When pride still matters

Chapter 487 Christmas Aftermath
After Christmas, with only the last few days of the 2000s left, many people got their Christmas gifts.

The Sonics were especially generous with their gifts.

They won the most talked-about Christmas Day game in history and greatly enhanced the Sonics' reputation in the Seattle area as city heroes.

This will be good for their financing package for the new arena in June.

Sonics owner Clay Bennett cashed in on the game, preparing him for the coming era of huge payrolls.

Yu Fei continues to become a symbol of victory, representing Reebok's firm suppression of Nike.

At the team level, the most important thing is the return of Chris Bosh.

Bosh also made a little joke about his comeback: "I saw Frye's performance at the fourth position. If I don't come back, he will continue to play the fourth position, and then they will soon find that they are not I was needed. I couldn't let that happen, so I came back."

However, in addition to the surprise of Bosh's return, there is a dark cloud above the Sonics.

That's Brandon Roy's injury concern.

This time, the Sonics were in chaos.

The Timberwolves' perimeter core is Russell Westbrook and Tracy McGrady.

Durant could only exchange blows with him, but when Yu Fei and Roy both left the field, the player known as the Son of America exposed his flaws - although the template is Yu Fei, he only has the offensive end. Like Yu Fei.

After a review at the hospital, Yu Fei was told that he was fine.

Isn't this bad? That's enough for an attacking machine.

Since this account seemed to have grabbed the sofa at the right time, everyone who followed up on Twitter saw this reply.

It can be said that if the season scoring champions in NBA history not only win the scoring title, but also average 5 assists per game, they have the potential to serve as the offensive core of the championship team.

It wasn't until the day after the Christmas game that Roy's leg, which had undergone ACL surgery, developed soreness.

Although the template of being superior to inferior players seems quite outrageous, it is undeniable that Durant's talent can indeed support such expectations.

"SuperSonics are the defending champions, we are just challenging them!"

On the contrary, McGrady has very strict requirements for Durant.

To Twitter, this is just one of Yu Fei’s countless haters, and fans are just attacking him in droves.

Many people have forgotten that Durant's upper limit template was Yu Fei and his lower limit template was Tracy McGrady.

The Sonics' game was dragged into a chaos by the Timberwolves.

If you don't control your face now, the next meeting may not end well.

Unfortunately, Yu Fei left the game in the first half due to calf cramps, and the SuperSonics did not let him return in the second half for safety reasons.

He cannot organize like Yu Fei, assume a lot of ball rights, increase offensive output and output at will, and feed his teammates while attacking a lot.

Various offensive comments appeared in the replies.

He can say anything without caring about other people's reactions.

And tonight's game proved that Durant does not have the ability to coordinate the overall situation like Yu Fei.

Just under McGrady's tweet about this news, an account named "quiresultan" replied: "Pestering Frye? His bodyguards will knock KD down. Do you think people like him will care about KD's growth?" ?”

Because he knew that the man who left the game due to cramps in the first half was a small-minded person.

During that time, Yu Fei and Roy averaged 38 minutes per game.

"KD was lucky to have a mentor like Frye at the beginning of his career to help him move forward, but unfortunately, he only learned a little bit of it. In terms of talent, he is the most talented player I have ever seen. "He should do better," McGrady said, "If it were me, I would pester Fry every day and ask him to teach me how to organize the offense."

The Sonics experienced a wave of injuries last month. Roy returned to the team after a few days of observation after being cleared. Due to the shortage of manpower, the core players will bear more.

Without Yu Fei, McGrady is unstoppable.

He loves this game.

Today, McGrady has passed his prime, but he has not forgotten that he was once hailed as the most promising player in the league, and he was already the best in the Eastern Conference at a young age.

This is the pure evil of human nature itself. When you vent your anger without getting any punishment, you will behave far crazier than you imagined.

Sharing the cake sounds nice, but it is a very delicate job.

The Yu Hei people couldn't help but like it, while the Fei Chui people were angry.

After watching Durant in the third grade, McGrady couldn't help but think "what if".

This is Westbrook's specialty. This energetic young madman played 44 minutes and scored 26 points, 11 rebounds and 8 assists. Although he made 4 turnovers, it was enough to help the team beat the SuperSonics in an upset.

McGrady relieved most of his responsibilities with the Rockets in the Timberwolves and served as the team's secondary attacker and second ball-handler, averaging 23 points, 6 rebounds and 4 assists per game.

The old and the young are very complementary in terms of style.

But Nike hopes Durant will be on par with Yu Fei.

Durant's organization has always been at the level of "I attract the defense and then pass the ball".

Bosh had just come back and was in average condition, but he was outmatched by Oden on the opposite side.

After the game, Westbrook was very humble.

As a result, Roy missed the game against the Timberwolves two days later.

But at the same moment, Kevin Durant was excited about how easily his Internet avatar could piss off that nefarious group.

