star-chasing atmosphere is spilling out from the city center, subtly affecting other citizens who don't care about professional basketball.

The commercial potential of the Sonics is exploding.

And Seattle has never been short of insightful people.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has a strong interest in investing in the Sonics' new arena.

Everything about the Sonics was mobilized.

The Hornets in front of them is no longer a problem for the Sonics. What they need to do is defeat the Hornets, pass the consideration of the conference finals, and then win back the damn trophy in the finals.

An economist who believed that the Sonics had zero economic impact on Seattle a year ago predicted: "If the Sonics win the championship this year, it is expected to generate profits of more than tens of millions of dollars and an economic effect of more than $0 million."

The Seattle Times quoted the prediction and reminded fans who brought it all about.

"None of this would have been possible without Frye."

The powerful celebrity effect began to feed back into Fei's brand. Yu Fei's mother Yu Fenglin opened a restaurant in Seattle that was booming. Reebok quickly defeated competitors such as Nike and Adidas in the basketball market and unified the Seattle basketball market. Every brand linked to Yu Fei wanted to use a speaker. Announced his relationship with Yu Fei.

For a moment, Yu Fei was like a wandering god in the world, he was everywhere, he was everywhere.

No one has the most intuitive sense of these feelings than the players of the Hornets.

"Do you know? Even the delivery boy's uniform has the number 44 written on it!" Paul's brother CJ complained, "The number 44 is everywhere! It's like he is his own city!"

Paul listened in silence.

After the first game, he realized that the attitude he had shown was harmful to his long-term relationship with Yu Fei.

Although they don't have any personal relationship, as teammates on Team USA, they will play together this summer.

If we become enemies here, how can we join hands together?
However, Paul still couldn't accept that he was snubbed in the MVP voting.

He saved professional basketball in New Orleans and kept the Hornets local. He saved the Hornets before Yu Fei could finish saving the Sonics.

Why do people turn a blind eye to this?

But when Paul saw that Seattle's sports market was taking off and the basketball economy was recovering rapidly, he could clearly feel that what Yu Fei was doing was directly different from him.

New Orleans is still rebuilding after being hit by Hurricane Katrina, and the Hornets remain, but the market has yet to recover and there hasn't been an influx of sponsors.

But what about supersonic speed?

Their future is still uncertain. The team needs to get the Seattle city government to pass a financing plan before the summer of 2010, otherwise the prosperity in front of them will be just a mirror and fleeting.

But that's what's scary.

The Sonics are still playing in the Key Arena, and their profits cannot be maximized in any case. However, under this situation, the ball market has fully recovered, the market is booming, and the Sonics' products continue to rise.

What if they stayed and got a better arena?
The same rescue, but the impact on the city is completely different.

The Hornets staying in New Orleans is a consolation after the disaster for the local community.

However, as a big market, Supersonics has become popular in an all-round way, but it can have a strong impact on the culture and economy of the city where it is located.

This difference and influence happens to be the difference between Yu Fei and Paul.

In every era and every highly commercialized sport, there are only one or two people like Yu Fei.

Their names have become symbolic, and their existence itself is an anthropomorphic form of commercial value. When he can bring benefits to everyone, his existence is not just a player.

He will be the embodiment of business, the embodiment of public opinion, the representative of the league, and the darling of the media. Unfortunately, Paul, who also saved New Orleans, is destined to be impossible to compare with such a person.

From the beginning, this was an unfair competition.

When Yu Fei returned to Seattle, he had already won.

Paul is a smart man. When he was hit hard by reality continuously, he began to reflect on the whole thing.

In the end, he discovered that Yu Fei had done nothing wrong, and he had done nothing wrong. They were both worthy of MVP, but in the eyes of the world, Yu Fei was more deserving.

This is the way professional basketball works. This is the sweetness that the business league gives to the stars who bring them profits. They just deserve it more than anyone else.

"Frye is right, he deserves to be MVP."

Suddenly, Paul said.

"Chris?" CJ was shocked, "What are you talking about?"

"Listen to me." Paul said, "I also deserve to be MVP, but it is not us who decide this matter, but those mercenary bastards. Do you think I need to go against Frye for this matter?"

That's true, but now the two teams meet in the playoffs. If you don't have the courage to confront Yu Fei, how can you defeat the SuperSonics and advance to the next round?
CJ's concerns are justified.

Paul figured it out, but the energy to confront Yu Fei also disappeared.

One day later, the two sides returned to the Key Arena and fought fiercely for four quarters. Paul played smoothly, but Yu Fei's unsolvable singles at the critical moment left the Hornets helpless.

106 is better than 101
The SuperSonics defeated the Hornets again, taking a 2-0 lead.

Tonight, Paul took the initiative to shake hands with Yu Fei, "You did what you should do, now it's our turn."

Of course Yu Fei didn't know what happened to Paul, but it seemed that he had figured it out.

This is good.

Although he really lost the only opportunity in his life to get involved in MVP, the most important thing in this world is to understand the thoughts, and being trapped by worries all day long will lead to premature aging.

(End of this chapter)