Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters-Chapter 441 - 296 Will That Day Ever Come?

Chapter 441: Chapter 296 Will That Day Ever Come?

February 15, that was the last day of games before the All-Star Weekend arrived.

The Bucks would face the Rockets at home.

What made this game interesting was that this year’s All-Star Weekend was to be held in Houston, the Rockets’ home turf. As a strong team in the Western Conference, the Rockets had a grueling seven-game battle with the Mavericks in the first round last year and were knocked out.

This season, as the second season of the Yao-McGrady duo, they had even higher expectations.

However, their momentum had been interrupted by an injury to Yao Ming.

In mid-December of the previous year, Yao Ming, who had been like an iron man since entering the NBA, suffered a severe foot injury and missed 20 games. During that period, the Rockets won only 6 out of 20 games, putting them at the bottom of the Western Conference.

At the end of January, Yao Ming returned from his injury, and the Rockets immediately rebounded, winning 7 out of their last 9 games and embarking on a conquering journey to the north triumphantly.

For the Rockets, they wished the All-Star Game wouldn’t go ahead as planned because it would disrupt their recent good form.

Facing the Rockets, the Bucks didn’t go easy just because it was the last game before the break.

The Yao-McGrady Rockets at that time were like Shohoku in “Slam Dunk,” having both Mitsui (if he hadn’t gone astray) and Akagi; they had strong cores inside and outside, but when compared to the true championship contenders, the difference was clear cut.

The Bucks had Kwame Brown harass Yao Ming by fouling if necessary, opting for a double-team as soon as Yao got the ball.

As for McGrady, actually having a traditional center like Yao Ming with such destructive low-post scoring ability was a happy problem for him.

On one hand, Yao Ming could indeed alleviate his pressure; on the other hand, he had to constantly endure having a big guy clogging up offensives space in the paint. Compared to the freedom he had with the Magic, he needed to opt more for the inefficient isolation plays that fans intensely disliked.

It wasn’t that his basketball IQ was low, but rather a compromise with reality. The Rockets’ role players weren’t strong enough, so to be competitive, Yao-McGrady needed to step up. But to leverage Yao Ming’s role, you needed to “weld” him in the low post, and once Yao was there, McGrady’s offensive options in the half-court offense were limited.

It was a vicious cycle, and it could be said that from the moment of their inception, the Yao-McGrady Rockets were doomed to have a visible ceiling because of the owner’s investment will resulting in inadequate roster strength, coupled with the fact that the playing styles of the two core players weren’t perfectly compatible.

The Bucks locked down Yao Ming, and McGrady’s shooting was off that night, which made the opponents’ targeting even more incisive.

A big defeat was inevitable.

111 to 79

The Bucks won big over the Rockets, entering the All-Star Weekend with a record of 44 wins and 8 losses.

“Thanks to you, I don’t feel like having a break at all now,” Yao Ming said to Yu Fei after the game.

Yu Fei responded, “Thanks to me, you only played 19 minutes tonight. That’s a good thing for you.”

Losing the game was frustrating, and the Rockets, in particular, who were outside the playoffs bracket, needed the victory. Yet Yu Fei’s words reflected his concern for Yao Ming’s health.

“See you in Houston,” Yao Ming said.

Yu Fei joked, “Is there a plan for a second part of ‘The Yao Ming Story’?”

“No way!” Yao Ming stated emphatically in both Mandarin and Shanghainese, “This kind of thing is absolutely unacceptable, completely unacceptable!”

“I think it’s acceptable. I want to hear that song again, you know the one that goes, ‘YAOMING~~~’ (on repeat),” Yu Fei teased.

Yao Ming beat a hasty retreat, and from his speed, Yu Fei was certain his foot injury had fully healed.

At the post-game press conference, Yu Fei congratulated his coach George Karl on becoming the coach of the Eastern All-Star Team after several years, and he also encouraged Kevin Martin, who had been selected for the All-Star game in just his second year: “First, I hope Kevin has fun in Houston, and second, I hope he defends the three-point contest championship for me.”

Since Yu Fei had won the champ last year at the All-Star Weekend unexpectedly, he no longer had interest in participating in the event. As the second-highest three-point shooter in the Bucks (just behind Raja Bell), Martin would participate in both the actual All-Star Game and the three-point contest.

Then, there was Danny Granger participating in the Rookie Challenge, and the high school rookie Louis Williams, who rarely got court time, was set to take part in the Skills Challenge.

All in all, this year could be considered as having the most Bucks players in the All-Star Weekend since the era of Yu Fei began.

Yu Fei thought he would just need to take a good break for a while afterwards, but the second article written for him by Gary Smith was officially published in the latest issue of Sports Illustrated right before the All-Star Weekend started.

This issue of the magazine featured Yu Fei on the cover.

He was wearing a Bucks jersey, with a look of disdain on his face, holding a red crown carelessly in his left hand.

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In this very attractive cover photo, there was also a phrase: Rather than being The Chosen One, Frye Yu wanted a crown bathed in blood.

Gary Smith’s article was placed at the very front.

All subscribers of the magazine could read the article first thing.

