When pride still matters

Chapter 91 Riley’s Prophecy
At the beginning of December, the Wizards were not having an easy time. They were about to embark on a five-game road trip. They would first go to Miami to challenge the Heat, then go to Texas to face the Spurs, Rockets and Mavericks, then move to Memphis to face the Grizzlies, and then go home.

The difficulty of this journey is mainly the trip to Texas. The Spurs and Mavericks are both powerful players in the Western Conference and should not be underestimated.

For the Wizards, if they can achieve 3 wins and 2 losses in five consecutive away games, it will be a worthwhile trip.

Yu Fei took the team bus to the airport as usual.

What happened yesterday was still swirling in Yu Fei's mind, but after seeing Jordan today, he didn't mention what happened yesterday, as if he didn't know anything about it.

Yu Fei would not naively think that Jordan didn't get the news. Even if he didn't, Paulin would find a way to let Jordan know about it.

Since Jordan didn't take the initiative to mention this matter, Yu Fei wouldn't rush to make him angry. It would be great if they could treat each other with respect like they are now.

Miami

Jordan's old rival Pat Riley has been looking forward to a reunion with Jordan for some time, but the Heat's defeat made Riley lose his mood.

As a spin-off of the New York Knicks gang in the 90s, Riley's greatest wish is to lead this team to win the championship.However, a series of playoff losses against the Knicks and Alonzo Mourning's kidney hampered the Heat's ambitions.

Last season, the Heat ranked third in the Eastern Conference and had the second-largest payroll in the Eastern Conference, but were swept out in the first round of the playoffs.That left owner Mickey Arison determined to rebuild and asked Riley to keep the bill at a level that wouldn't trigger the luxury tax.

This requirement means that at most one person from Tim Hardaway, Anthony Mason, Dan Marley, Anthony Carter, and Bruce Bowen can return to the team.

The ending was sloppy, Hardaway went to Dallas, Mason went to Milwaukee, Marley went to Phoenix, Bowen went to San Antonio, and the cheapest Anthony Carter stayed.

In the NBA, Riley has always been a James Cameron-esque presence. The joke is that he doesn't know what the team's budget number is, and he won't look at the bill unless the team wins the championship.

The Heat, who lost three starters without receiving any substantial compensation, can only pray that Mourning transforms into a kidney warrior and hope that fourth-year Rich Davis and second-year Eddie House can carry the load, if they do. If not, then it's over, and the consequences of being over are not bitter. Failure can bring lottery picks, and the Heat need this.

Before the game against the Heat, Yu Fei arrived at the American Airlines Center two and a half hours early.

It shows that he almost stepped off the team bus and let the taxi take him here.

The only person accompanying him was Anthony Lawson.

Third-year guard Anthony Carter, who Riley has high hopes for, also has the habit of arriving a few hours early for shooting training. When he saw the visiting team players at the scene, he was very surprised.

"When did he arrive?" Carter asked the stadium staff.

"An hour ago."

When Riley arrived at the scene, he learned about Yu Fei's warm-up situation from Carter and hoped that the team would focus on guarding against him tonight.

"I know he is the young man who has conflicts with Michael." Riley's eyes seemed to be shining. He looked at Yu Fei for a long time before saying to the people around him, "Go and find out, Frye always goes to the away game. Is this the case, or was today just an accident.”

Riley admires players who can suffer. He firmly believes that only hellish training can develop strong will and reliable technology.

Those who fall in hell are not worth mentioning.

This night, the Heat used tenacious defense to drag the Wizards into the abyss of blacksmithing.

Yu Fei's breakthrough lost its inside lethality in the face of the Heat's disciplined zone defense, and his passing was exchanged for the help of his teammates.

Fortunately, there is value in pregame shooting warm-ups.

In the second half, Yu Fei started shooting from the free throw line, helping the team successfully break the deadlock. Jordan also played a beautiful game, making 20 of 10 shots, scoring 22 points, 11 rebounds and 4 assists.

于飞紧随其后，以13投7中的表现拿下18分9篮板3助攻。

Coupled with Hamilton, who made 19 of 6 shots, the Wizards had a total of three players scoring in double figures, and ultimately defeated the Heat 88-77.

After the game, Riley and Jordan chatted and laughed.

Yu Fei wanted to say hello to Riley and leave, but unexpectedly the other party held his hand enthusiastically: "You are the Wizards' best player tonight!"

"MJ is the one." Yu Fei emphasized, "This is the best in your home field selection."

Riley seemed to hear the unhappiness in Yu Fei's tone: "In my heart, you are the best player." Yu Fei's impression of Riley stayed after 2015, the man who squeezed a group of low-successful people through devil training This position and undrafted talent allowed the Heat to grow into a strong team in the Eastern Conference and enter the Finals twice before being crushed by the talent of the Western Conference champions.

