The Way of Basketball: Never Talk Shit to Him!
Chapter 71 - 69 Dispute

Chapter 71: Chapter 69 Dispute

Eastern Conference guards found the competition less fierce with McGrady’s departure. freewёbn૦νeɭ.com

Only Allen Iverson counted as a "Superstar" for this position, with others trailing far behind in popularity, even Jason Kidd compared to Allen Iverson.

But this year the Philadelphia 76ers’ record wasn’t good, currently sitting in seventh place in the Eastern Conference.

Allen Iverson had led the team to the Finals before, he wasn’t a "New Star" anymore, and everyone had higher expectations for the regular-season MVP, including the Philly fans.

If Su Wan remembered correctly, in this year’s original vote count, although Allen Iverson was still the Eastern Conference starter, he had 100,000 fewer votes than LeBron.

But now, after the first round of results, he found that Allen Iverson, in second place, had 30,000 more votes than LeBron James in third.

It was a good start, but not the result.

The outcome would need three more rounds of voting to be determined.

Should LeBron James’ team put in efforts later on, this vote count wouldn’t be secure. Su Wan wasn’t sure if LeBron’s original team had made a late surge and successfully surpassed Allen Iverson.

However, Su Wan already had a strategy in mind.

After the news came out, he registered a Baidu Tieba account, parachuting into "Su Wan Bar" and "LeBron Bar", and upon seeing the featured posts vigorously campaigning for him and Yao Ming, he started a new thread, declaring Allen Iverson as his idol and expressing his hope to start in the backcourt alongside him at this year’s All-Star game.

The post blew up shortly after it was posted, attracting countless domestic fans who left comments and interacted with Su Wan.

Su Wan probably replied to a hundred floors, ensuring that the thread surpassed a thousand layers and got over ten thousand replies, creating enough buzz before he left without a trace.

Today, the Pacers had no games, more precisely, since the 30th after the match with the Brooklyn Nets, the Pacers would go five days without a game.

But there was no joy in that, signifying an even tougher schedule to come.

Su Wan disliked this kind of Dan’s scheduling and was certain it was a sacrifice made by the Pacers to accommodate the schedules of other high-profile teams, a sacrifice he detested.

Just wait, once Indiana becomes the focus of the media, the League wouldn’t dare bully them anymore.

The first thing to do was to ensure the team had a starting All-Star player.

No...

Becoming an All-Star starting player seemed a sure thing, his goal was to be the All-Star MVP, the "Star among Stars".

That was his goal.

However, for Indiana, even just seeing him at the top of the Eastern Conference guards after the first round of voting made the locals ecstatic.

As Su Wan drove to the stadium, the Indiana radio station was excitedly broadcasting the news, with the host urging Pacers fans to vote for him en masse, which reminded Su Wan of "Produce 101".

In fact, the current atmosphere didn’t differ much from forming a girl group.

The person who invented voting for All-Star starters must have been mixed up in the idol scene.

Sometimes, fans weren’t much different from idols’ fans.

When Su Wan arrived at the stadium, the PR department was waiting in the locker room, accompanied by a few security personnel. He thought he might have lost his underwear kept in the locker room — other than that, he couldn’t imagine why security would need to see him. That was until he looked down and saw several large boxes at the feet of these security guards.

"These are gifts from the fans for you!" the PR department informed him, saying they had never seen the Indiana people so enthusiastic. If Su Wan remembered correctly, it had been three years since this PR person had joined, and it was pretty normal not to have seen such enthusiasm from the Indiana people in the past three years.

Su Wan had no interest, "Divide it among yourselves!"

Before the few security guards could show their excited smiles, the public relations department told him, "There are some things inside that only you can look at."

Soon, Su Wan knew what those things were:

Various large-scale photos of women.

Ha~

I, Su Wan, a towering figure at eight and a half feet tall, can’t be bothered by these things...

Better store them away for now.

Reggie Miller entered the locker room, congratulated Su Wan, and said, "Indiana hasn’t been this lively in a long time!"

The last Pacer to be selected as an All-Star starter was none other than himself, but that was back in ’95, exactly 10 years ago.

In those 10 years, another All-Star player, Jermaine O’Neal, was born for the Pacers, but there had not been a second All-Star starter.

Su Wan was breaking this awkward record, and that was why the Pacers fans were so excited.

Jermaine O’Neal was also envious; being an All-Star reserve is a different matter entirely from being an All-Star starter. Reserves are chosen by the head coach, while starters are chosen by the fans. It wasn’t just proof of status but also a testament to commercial contracts.

Becoming an All-Star starter in Indiana was no easy feat, and in that moment, Jermaine wished he were a Huaxia person.

But his wish didn’t last long.

Because...

On January 2nd, the day after the voting results were released, ESPN senior columnist Bill Simmons published an article: "Huaxia players are turning the All-Star voting into a joke. Yao Ming proved this before, and now Su Wan is doing the same."

"Before them, being selected as an All-Star starter as a rookie was incredible, a true honor, and those who achieved this were worthy of being compared to Michael Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal. Everyone should know what kind of performances Michael and Shaquille put on in their first year in the league to earn this honor. But Su Wan and Yao, thanks to their Huaxia market behind them, have easily done these things, yet their performances at that time cannot be mentioned in the same breath as Michael and Shaquille..."

"In my view, this year in the Eastern Conference, Michael Red, Baron Davis, and Dwyane Wade all deserve to be Eastern All-Star starters more than Su Wan!"

The Indiana media panicked when they saw that the Pacers were finally about to break a 10-year embarrassing record, and suddenly Bill Simmons came out of nowhere, baring his fangs. They immediately launched a barrage of articles criticizing Bill Simmons.

The Pacers team unanimously supported Su Wan as a starter.

Ron Artest: "Bill Simmons is a madman, and he doesn’t watch games. If he did, he wouldn’t talk such nonsense."

Reggie Miller said, "I understand Bill needs to make controversial statements to make money, but some comments are too much, making him look like a clown."

Jermaine O’Neal: "Huaxia fans are fans too. If you perform well, they will vote for you, and everyone should be clear about that."

A "big brawl" had pushed Su Wan into the eye of the storm.

Fortunately, on January 4th, after a 4-day rest, the Pacers faced the Milwaukee Bucks at home.

Su Wan would be going head-to-head with Michael Red, one of the three players Bill Simmons claimed deserved to be an All-Star starter instead of him.

This was also the match’s selling point.

When Michael Red was asked about it before the game, he said with resignation: "How fans vote is their business. If Su gets that many votes, it means he’s more popular than me. Bill Simmons is just trying to get everyone’s attention so he can get a raise."

This content is taken from (f)reewe(b)novel.𝗰𝗼𝐦

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