The Way of Basketball: Never Talk Shit to Him!
Chapter 380 - 196: A Romantic Encounter in Las Vegas

Chapter 380: Chapter 196: A Romantic Encounter in Las Vegas

In early February, the League announced the results of the 2007 All-Star starting lineup votes.

In the West, the five starters were:

Kobe, Allen Iverson, Kevin Garnett, Tim Duncan, and Yao Ming.

Carmelo Anthony was enraged.

He could tolerate losing the starting spot to Tim Duncan, given that the Spurs ranked fourth in the West, with his Nuggets trailing behind, and he would accept that fact without argument.

But Kevin Garnett?

The team was third from the bottom in the West last season, and they remained in that position this season.

Are you telling me he still made the All-Star starting lineup?

I couldn’t outvote him?

He was furious.

In the East, the starting five were:

Wade, Su Wan, Chris Bosh, Little O’Neal, and Shaquille O’Neal.

LeBron James was once again left out of the All-Star starting lineup.

Most of the media speculated that his falling-out with Shaquille O’Neal played a significant role in this.

Shaquille O’Neal’s popularity across the United States was still quite good.

Even in these low points of his career, he was still a former "three-time Finals MVP," and as the saying goes, a lean camel is bigger than a horse.

LeBron only had the title of the "Chosen One," but in recent years, his team’s performance had not met expectations, and he was continuously embroiled in troubles off the court. During his campaign for votes, the "Asian Newspaper" brought up again his history of defending older players bullying newcomers, which affected his voting.

In the Northern Realm, Chris Bosh and the Raptors were doing well this season; they were currently ranked fourth in the Eastern Conference, behind only the Pacers, Cavaliers, and Pistons. Bosh’s season averages were also impressive: 22.6 points, 10.7 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.3 blocks, a 49.6% field goal percentage, 34.3% on three-point shots, and a 78.4% free throw percentage.

It’s worth mentioning that Chris Bosh’s style of play on the Raptors this season had a semblance of similarity to LeBron James’.

At point guard, both teams had ball-handling breakthrough players; the Cavaliers had Gibson, while the Raptors had TJ Ford;

LeBron played with ball-driving breakthroughs, flanked by two top shooters, "Ah Q" and Channing Frye;

And Bosh also dominated through ball-driving breakthroughs.

By his side stood the ’06 top pick, Barriani, along with Morris Peterson and others.

The only difference was the Raptors didn’t have Shaquille O’Neal.

But Chris Bosh had an additional catch and shoot ability that LeBron lacked.

During the voting period, Toronto media made a point to challenge LeBron, proclaiming:

"We don’t have Shaquille O’Neal, but Chris Bosh is no less than LeBron James!"

Surprisingly, in the end, their provocative campaign succeeded.

Chris Bosh defeated LeBron James with a lead of less than 10,000 votes to become one of the two starting forwards for the East.

Now the situation became interesting:

From the "03 generation," it was Wade who became a starter first, followed by Chris Bosh. Contrarily, the "The Unrivaled Duos" haven’t yet secured a spot in the All-Star starting lineup.

Yao Ming’s transfer to Los Angeles once again demonstrated its benefits.

This year’s All-Star Weekend marked the second time in his career he became the "All-Star Ticket King."

There was no helping it; backed by Los Angeles, even with several powers behind Su Wan, he had to look up to Yao.

But to Su Wan, the "All-Star Ticket King" honor was satisfactory once; included All-Star MVP, the associated value was not cumulative.

Take the All-Star MVP, for instance, it’s more a symbol of status in the world.

Like last year, McGrady’s status in the world meant all the Western stars were willing to let him have the award.

But due to a lower status, an upstart emerged from the East.

Under similar circumstances, if Nowitzki wanted an All-Star MVP in Dallas, Su Wan might not vie for it even as an Eastern player.

Of course, those were Su Wan’s thoughts before this year’s Finals and a series of events that followed.

Now, Su Wan definitely wouldn’t give Nowitzki that courtesy.

With the feud he and Dallas, and Cuban had, it was impossible to let the Dallas people smile in satisfaction.

Before the All-Star weekend in February, the Pacers had only one big game at home against the Spurs, apart from that, the rest were easy matches.

As the Pacers had only lost four games thus far, more and more media started discussing the possibility of the Pacers breaking the Chicago Bulls’ regular season best record of 72 wins and 10 losses.

Rick Carlisle didn’t want to bring additional pressure onto the Pacers.

The team’s goal was crystal clear, to win the championship this season and establish a dynasty like the Los Angeles Lakers!

Whether or not they break the record for the best regular season was not actually important.

But there was a problem...

It was closely tied to whether Su Wan could defend his MVP trophy in the regular season or not.

So far this season, Su Wan’s averages were 29.8 points, 6.4 rebounds, 3.2 assists, 1.4 steals, 1.2 blocks, with his average of 29.8 points being second in the League’s scoring charts.

Only behind Dwyane Wade’s 31.2 points.

The Heat didn’t win the championship last season, denying Wade the distinction of being the first from the "03 generation" to win a championship; the comparison of being 5 cm shorter than Jordan also vanished. However, the lack of a championship meant there wasn’t an overly indulgent summer. This season, Dwyane Wade didn’t suffer major injuries and since Shaquille O’Neal left, he enjoyed more offensive opportunities with the Heat, which brought his average points to a career-high.

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