The Way of Basketball: Never Talk Shit to Him!
Chapter 546 - 229 Another Hunter is Born!_2

Chapter 546: Chapter 229 Another Hunter is Born!_2

The Memphis media was quite upset.

The Chicago media directly used Su Wan’s words to mock them, "Future overseas league veteran, how can he be compared to a future regular season MVP?"

Mind the emotional intelligence!

The Chicago media cleverly substituted the Huaxia CBA league with "overseas league."

They hadn’t forgotten that Su Wan came from the CBA league.

Once this was said, the Memphis media became even more upset, leading to a verbal battle between the two sides.

The League announced this season’s "Best Sixth Man":

O’Neal Jr. defeated the former "Best Sixth Man" Jason Terry with an average of 16.5 points, 7.5 rebounds, 2.5 assists, 1.5 blocks, and a 50% shooting percentage.

Terry’s average stats are solid, with 19.6 points comparable to a starter.

But in terms of team performance and the energy provided as the sixth man, O’Neal Jr. held the advantage over Terry.

Moreover, O’Neal Jr.’s transition to becoming the sixth man was more arduous, a story the league loves!

Thus, he won with 38.4% of the votes over Terry’s 32.1%, being selected as the "Best Sixth Man" for the first time in his career.

Following the announcement of this award, the playoffs officially commenced.

The Pacers faced their first playoff game against:

Derek Rose and his Chicago Bulls.

The Chicago media described this series as, "Future regular season MVP versus current regular season MVP," to put it more clearly:

It’s a guiding chess!

They all knew that Derek Rose was no match for Su Wan right now, not to mention anyone else, so they didn’t even consider winning a single game in this series.

However, as long as Derek Rose could showcase his style and level, that was enough for them!

The starting lineup for the Chicago Bulls this season was:

Point Guard Derek Rose, two Ben Gordon, small forward Ruhl, power forward Tyrus Thomas, five Joakim Noah.

Rose’s arrival had revitalized Joakim Noah.

It allowed this versatile "Mr. Fixit" at the five spot to have a stage to perform on, slowly transitioning from a substitute to a starter.

Thus, a player’s success in the NBA is closely related to their abilities and somewhat to luck.

Many people say that if the Hornets had insisted on keeping Kobe back then, he might not have achieved such greatness.

There’s no way to verify this, so no one knows whether this statement is true or false.

But one thing is clear: Noah became a starting center after Derek Rose joined the Bulls, and then grew into a top-league center!

However, that was still at least 2 years later.

Currently, Derek Rose was still very raw, and Noah was equally inexperienced, with his techniques as rough as his tied-up hair bun.

As for the others...

Ben Gordon had no defensive skills.

Tyrus Thomas was merely a "rough man" who had maxed out his explosive power, soon to fall out of the Bulls’ starting lineup.

In fact, if the Bulls hadn’t made that trade in ’06 and instead picked Alridge...

Their ranking this season would have been more than just eighth!

Of course, if they had really kept Alridge, they might not have gotten Derek Rose.

Thus, many choices may seem regrettable, but they are all interlinked.

Take the Cavaliers, for instance; if Old Zhan hadn’t locked up all the salary cap space and left a bunch of "garbage contracts," making it impossible for the team to make trades, would they be able to harvest so many "No.1 picks" in the future?

Without these "No.1 picks," where would they find another Old Zhan to return?

From this perspective, the Cavaliers should be thankful to "Manager Zhan"!

The first game of this series was played on Pacers’ home court and was a breeze, as the Pacers won by a large margin of 109 to 90, a 19-point victory.

The Indians’ only impression of the Bulls was that point guard who sped up so quickly, Billups simply couldn’t stop him.

Other than that, they had no real memory of the Bulls in this game.

It was quite clear just how one-sided this game was.

And this pattern continued for four games, from Indiana to Chicago, from the Pacers’ home court to the Bulls’ home court. The crowd changed, but the process of the games was like copy and paste; the Pacers led from the start, gradually increasing the lead, and ended up winning big.

Derek Rose’s performance in the first game was impressive with 34 points, just behind Su Wan’s 36 points that year.

Such a sensational debut gave the Chicago media the confidence to compare him with Su Wan.

It was slightly unfortunate:

Derek Rose only played this one outstanding game, and his performance in the following three games declined one after another, his on-court stats gradually lost their "star quality," and in the last game, he only managed to score 14 points with 6 assists.

Nevertheless, averaged across four games, he still had 21.5 points, 4.5 rebounds, and 6 assists.

After the game, Su Wan embraced this "budding rose" and offered his blessings: "The future is yours!"

This was truly a blessing, similar to when Tim Duncan gave these words to LeBron, but then added "but now is mine," making this phrase gain traction and turning it into a classic "Hunter’s quote."

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