Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters-Chapter 449 - 303: The Distance from God

Chapter 449: Chapter 303: The Distance from God

The day after the All-Star weekend ended, stars from the Eastern and Western Conference embarked on their journeys home.

Usually, the period before and after the All-Star weekend often symbolizes a watershed in an NBA season.

From now on, weaker teams play to lose in hopes of better draft positions, while stronger teams must win as much as possible for better rankings.

Before the teams make their final sprint, the management has a big stage to step onto.

That is the annual trade deadline.

Every year, the trade deadline serves as a chance for tormented star players to be liberated.

This year, there are just as many players hoping to be freed.

The Timberwolves’ Kevin Garnett, for the past couple of years, has been strongly hinted by the team’s various moves: KG, go ahead, you don’t owe Minnesota anything anymore.

In previous years, they let go of Tskitishvili.

Last year, after wasting an entire season of Garnett, the Timberwolves decided not to re-sign Sam Cassell and their only summer signing was picking up “Mad Dog” Mark Madsen with a mid-level contract.

Even so, the 30-year-old Garnett still doesn’t request a trade.

Then there’s the Celtics’ Paul Pierce, a star in his prime who desperately needs to achieve something significant but has run into a team eager to rebuild. He definitely wants a trade, but Ainge, showing no ruthless nature yet, seems to have an obsessive faith and trust in Pierce. He believes Pierce will be key to returning the Celtics to glory.

Over the past year, Ainge has missed two prime opportunities to trade Pierce.

One was the last trade deadline when Philadelphia wanted to send Iguodala and Dalembert to Boston for Pierce to soothe Allen Iverson’s feelings—but Ainge’s love for Pierce was not something to be shaken by a small forward with All-Star potential and one of the best blue-collar centers in the league—so Philadelphia had to downgrade and swap Pierce for a debilitated Webber.

Another was after the draft began last year, when the Hornets wanted to offer Chris Paul’s signing rights and Nick Van Exel for Pierce, which Ainge called “ridiculous,” and refused to even negotiate.

(All are historical facts.)

This year, Ainge still insists he will never trade Pierce.

Although Ainge’s assurance seems doubtful, historically, when he says he won’t trade Pierce, he really doesn’t, no matter who comes along.

Another star possibly on the trading block is Allen Iverson, who only needed a year to realize that Webber was past his prime; now he’s complaining about the management’s decision not to directly swap for Pierce in the first place.

Many teams are itching to make a move. As one of the Eastern contenders, the Bucks have achieved the best record in the League just before the All-Star weekend.

Any experienced management team would not seek trades when the team is on a positive trajectory.

However, many teams are willing to trade with the Bucks because they have quite a few valuable assets.

Especially their young players, any one of whom could fetch a good price if put on the market.

But Bucks General Manager Larry Harris isn’t planning any risky moves.

They must win the championship this year, otherwise, what will they use to retain Frye next year?

Thus, any move that might disrupt the team chemistry is not in Harris’s plan.

Ironically, the less the Bucks want to shake things up, the more temptations they face.

Firstly, Philadelphia “quietly” inquired with the Bucks: “Does Frye have any interest in playing brother basketball with AI?”

This scared the daylights out of Little Harris.

Yu Fei and Iverson are famously good friends—if it were anyone else, he wouldn’t even think about it before refusing, but with Iverson, he truly needed to consult with Big Fei.

The day Fei returned from Houston, he decided to focus on his health, heading home to sleep after training, because yesterday Sha Wa put on a Crazy Horse show after seeing his tattoo, leaving him severely drained.

Just as Fei and Lawson were idly watching “Lost,” Little Harris called.

Little Harris brought up Philadelphia’s idea of trading Iverson, which took Fei by surprise.

“Does AI know about this?”

“I don’t think so.”

Fei knew well that his style didn’t match with Iverson’s, who was a scoring guard with a high demand for ball handling. Fei could only tolerate the play style of a 2001 Kobe or a 2016 Irving. So, if Iverson came, it was highly likely that things would end up badly, and they could kiss the championship goodbye.

Of course, this was the worst-case scenario. The best-case scenario would be for the Bucks to trade Sprewell and Martin to match Iverson’s contract, then to rebuild a team that had already meshed well, and to pray that they would fare better in the final third of the season than they had in the first two-thirds. But even in the best-case scenario, they could only perform as well as they had before the trade.

Seeing as such, why bother with the trade?

“Larry, you’re the GM, don’t run everything by me. I trust you will make the best decision for the team.”

Fei hung up the phone.

Little Harris immediately understood Fei’s thoughts.

If Fei wanted to team up with Iverson, he would be yelling, “Forget all that, I want to play with AI right now.”

