Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters-Chapter 523 - 363: The Person Who Tried to Reason with a Dog Referee

Chapter 523: Chapter 363: The Person Who Tried to Reason with a Dog Referee

Chapter 363: The Man Who Tried to Reason with a Dog Referee

No one enjoyed watching Yu Fei take on Durant in one-on-one battles more than Kwame Brown.

This pre-game ritual, which had started as the most popular part of the team’s routine, gradually lost its appeal when everyone realized Durant stood no chance and the script was the same every day.

Yu Fei trash-talked while brutally outplaying Durant.

As time went on, people lost interest.

...

But Brown never tired of watching.

Because seeing Yu Fei mimic Jordan off the court was fascinating, and besides, he was curious to see how long Durant could endure it.

Brown still remembered when Jordan had once initiated a one-on-one challenge with Yu Fei before a game.

By any metric, the intensity of that one-on-one had exceeded that of bullfighting.

Jordan had only wanted to use Yu Fei as practice, but Yu Fei turned it into a war.

Jordan trash-talked? Yu Fei’s was more vicious.

Perhaps at certain moments, Yu Fei even made Jordan doubt whether he still had the ability to dominate the court, and as it turned out, he had lost that ability.

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He couldn’t even beat the 18-year-old Yu Fei.

Six years later, what surprised Brown wasn’t that Jordan had tried and failed to teach Yu Fei a lesson, but that Yu Fei had the audacity to strike first.

Some people’s ruthlessness is bred in their bones, just as others’ weakness is etched into theirs.

Only a few can manage it.

That was Brown’s insight, and now it seemed, Durant couldn’t either.

It had been over a month since the start of the preseason training camp, and Durant had never once lost his cool, no matter how hard Yu Fei pressed him, always calmly accepting his lot.

When Yu Fei started ribbing Durant about his habit of kissing his mother before the start of each game, there was a flicker of emotion from Durant, but still very little.

The one-on-one ended with a score of 11 to 3.

“Why do you always seem so helpless?” Yu Fei asked, “What are you holding back for, KD?”

The image of a good guy was another grand image project for Durant by Nike.

To ensure the perfection of this project, Durant needed to convince himself that he was as kind as Nike expected him to be.

In response to Yu Fei’s persistent questioning, Durant answered gently, “Because we are teammates.”

“Do you mean that you don’t want to hurt your teammate, but what if I were your opponent?” Yu Fei pressed on, “Could you treat me as an opponent then?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Durant said, “Because I can’t pretend that you are my opponent.”

And that was terrifying, wasn’t it?

Even if Durant harbored ambition, he dared not fall out with Yu Fei at this stage; he had already seen what happened with James.

His aim was not to be the next one.

“You mean to say that when it comes to opponents you’ll be ruthless?” Yu Fei really wanted to draw out that devil Dur-B who would create burner accounts to insult his teammates, shamelessly troll netizens, but only impotently rage in the face of Green’s formula.

But now he was starting to doubt whether devil Dur-B even existed.

Or rather, if devil Dur-B had been born yet.

In the end, Yu Fei remained convinced that the Durant he saw was still a facade, simply too wary of his own authority to show his true face.

So be it, let’s see how he treats opponents.

To his surprise, Durant said, “I will deal with every opponent based on legitimate basketball logic and professional ethics in sports.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Brown, unable to contain his laughter, said, “It means he has sportsmanship, Big Fei, something you apparently lack.”

“You have your style.”

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Yu Fei had nothing to say to Durant and walked away with a complex expression on his face.

A few minutes later, Yu Fei witnessed a peculiar sight on the Magic’s court.

Dwight Howard, like a preacher, surrounded by his teammates, prayed devoutly to God, “Heavenly Father, thank you for granting us the opportunity to compete today. Before this game begins, please protect us, give us strength and wisdom. Let us engage in this game with humility and a team spirit, and let all the glory be Yours. Amen.”

“What’s this?” Yu Fei mocked, “The Choir Basketball Team?”

Howard smiled, “Frye, everything that happens tonight is the will of the Lord.”

“Does that include sleeping with different women in Las Vegas every night being the Lord’s will?” Yu Fei asked.

When a person is hypocritical enough to believe that everything they do is ordained by God, others’ sarcasm can’t touch them.

Howard, with a Shaquille O’Neal-like goofy smile, said, “I believe so.”

Yu Fei decided it was pointless to communicate further with such an individual.

Before the game started, Yu Fei greeted his old teammate Bell as well as Carter, who had not managed to join him in Seattle as hoped.

Observing their positions, Yu Fei saw that the Magic had actually set up Bell to match up with Durant.

So, after stepping into his position, Yu Fei said to Bell, “Raja, you sure you don’t want to guard me?”

With a stern face, Bell replied, “Not interested.”

“Are you sure? If you get blown out by me, you can say you lost to the league’s best, but if you’re blown out by a rookie…”

Hearing this, Bell stared at Durant with ill intent.

Durant met his gaze and said without evasion, “Nice to meet you.”

