The Way of Basketball: Never Talk Shit to Him!
Chapter 68 - 66 Post-Game Public Opinion

Chapter 68: Chapter 66 Post-Game Public Opinion

New York.

NBA President’s Office.

David Stern rubbed his cheek after watching the "Christmas Battle" between the Pistons and the Pacers, as well as the ABC television interview with Su Wan.

He was relieved to see another Huaxia player had secured a foothold in the NBA. It meant that there was yet another bridge between the Huaxia market and the NBA, which could definitely play a positive role in pushing forward the "NBA Internationalization" strategy.

But he had a doubt...

Was Su Wan in Indiana to play basketball, or was he there to cause a revolt?

"Auburn Palace," an event that was supposed to be laid to rest, was turned by him into a "trouble-stirring scepter," as he had the entire Pacers’ fanbase... It’s said that a group of Indiana natives is already parading in the streets, voicing their dissatisfaction for Artest.

After tonight, when his words to the ABC host are broadcasted, it’s easy to imagine that similar expressions of support will continue.

It seems not all Huaxia players are perfect gentlemen like Yao Ming, witty and humorous.

There are also troublemakers like Su Wan!

The good news is, thankfully, Su Wan is a Huaxia person. If he were of Indian descent, he might become a senator of Indiana in no time.

That guy really has a series of crowd-winning speeches up his sleeve.

Equally troublesome was Cleveland’s "City Son" LeBron James.

Just now, the Goodwin Brothers faxed him a few reports which, differing only slightly in content, compared Su Wan’s performance tonight with his previous game against the Pistons.

The row by row comparison of data was simply...

Shocking!

Particularly Su Wan’s remark, "It’s normal, he’s just a high school student, losing to the Pistons is nothing unusual."

LeBron James, after seeing this content, rebutted quite indignantly, "If I had Jermaine and Reggie, had Jeff Foster grabbing 14 rebounds, I could also defeat the Pistons."

The Goodwin Brothers really wanted to remind him that in that game Drew Gooden shot a 64.3% field goal percentage to score 18 points and pull down 10 rebounds. If only LeBron hadn’t shot at a 19% field goal percentage, playing for 45 minutes and scoring only 11 points, they wouldn’t have lost so badly.

But this wasn’t the time to argue about it, and the Goodwin Brothers said, "Nike-affiliated media have already assured us they won’t report on this, but..."

He left the sentence hanging.

But it wasn’t hard to guess what he meant:

The media in the United States isn’t just the Nike-affiliated kind.

So, it’s certain that this content will still hit the papers tomorrow.

"You guys better think of something fast! Up until now, I haven’t seen you form an effective counterattack, what’s the use in just saying his shooting is poor?" LeBron James spoke angrily, with harsher words already stuck in his throat.

On the other end of the phone, the Goodwin Brothers glanced at each other, each seeing helplessness and disdain in the other’s eyes.

Here’s the situation:

Su Wan had performed poorly in the previous games, and his shooting had become his Achilles’ heel.

Seeing this, the Goodwin Brothers realized it was their chance to turn things around.

They had hoped that LeBron would perform well during this period and immediately arrange for the media to follow up, comparing the two players to thoroughly discredit Su Wan.

But unexpectedly, in the game against the Pistons, LeBron actually managed to shoot a dismal 19% field goal percentage.

A great opportunity was just missed.

God had given LeBron the chance, but alas, he didn’t seize it!

And now you’re blaming us for not coming up with a solution...

"That little brat is really too much trouble," the younger Goodwin brother complained.

"If you hadn’t gotten involved with his mother, we wouldn’t be so passive, always having to watch him," the older brother glared back.

The younger brother grimaced, "It’s not my fault, Gloria took the initiative."

"Forget it, let’s not provoke that Huaxia guy recently, cancel all the negative press drafts about him. The All-Star starting vote is coming up, we need to sort this out first."

Being selected as this year’s All-Star starter is an important step in LeBron James’s career plan. Not only would he have enough clout to suppress any newcomers looking to strengthen the Knight team, but also, in his $90 million Nike shoe contract, there’s a provision for being selected as an All-Star starter.

It’s too important to fail.

The younger brother also nodded in agreement at this point.

LeBron waited and waited, and in the end what he got from the Goodwin Brothers was, "Don’t provoke Su Wan for now." He immediately smashed his phone and his gaze turned sharp; in this moment, he made a decision:

He was going to replace the Goodwin Brothers, these useless guys!

The next morning, the news of the Pacers’ 18-point victory over the Pistons dominated all the major media outlets.

Most media experts hadn’t expected this result.