Since he said what he did, the answer was clear.

The Bucks turned down the 76ers.

Starting with the rejection of the 76ers, Little Harris ignored all the offers that sought to trade stars for young players, quietly waiting for the trade deadline to arrive.

Although many stars were suffering, and their teams were trying to squeeze every last bit of value from them, the trade deadline came and went without any major deals.

Garnett, Allen Iverson, and Paul Pierce all stayed with their respective teams.

The New York Knicks decided to use the amnesty clause on Anfernee Hardaway.

That day, the most high-profile player to be traded was master of bird-walking Reggie Evans.

Anfernee Hardaway, after being amnestied, wanted to join a championship-contending team, which presented the patient Bucks with an opportunity.

This was the chance Little Harris had been waiting for.

It wasn’t essential, but having that addition was certainly better than not having it.

Anfernee had only two options: rejoin Shaquille O’Neal in Miami or go to Milwaukee and serve the most influential superstar at the moment.

Then Anfernee started performing his classic act.

The veteran, now a free agent, wanted to join the Bucks for a championship ride but was worried about being bullied by the notorious Big Fei.

“I want to know if Frye needs me, will he respect me?”

Yu Fei was inexplicably annoyed when he heard this.

Was his reputation really this bad?

Even Anfernee, the scum who threatened to kill his daughter’s mother right in front of her, was worried about coming to Milwaukee and being bullied by him?

Who?

Who was spreading rumors to tarnish his reputation?

Yu Fei had no evidence to prove that Jordan was to blame for his tarnished reputation, but blaming Jordan for everything was an effective method nonetheless.

First, it gave him an outlet for his anger.

Second, it provided a suitable target for his hatred.

Third, even if Big Fei ended up hating the wrong person, there was no loss for Big Dan; their animosity was sky-high regardless, and what difference did a little more or less hatred make?

Yu Fei welcomed Anfernee’s joining.

As for respecting Anfernee? Of course, he would respect him.

Even if Anfernee was now old and declining, he had solidly demonstrated to Kobe 1.0 how to take a team from Big Fatty and kick him out, wrecking the team and crippling himself in the process.

Luckily, Kobe learned the true essence. Unluckily, Kobe was too sincere and even learned to “wreck the team” (in 04-05), but the silver lining was that Kobe’s body was made of iron, so he didn’t meet Anfernee’s fate.

Yu Fei personally called Anfernee to dispel his worries and said, “I can’t give you any guarantees about your playing time or tactical status, but what I can guarantee is that you can retire with a ring.”

Anfernee was overjoyed at those words: “That’s what I’ve been pursuing all my life!”

Half a day later, Anfernee signed a non-guaranteed minimum contract with the Bucks.

When Anfernee was signing the contract, Yu Fei was already imagining how he’d trash-talk during the playoffs when facing the Miami Heat, bringing up how Anfernee pushed Shaquille O’Neal out of Orlando.

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Start with the Big Fatty card, always flaunt respect, and when the Big Fatty gets warm throw the Kobe card; if that’s not enough, there’s still the Anfernee card, and finally, he’s got the race card. Ah, having too many cards can also be a bother.

After signing Anfernee, the Bucks had no other moves to make; they only needed to abandon any thoughts of vacation and focus wholly on the final stretch of the regular season, striving to enter the playoffs as the League’s number one and thus securing home-court advantage for each series.

However, besides leading his team to the number one record in the League, Yu Fei had another goal: maintaining his average triple-double until the end of the regular season.

This was not only his own desire but also something Reebok was very eager for him to achieve.

Since the 1960s, basketball has undergone significant changes, and so has the League. Sponsors’ fervor propelled Jordan to godhood, but after Jordan’s sunset, creating a second deity proved to be a herculean task.

Hill failed, Hardaway went bankrupt, Kobe faced Eagle County, James was still a question mark, and the most likely to be deified was the current Yu Fei.

The first step towards deification was to do what many greats deemed nearly impossible.

At the end of February, Yu Fei racked up 45 points, 11 rebounds, and 14 assists against the Cavaliers, completing a season sweep of them. ABC made a tribute short about the possibility of Yu Fei averaging a triple-double.

There was an interview clip of Magic Johnson as a young man being asked if he thought he could average a triple-double in the future.

“Man, I really feel like I can do everything on the court, but averaging a triple-double…” Magic Johnson made his classic smile, “Oh God, that’s an achievement only God can accomplish.”

Then, the video faded to black.

The screen showed Yu Fei with the caption:

“After 55 games, averaging 32 points, 10 rebounds, 11 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block per game, Frye is only 27 games away from reaching God.”

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