The Way of Basketball: Never Talk Shit to Him!
Chapter 289 - 174: Every season, I will make you regret trading me! _2

Chapter 289: Chapter 174: Every season, I will make you regret trading me! _2

"The score of 0-3, no more, no miracles to come, Cavaliers can start thinking about summer plans now, LeBron has a long way to go if he wants to catch up with Su Wan."

"The continuous three disastrous losses, now in the eyes of the media reporters, LeBron isn’t even worth a pinky finger of Su Wan."

"No wonder!"

"Even if the gap between the teams is huge, as the core of the team, and the ’Chosen One’ anointed by ’Sports Illustrated,’ you should really shine. But the outcome, let’s not even talk about shining, just look at the third game’s statistics, LeBron’s stats ranked behind ’Big Z’ and Drew Gooden."

"No matter how eloquently LeBron spoke after the game, the media’s ’poisonous mouths’ would not let him off."

"If the incident at the end of December was LeBron’s media image hitting rock bottom, these three games brought doubts about LeBron James’ skills and even his natural talent."

"The New York Times straightforwardly asked, ’Perhaps LeBron’s natural talent isn’t as good as we imagined!’"

"And it wasn’t just a sensational headline, the content of the article seriously analyzed LeBron’s natural talent, admitting his physical talents, but questioning his other talents."

"A living example right in front of us..."

"When Su Wan entered the league, he had a similar style to LeBron, but within two seasons, he had transformed, becoming a player who could control the ball or play off-ball as a pure two! However, LeBron, who mainly plays as a point guard, should have developed in the direction of Magic Johnson, but honestly, other than Breakthrough Ability, he didn’t improve in any skills related to a point guard."

"It might be just as Su Wan said, LeBron doesn’t have the ability to play as a point guard!"

"The even more sensational content in the article was not just questioning LeBron, but advice on his future development directions:"

"He should switch to small forward, watch more of Scottie Pippen’s tapes, learn his playing style. It doesn’t matter whether he’s the boss or the second-in-command of the team. Scottie also briefly became the face of the Bulls and was a member of the ’Dream One Team’ that many team bosses couldn’t even qualify for. Given LeBron’s physique and talent, learning Scottie’s playing method isn’t shameful!"

"Barkley laughed when he saw this article and posted on Facebook, ’Indeed, Su Wan wasn’t wrong, back then, the Cavaliers really did have the next Jordan and Pippen. It’s just that we hadn’t realized, Su Wan was the Jordan, LeBron was the Pippen...’"

"Not right!"

"To be honest..."

"Barkley remembered he had called LeBron an enhanced version of Pippen and Su Wan a diminished version of Jordan."

"He immediately dug out a recording of a previous show and after watching realized, that it was Kenny Smith who had said it, but no big deal, he had asked, ’Kenny, based on this data, who do you think is the Pippen, who is the Jordan?’"

"What he wanted to say was clear!"

"So he immediately uploaded it to his Facebook and commented, ’What do you call a prophet!’"

"By then, LeBron James was completely furious."

"But there was nothing he could do, the fourth game of the series hadn’t even started yet. He had to be humiliated again, and at this time, he couldn’t utter any strong words."

"And Nike’s representative, at this time couldn’t possibly issue a press release, playing an ’uphill battle’ was too difficult, and what LeBron didn’t know was, Nike had originally planned to use this round of the series to build him and Su Wan as ’Chosen One’ VS ’Heavenly Chosen One,’ a rivalry supposed to last ages."

"But now..."

"LeBron’s performance couldn’t even see the tail lights of Su Wan’s car."

"Talking about ’rivals’ now seemed far too forced."

"So, they scrapped all the prepared announcements."

"So much expenditure went completely to waste."

"Nike’s representative really wanted to tell LeBron:"

"How many more times will you disappoint us!"

But...

It was his own challenge, and he had to finish it, tears or not.

Back when he snatched LeBron James from Adidas with a one billion dollar sneaker contract binding LeBron for seven years, it exploded across the entire league. The media resources he accessed during that period and the ongoing announcement fees spent to promote LeBron as the "Chosen One" amounted to so much money that they could use it for cooking daily for a year or two.

They couldn’t abandon LeBron now, even though they knew he wasn’t the real "Chosen One," they still had to promote him as such.

For this reason, even though Nike’s representative didn’t agree to make the announcement at that time, they still informed him in advance that if he did get swept 0-4, they had already arranged media releases to wash his image clean.

LeBron was actually quite relieved to hear this.

Then the fourth game of the series officially began.

You have to admire the perseverance of the Cleveland fans; even though their team was losing so badly, they still spontaneously came to the venue for the fourth game, accompanying the team at its most humiliating moment.

Without any surprise, the Pacers started the game with an overwhelming rhythm advantage.

The Cavaliers were passively getting beaten, and by the end of the first half, they were already 18 points behind. By the end of the third quarter, their deficit had reached more than 25 points. Mike Brown decisively chose to pull everyone off the court, including LeBron James.

And this time, LeBron didn’t hesitate. Clearly, the opponents didn’t want him to score on the court; staying there losing energy was pointless. After pushing his score to double digits, LeBron headed towards the bench.

In the end, the game finished with the Pacers winning by 110 to 80, a 30-point victory securing their fourth win in the series.

4-0, a clean sweep of the Cavaliers!

More humiliating than a 4-0 large margin was the difference in scores across the four games. The Cavaliers lost by an average of 29.75 points, with the highest loss exceeding 30 points, and the lowest being around 25 points.

For LeBron James, the embarrassing situations didn’t end there.

After four games, his averages were only 12.25 points, 7 rebounds, 4.5 assists, and 4.5 turnovers, with a shooting accuracy of 30%, three-point shooting rate of 20%, and free-throw accuracy of 70%.

Looking at Su Wan, over four games, he averaged 29.5 points, 5.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.5 turnovers, with a shooting accuracy of 48%, three-point shooting rate of 33.3%, and free throw accuracy of 80%.

Except for assist numbers, his stats in other areas showed slight improvements over the regular season.

For a player, maintaining regular season performance during the playoffs is already an incredible achievement.

Reggie Miller wasn’t highly decorated, but a critical reason for his high media rating was that his playoff average stats were significantly higher than his regular season’s. If he was a "Superstar Floor" level player during the regular season, he turned into a "Super Star" level player in the playoffs.

Now, that’s formidable!

Of course, 20-year-old Su Wan still had room to grow; maintaining his regular season stats now was outstanding.

Anyway, compared to LeBron at the same age of 20, he’s much more stable in the playoffs.

After the game, as Su Wan was interviewed courtside, a reporter asked him if he had anything to say to the Cavaliers fans this year.

Last season, after the regular season game that eliminated the Cavaliers from the playoffs, Su Wan had bellowed, "When do you regret the most?" and this reporter remembered that moment vividly.

Su Wan initially wanted to say, "Cleveland, this is for you."

But he felt it was too early for such a remark; it was not the right time yet.

They also had little hope for this series round; Su Wan wanted to bring them despair when they were full of hope, and then he’d say it.

Now...

After thinking for a moment, he grasped the microphone and said, "Cleveland, don’t think it’s over. It’s just the beginning. Every season, I’ll make you regret trading me!"