Then, the Sonics' loss to the Timberwolves left him unhappy.

He didn't know why the people around him were making such a fuss. He could tell the difference between a cramp and a strain.

He just had cramps at the time.

However, the doctor told him: "This is the right decision. It is a blessing that you have not suffered serious injuries so far. Many people have been so lucky, so they thought their bodies were like steel. 95% of major injuries are It’s caused by small injuries, and big injuries are usually the end of luck.”

"You're Brandon Roy's teammate, and you can ask him if he's never been the same since he had ACL surgery as a kid."

Yu Fei didn't answer, he knew the doctor was right.

Recovery from ACL surgeries is often difficult until arthroscopic surgery is established.

Roy, Kidd and Stoudemire are all exceptions.

But Kidd himself does not rely on physical fitness. Stoudemire had the best medical team in the NBA when he was in Phoenix. Roy suffered from the disease when he was a student, but he has grown from a person with no draft prospects to today's NBA all-star. The star must be said to be a medical miracle.

However, no matter how great a miracle is, there is a limit.

In Roy's era, ACL surgery was not mature, which also led to his postoperative recovery being imperfect.

He was lucky enough to play two relatively complete seasons next to Yu Fei, but a complete NBA season means more than seven months of travel and travel, which is a difficult challenge even for healthy people, let alone someone with his own talent. Players with glass properties.

Yu Fei suddenly thought that their backup point guard was too weak to help Roy share the pressure.

Is this a hidden danger left by not selecting Patty Mills in this year's draft?
After returning home, Yu Fei sent Presti a text message: "We lack an organizer on the bench. How to solve this problem?"

The speed with which Presti responded to text messages made one suspect that he had been checking his phone, otherwise he would not have been so quick.

"I'll take care of it."

The loss to the Timberwolves caused little controversy within Seattle.

After all, neither Yu Fei nor Roy were on the court. Durant tried his best to score 34 points, but there was nothing he could do if he couldn't beat him.

However, George Karl, like Yu Fei, reported the issue of backup point guard to the management.

Other than that, they moved on. There are only three days left in 2009.

They have two more games to play, against the Grizzlies and Nuggets.

The first decade of the new century is coming to an end, and the league is taking advantage of the heat of the Christmas game to negotiate contract extensions with major cable TV stations.

Before 2008, the NBA's market image was hit by scandals one after another, and its commercial value plummeted.

However, they gave the world the best sports fairy tale in 2008.

The Chosen One saves his hometown.

The rebirth of the Seattle SuperSonics is the NBA's version of Homer.

Now, the SuperSonics are about to face a crossroads, but the NBA used artificial power to turn the Lakers into an evil empire in the summer. As a result, a clear-cut theme has emerged this season, or the main goal that the league has high hopes for. script.

It's Seattle's Chosen Empire versus Los Angeles' Evil Empire.

The story has just begun and achieved unprecedented success. The game between the SuperSonics and the Lakers created the highest Christmas game ratings in history, and all stakeholders gained a lot. As this trend continues, even if the showdown between the Sonics and Lakers doesn't happen in the Finals, it will attract national attention.

If Stern wants to create another golden era of professional basketball after the Jordan era in his already limited tenure, it will be this season.

Professional basketball is once again a popular entertainment.

After negotiations, the league finally extended the broadcast agreement with its three major cable television partners, TNT, ESPN and ABC, until the summer of 2016, with the total value of the extended contract reaching $75 billion.

You know, as early as 2007, the three major TV stations tried to use the Donaghy incident to lower a broadcast contract.

Initially, the offer from the three major TV stations was US$8 billion over eight years.

That was the lowest point for the league and a shame for Stern.

Professional basketball successfully turned into a global sports league during his tenure as president, but after its prosperity in the 90s, it ushered in a major setback in the new century.

Just when every practitioner felt that their career prospects were bleak, Yu Fei played the home card.

The alliance took advantage of the situation and built momentum for it, and the extended contract with the three major TV stations was shortened by two years from the original eight years.

The results proved that the league's decision was correct, and Yu Fei's success in Seattle washed away the negative impact of a series of scandals that had occurred since Kobe Bryant's Eagle County incident in 2003.

It's a new era now.

The eight-year, US$8 billion broadcast contract became a six-year, US$74 billion contract.

After this summer, the NBA salary cap, which has been stagnant for many years, will see a big increase next season.

Stern almost foresees how much effort they will spend fighting with the players union over the summer.

The first sign of this potential turmoil came during the first negotiations during the All-Star break in February.

Regardless, it's time to celebrate the victory.

However, Gilbert Arenas from the Washington Wizards said with practical actions: Good celebration, don’t celebrate next time.

Washington Wizards teammates Gilbert Arenas and Jarius Crittenton pulled guns on each other during a locker room argument over gambling debts, the New York Post reported.