They had assumed that even with the Pistons’ recent poor form, facing the Pacers without Artest and Jackson, and with Su Wan hitting the "rookie wall," they should be able to win easily.

Well, let’s just say...

In their eyes, the probability of these two teams having another "Conseco Incident" was higher than the Pacers beating the Pistons.

But not only did the Pacers win, they triumphed by a whopping 18 points!

The New York Times specifically commented on Su Wan’s 19 points in the second half:

"Big Heart player, Huaxia’s Super Nova Su Wan, is truly made for the big scenes!"

Open-air grandstand dubbed his dunk over Prince as "dunking over someone" and called it "the best dunk of the season so far."

With such an outstanding performance, the media naturally began to compare his display with that of LeBron’s prior performance against the Pistons.

Interestingly, more and more media started referring to LeBron as a "still-developing high schooler" in the same way they referred to Su Wan.

There was no helping it, a shooting accuracy of 19% was indeed an eyesore.

Also, Su Wan’s comments caused a lot of media coverage. The Detroit media had an opinion about this, with the latest public opinion polls showing he had become the least liked athlete in the Detroit area.

When Su Wan heard of this, he didn’t take it to heart. Being in the position he was, it was destined that he wouldn’t mix well with Detroit.

He didn’t need the love of Detroit people.

In fact, if the Pistons fans liked him, that would have been a real problem.

He read through a lot of reports comparing him with LeBron, and it made his heart bloom with joy.

One word:

Thrilling!

Aside from the Pacers versus Pistons game, another "Christmas Battle" also drew a lot of attention.

The Heat versus the Lakers match, although branded with the gimmick of the "OK" duo competing as opponents for the first time, the Heat was 21-7 before the "Christmas Battle," decidedly better than the 14-11 Lakers. Thus, most experts didn’t dispute the expected outcome:

The Heat would have the last laugh.

In the end, as anticipated, the Heat won the match.

However, the whole process was unexpectedly tense.

The Heat only just scraped a victory with 104-102, winning by 2 points.

Wade’s 29 points, 3 rebounds, and 10 assists were undoubtedly good, and Shaquille O’Neal’s 24 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 blocks were equally impressive.

Normally, in the games where Wade and O’Neal both performed well, the Heat could easily clinch the win, but the opposing camp had an emerging "Gundam" spewing "black smoke"!

Kobe scored a total of 42 points, along with 3 rebounds, 6 assists, and 1 steal... Such a performance was indeed "Gundam"-level. And why "black smoke," you might ask? Well, one can’t ignore his eye-watering 9 turnovers and a field goal percentage of 30-for-12 for the night...

Throughout the game, Kobe’s style was very consistent:

Get the ball, shoot!

Get the ball, shoot!

There were no teammates or opponents in his eyes, only the hoop.

This could be considered a typical game for Kobe leading his team alone during this period.

You could see his irreplaceable role on the court and also the damage he caused to the team.

Whether the team would win or not depended on whether the damage he did that night was greater than his contribution...

If his contribution was greater, they won; if the damage was greater, they lost;

Just like tonight, where his role and the damage were equal, the game ended in regret with a loss at the last moment!

Well, to be precise, Kobe’s damage to the Lakers tonight was still a bit more significant. Whether it was taking too many shots or the nearly double-digit turnovers, both were serious "debuffs".

The Lakers could hang on till the last moment in the "Christmas Battle" thanks to Lamar Odom’s performance.

This was the first "OK conflict" between Kobe and O’Neal, and also the first time Odom faced his "old team," the Heat. He was motivated and played an impressive game:

points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists, 1 steal, and 2 blocks with a 60% shooting accuracy!

Last night’s "Lama" Odom undoubtedly met most people’s fantasies about his upper limits.

He was seemingly unstoppable!

The only pity was that this version of Odom was a "limited edition." You can’t expect Zhou Jielun to sing lyrics clearly, and you can’t expect Odom, who took P as a lifelong occupation, to dedicate all his energy to basketball like Kobe.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have become the biggest regret of the 99 draft.

After reading through the lively newspaper coverage, Su Wan got a call from Bill Duffy on his way to the stadium.

"We’ve looked into it, and indeed there are people from LeBron’s Team stirring things up behind the scenes, which is why there are so many media continuously reporting news about your poor shooting."

Su Wan nodded. Just a few games in, and news about his poor shooting was flying everywhere. He was in Indiana, not Los Angeles. This was not normal.

Sure enough, LeBron’s Team was causing all this fuss.

Fine then, no one could blame him for striking back!

"Bill, find some media outlets and start with leaking the story about my dispute with LeBron at the Cavaliers."

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