Bell had heard about Durant and knew that the outside world had hailed him as the next superstar.

But no matter what his future held, for now, he was just a rookie.

“I hope you’ll still be this happy after the game,” Bell retorted.

Why wouldn’t he be? Durant didn’t understand where Bell’s animosity towards him was coming from.

He just wanted to be a good person in his own right; Why should the world want to push him towards being a bad guy?

Couldn’t he just be a good guy?

At the start of the game, Howard immediately showed his astonishing leaping ability, winning the Magic the ball.

Howard positioned himself in the low post, and although Brown managed to secure his spot, that was all he could do.

The Magic passed the ball from the perimeter to the inside, where Howard’s exaggerated shoulder width easily sealed Brown, and with a body rotation, he pushed through the defense. With a leap, he scored with a hook shot.

When it came to playing close to the basket, there was no difference between Howard and Shaquille O’Neal—they both relied on their physicality. But Howard, not as tall or heavy as O’Neal, could only bully centers like Brown with this tactic; he struggled against bigger centers.

The Magic had Carter guard Fei, but unexpectedly, Roy took the first shot for the Supersonics.

Roy, matched against Nelson, executed a series of crossovers followed by a quick stop and jump shot, easily notching 2 points.

Howard enjoyed dominating opponents in the post too much. As the new generation super center, the most frequent criticism he faced was his lack of stable one-on-one skills like other super centers.

He wanted to prove that it wasn’t that he couldn’t play one-on-one; If he could face opponents like Kwame Brown every game, he could definitely perform like O’Neal.

However, if he regarded Brown as easy prey without caution, he would face setbacks.

Brown wasn’t just a defenseless punching bag in the low post. Howard attempted to post up again, but this time Brown anticipated his move. Before Howard could turn and explode upwards, Brown slapped the ball away.

This allowed Fei, who had sneaked in for a double-team, to pick up Howard’s ball easily and push to the frontcourt before slamming it down over Carter’s body.

“What would this dunk get in a dunk contest?”

An aggrieved Carter said, “I’d give you a 6 at most!”

Both teams’ stars were going strong from the start, with the Magic focusing on inside play and the Supersonics being led from the perimeter.

But Durant had no part in this.

Having made a name for himself as the best 3D player in the League during his two seasons with the Bucks, Raja Bell was now assisting Howard in transforming the Magic into one of the most versatile defensive powerhouses in the Eastern Conference. Taking on a rookie like Durant, who would get blown away by contact, was hardly challenging.

Durant felt targeted.

It wasn’t just the opponents; even the referees seemed to be targeting him.

Bell’s actions were brazen, all sorts of little motions and body contacts that skirted the fine line between legal and foul. Durant believed that if those moves had been against Fei, the referees would definitely have called them.

After being invisible for a few minutes, Roy finally fed Durant the ball.

Unexpectedly, as Durant was about to shoot, Bell hit his hand before the ball, smack, knocking it away.

“Referee, sir, he fouled!” Durant exclaimed. “Didn’t you see it?”

To add credibility to his claim, Durant even acted out Bell’s foul, which only scared the bald referee, Crawford, who thought Durant was challenging the authority of the referee. Therefore, he added a technical foul.

“No, sir, I didn’t…”

“Sorry, Joe, this rookie lacks discipline.”

With a chuckle, Fei played the peacemaker and then dragged Durant away.

“He fouled me, Frye, I swear, I didn’t do anything wrong! That referee has some improper dealings with Orlando!” Durant argued heatedly, his face flushed, “He’s just Donaghy II!”

“You are right about everything,” Fei shouted to stop him from defending himself further, “but none of that works on a damn referee who would eject a player just for sitting and smiling on the sidelines!”

Durant was left speechless.

The Magic scored both technical free throws and still had possession of the ball.

Then, James Posey showed Durant how to express dissatisfaction with the referee’s calls.

Arguing logically did nothing.

When Posey was called for a foul guarding Tskitishvili, and conversely, when he set a screen for Fei, received the ball on a cut, got hit on the hand, and was ignored, he showed his teeth and snapped at the assistant referee, “What the hell are you doing not blowing the whistle? You can stick your damn, useless whistle up your—@#”

The Supersonics were given another technical foul.

Oddly, from that moment on, it became much easier for Posey to draw fouls, as the referees didn’t want to further agitate him.

Durant didn’t understand this, and Bell suffocated him with defense, restricting him with unfair play whenever Durant had the chance.

Midway through the first quarter, Karl substituted Childress for Durant.

Seeing Durant’s expression like he wasn’t sure if the fault was his or the world’s, Childress preached to him like a wise man, “Don’t be discouraged, rookie. This is just how our evil League operates. The damn referees think they need to be tough on rookies to make us deep down respect them, but honestly, we all know they’re crap. That’s why I hate the NBA—it’s a circus. European basketball is purer. NBA is just a sideshow.”

Durant couldn’t understand him but was profoundly shocked—whether it was Posey getting favoritism after cussing or his own earnest reasoning being met with a technical, it made him reconsider whether his approach to the game was correct.