Title: “After Being Chosen by God”

Epigraph: In the past year that put him to severe test, Frye Yu delivered an exceptional, unmatched performance — that’s why he and the Bucks might become the NBA champions again.

It was still a lengthy piece Smith excelled at, which, like his other articles, unfolded smoothly. In it, readers could see Yu Fei’s life, the pressure, the attention, and the troubles of being The Chosen One, as well as his relationships with the people around him.

It has to be said, Smith’s writing packed a punch; everyone who read the article felt as though they were getting to know Yu Fei all over again.

But the most surprising part was yet to come, at the end of the article.

Smith wrote:

“Frye still harbors hatred for Jordan and Shaquille O’Neal, and he will never forgive those two. This reminds me of another question: in the future, will he love LeBron as he does now, even if LeBron becomes an obstacle to his championship?

The crystal ball dropped in Times Square, and Frye sent New Year’s wishes to LeBron at that moment; he smiled and spoke softly, as if he were calling his closest family member.

It gave me goosebumps because his answer was echoing in my mind.

‘No, Gary,’ he said to me in a ‘Happy New Year’ tone, ‘I will stain my crown red with his blood.’”

This article easily stood out from other magazine pieces in this issue of Sports Illustrated and became a highly circulated pop article.

It raised an obvious question about whether Yu Fei’s relationship with James had fractured.

Some believed that this was mere fabrication by Gary Smith.

Even if Yu Fei had really said that, he would not have allowed Smith to publish it in the article.

Others felt that Yu Fei and James were only brothers on the surface, and this article was the proof.

For fans of James, this was almost a colossal insult.

Yu Fei’s comment about staining the crown with James’s blood not only suggested that the Bucks’ game against the Cavaliers would be a brutal slaughter but also hinted that James, nicknamed KING, would lose his ‘crown’ due to defeat.

Which big brother would treat his little brother that way?

Suddenly, the topic of Yu Fei and James’s falling out was spreading widely on the internet.

Yu Fei wanted exactly this effect.

No matter how serious the matter got, at most it was just Big Fei dragging LeBron, who had always been associated with him in the hype about the ‘Twin Stars’, into a bit of promotional buzz.

However, his words were rather coarse, and there was suspicion that he was trampling on LeBron to bolster his own image.

But what Yu Fei truly wanted to express was that, if they met in the playoffs, he would not hold back.

Since the Cavaliers were highly likely to enter the playoffs that year, if they unfortunately met, it would not matter to him if the opponent was dear little LeBron or that old teammate they called Zhang; he would try his best to defeat them.

That was the attitude he wanted to convey in this article.

Everything else was just side effects.

Yu Fei was certain that those around LeBron, especially Randy Mims, would be enraged by this, cursing him heavily before saying to James, ‘LeBron, what did I tell you at the start? This is your so-called big brother!’

Although Yu Fei always presumed the worst about others’ intentions and often got it wrong, this time, he guessed correctly.

Ever since the latest issue of Sports Illustrated was published, LeBron’s full-time assistant and the player liaison for the Cavaliers, Randy Mims, wished he could clip out the part about the ‘blood-stained crown’ and pin it where James could always see it.

Long before Yu Fei started claiming ‘you know, LeBron is my little brother’ all over the world, Mims had already sensed his malice, and now the fox’s tail had finally shown itself—LeBron could finally cut ties with this hypocrite.

“LeBron, he doesn’t respect you at all!” Mims exclaimed dramatically, “He actually wants to see you bleed on the court, to use your blood to stain his crown red. Did you see that cover? I told you, he never considered you a friend. He’s been using you…”

The intensity of Mims and other people’s reactions exceeded James’s expectations.

In his view, weren’t these just Frye’s favorite kind of trash-talk? He probably said a hundred such things every day, so why bother taking it to heart?

Moreover, if it weren’t for their overreactions, the article wouldn’t have gained much traction.

It would never have escalated to this point.

It was precisely those who were indignant on his behalf who had multiplied the article’s reach, making the ‘blood-stained crown’ meme a well-known slur in the basketball community.

Now with the situation blown up this big, James harbored some resentment towards Yu Fei, the mastermind of it all, but he was also clear-headed. After all, his team had roped Yu Fei into promotional stunts, and the routine of elevating and deprecating him was common practice. If this matter really reached them, they would express disgust and say that ‘LeBron is still green,’ which would be even more disheartening for James…

“Enough!” James cut off the incessant Mims, “Have Richie arrange a press conference in Houston, and try to get people we know to attend. The impact of this can’t fucking keep growing!”

“But LeBron, that asshole…”

“Shut up, Randy!” James lost control of his emotions unusually, “Do you know what the best way to respond to Frye is? To stain my crown red with his blood! That’s the only way! I won’t go whining to him like a wounded woman, and you shouldn’t either, unless you think I can never beat him on the court.”

“No, LeBron, I know that day will eventually come, I just…”

But Randy Mims didn’t know how far off ‘that day’ was.

This year? Next year? The year after? Or five or even ten years from now?

“Then shut up!”

James murmured: “I will earn back the respect I deserve with my own hands!”

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