After this incident, Wizards All-Star guard Tony Parker requested a trade.

The DC tabloid suggested that the Frenchman wanted to be traded because he was hooking up with a teammate's wife and was afraid of retaliation.

Wizards owner Abe Pohling is still alive, but the Wizards have become the center of a scandal in the NBA.

What does Stern think?
His league hasn't had a scandal in two years.

This is thanks to Yu Fei's SuperSonics, which has brought the league on the right track. Now, everyone is focusing on competition, the sneaker war, 44 versus 23 and 24. What are you DC doing? Guns drawn in the locker room?

Arenas is trying to play the "I'm a fool" card like O'Neal did when he made racist remarks.

He said on Twitter: "I understand this is serious... but if you know me, you know that I don't do serious things, I am a funny person, and today's story unfortunately does not sound funny."

"This is unprecedented in the history of sports," NBA Players Association executive director Billy Hunter told the New York Post. "I've never heard of a player pulling a gun on someone in the locker room."

Subsequently, the Wizards issued a statement saying that Arenas stored an unloaded gun in the locker room and the NBA was investigating. Arenas explained that he brought the gun to the Verizon center because his child had just been born and he did not want to leave the gun at home. He said the gun was then given to team security, who handed it over to police.

Just like that, it's over, not just Arenas' Wizards career, but also his NBA career.

Stern was furious, and he would not allow anyone to ruin the great situation.

The league office announced a one-year suspension for Arenas and Crittenton, which was the maximum punishment for Sprewell's attack on a fan at the Palace of Auburn Hills.

Although Arenas and Crittenton cried foul and vowed to take the league to court, Stern's determination remained unwavering.

Beyond that, Tony Parker’s trade request has not been withdrawn.

News of his affair with his teammate's wife also spread widely.

Abby Pauline never imagined that a team that had been satisfactory to him would disintegrate less than a month after his death.

The Wizards have a new owner, and he doesn't want to see any traces of the Pauline era.

Parker's trade request will allow the Wizards to seamlessly enter a mess mode.

An Eastern Conference team that seemed passable turned into a weakling.

"Washington Post" reporter Steve Wyche wrote after the gun incident: "If there is a Wizards fan who missed these two days because he was drunk at the party, wait until he sobers up. , he would find his team suddenly exploded. It wasn't a hard landing, it wasn't a soft landing, it was a spontaneous combustion of fuel barrels, a horrific mid-air disintegration in which Arenas screwed up everything and left the Wizards with nothing to lose. Don't worry, we've been through this before. It's just a repeat of the Michael Jordan era. There's only one problem: we can hold on to Frye Yu in the next cycle. Don’t you want to let go?”

Yu Fei didn't hear DC's call. He scored 50 points in Memphis' away game to vent his anger at not being able to play in the second half of the previous game and leading to the loss.

When Yu Fei scored 40 points in three quarters, MVP calls rang out at the Grizzlies' home court.

After the game, Grizzlies center Joakim Noah said frankly: "Those fans don't deserve to watch the game. We are playing hard, but they are cheering for the opponent!"

Regarding Noah's dissatisfaction, Yu Fei said with a smile: "Qiao Jin is a bit overreacted. Is it possible that they are my fans?"

The Sonics then traveled to Denver for their final game of 2009.

Recently, the Nuggets have been very active. Carmelo Anthony signed a five-year contract extension with the team a few years ago, but it turned out that if the current situation continues, he may get nothing. arrive.

Although he can score well, what if he can score again in a less commercial city?
Have you heard of Alex English? It's normal that you haven't heard of it. Although this person has scored more than 26000 points in his career, he played in the Nuggets during his peak period and had no results in the playoffs, let alone any anecdotes. It is normal for him to be forgotten. .

This is Anthony's lesson.

He saw Yu Fei's success in Seattle and James' spectacular "decision". As one of the 03 champions, he also wanted to be the protagonist of the grand narrative, so he wanted to leave the Nuggets.

However, he was trapped by his contract.

If he signed a short-term contract like several others in his class, he could leave this summer, but now, he can only slowly build up his anger and wait for the day when he will explode.

Tonight, Yu Fei ignored the camaraderie of the major leagues and scored 46 points, leading the SuperSonics to a 36-point victory over the Nuggets on the road.

However, the Sonics were not happy.

Because Roy returned tonight, but sprained his knee during the game, this further deepened people's concerns about their fatigue over the past few years.

Anthony scored 36 points, which, ironically, was the number they lost by.

He walked up to Yu Fei helplessly and asked, "Fry, do you think my team can be saved?"

Yu Fei, who was thinking about Roy's injury, replied absently; "It's hopeless, run away!"

"You think so too?" Anthony felt quite pleased that the heroes had similar opinions.

Yu Fei had an impatient look on his face and said, "Don't bother me with such nonsense." He shrugged, turned around and left.

(End of this chapter)