He obviously had a good relationship with Jordan, and Yu Fei was wary of him, so he said like a young man who didn't understand etiquette: "Thank you, but I don't care."

After speaking, he left.

Assistant coach Keith Atkins saw what Riley was thinking: "Pat, are you interested in that kid?"

"It should be true that he and Michael are at odds." Riley said with a smile, "Let people pay more attention to the news about the Wizards. If Michael has had enough of him one day."

Atkins only felt that Riley's words were a bit fanciful.

Will the Wizards trade Yu Fei?

This sounds incredible. Yu Fei is undoubtedly the best rookie in the 2001 class. He currently averages 14 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal and 1 block per game. Considering his age and the speed of his progress, he undoubtedly has the potential to be an All-Star or even a superstar. How could the Wizards trade him?

"I know what you are thinking, but you have to remember that behind all unreasonable things, there is an absolutely reasonable factor." Riley said like a prophet, "Believe me, this will definitely happen. "

It can be said that everything went well that night, the Wizards won, Jordan's shooting percentage reached [-]%, and the topics about "how tenosynovitis affects Jordan" and "does Jordan really have tenosynovitis" were curbed to a certain extent.The reason why the media is obsessed with this is that Jordan's performance is not good enough. Once Jordan performs well, let alone his tenosynovitis, even if his brain is electrified, it can be ignored.

One day later, the Wizards came to San Antonio.

Interestingly, on the Wizards' way to the hotel, plus-size Spurs fans can often be seen holding "MJ, you need Charles Barkley" signs on the street.

These signs make Jordan laugh every time.

Claiming to come back to assist Jordan is just the starting point of Barkley's abstract career in TNT. Next year, he will have a big job that Chinese fans are familiar with.

As usual, Yu Fei always comes to the arena early to warm up.

However, it was okay not to come. Once he came, Yu Fei was surprised by the Spurs' home court.

The Alamodome is a very large dome stadium.

It can accommodate 65000 spectators, which means that since the Spurs chose this home in 1993, their home stadium has never been full.

Which genius chose this home court? How can a huge arena with 65000 people watch a basketball game?
The advantage of a big stadium is that every time there is a focus game, there will be many fans who buy tickets to support it.

Tonight, people in San Antonio are not as immune to Jordan as people in Washington. A total of more than 6000 people came with tickets. The momentum is indeed extraordinary.

Then, Yu Fei met Tim Duncan and Tony Parker for the first time.

Before Yu Fei crossed over, I often saw people on the Internet saying, "Duncan only averages this data per game, why is he the first PF?"He also doesn't know why Duncan is the No. [-] PF because he has never seen Duncan play.But he has watched James' games, and he feels that the gold content of Duncan's career depends on the gold content of James, just like Curry's historical status also depends on James' historical status.

If Duncan is the No. [-] PF, then James, who was defeated twice by him in the Finals, must be among the top five in history.The only reason why Duncan is not the first PF is that some people can use unquestionable theories to argue that Curry is a system star.Once the argument that Curry is a system player is successful, then his three defeats of James in the Finals will have no value. As a system star who was defeated three times, James is not only not qualified to be selected into the top five in history, but is not even enough to be ranked among the top ten in history. Naturally, there are doubts about whether Duncan, who "only" defeated James twice, is qualified to be the first PF.

It seems that this is a triangular relationship, but Yu Fei, who lived in 2001, could no longer see the respective debaters entering the stage to argue.

So he decided to make James one of the top ten in history, and then make Curry a system star. In this way, no one would quarrel, and the basketball world would be peaceful. Wouldn't it be beautiful?
Tonight, the Wizards' starting lineup has changed slightly, including Jordan (as point guard), Hamilton, Yu Fei, Laettner, and White.

The Spurs' starting lineup is Parker, (Steve) Smith, Bowen, Robinson and Duncan.

This was Collins' lineup experiment, playing Jordan at the one position so that Hamilton could be in the starting lineup.

This was a bold move. Looking at Jordan's entire career, he only played point guard for a period of time in the late 80s, and then had triple-doubles in 11 of 10 games.

There is no doubt that this is proof that Jordan "can average a triple-double if he wants to", but it must be pointed out that the Bulls lost 11 of those 6 games. Therefore, the truth is that "even if he can, what he can achieve is A Westbrook-esque triple-double."

But that was Jordan at his peak. It remains to be seen what the older version of Jordan will look like as a point guard. In short, Yu Fei is not optimistic.

⑴When Jordan had a triple-double, he often went to the technical desk and asked himself how many assists and rebounds he needed to make enough.If I want to criticize Jordan, the popular science stops here, but I am just stating objective facts.The objective facts also include that public opinion at the time said that he was not as selfless as Magic, not as comprehensive as Bird, and could not improve his teammates, so his triple-double was actually just for anger. As a fan, I can understand, Ni Meng.

(End of this chapter)