Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

In early December, the Wizards had a difficult time ahead of them; they were about to embark on a five-game road trip, starting with a challenge against the Miami Heat in Miami, then heading to Texas to face off against the Spurs, Rockets, and Mavericks in succession, before taking on the Memphis Grizzlies in Memphis and then returning home.

The main difficulty of this journey lay in the Texas trip; both the Spurs and the Mavericks were Western powerhouses not to be underestimated.

For the Wizards, if they could achieve a record of 3 wins and 2 losses during this five-game road trip, it would be considered a successful outing.

Yu Fei took the team bus to the airport as usual.

The events of yesterday were still circling in Yu Fei's mind, but upon seeing Jordan today, he did not bring up yesterday's matters, pretending to be unaware of everything.

Yu Fei was not naive enough to think that Jordan had not received the news. Even if he had not, Pollin would have made sure to inform Jordan.

Since Jordan did not bring it up, Yu Fei was not keen on provoking the elder's anger. If they could continue to respect each other like this, that would be for the best.

Miami

Jordan's old rival Pat Riley had been looking forward to reuniting with Jordan for a while, but the decline of the Heat dampened Riley's enthusiasm.

As a product derived from the '90s New York Knicks gang, Riley's greatest wish was to lead the team to a championship. However, a series of playoff defeats against the Knicks and Alonzo Mourning's kidney issues thwarted the Heat's grand ambitions.

Last season, the Heat were ranked third in the Eastern Conference, and had the second-highest payroll in the East, yet they were swept in the first round of the playoffs. This led the owner Micky Arison to decide on a rebuild and requested Riley to keep the payroll at a level that would not trigger the luxury tax.

This requirement meant that at most only one of Tim Hardaway, Anthony Mason, Dan Majerle, Anthony Carter, and Bruce Bowen could return to the team.

The outcome was messy, with Hardaway going to Dallas, Mason to Milwaukee, Majerle to Phoenix, Bowen to San Antonio, and the least expensive Anthony Carter was the one who stayed.

In the NBA, Riley had always been an existence akin to James Cameron; there's a joke that he doesn't know the figure on the team's budget unless the team wins a championship, otherwise, he won't look at the bill.

The Heat, having lost three starters without gaining any substantial compensation, could only pray for Alonzo Mourning to become a kidney warrior and hope that third-year Richie Davis and second-year Eddie House could shoulder the burden. If they couldn't, then it was doom, and the consequences of doom weren't bitter—the chance for a lottery pick in defeat, which the Heat needed.

Before the game with the Heat began, Yu Fei arrived at the American Airlines Arena two and a half hours early.

This indicated he almost took a taxi straight here right after getting off the team bus.

His only companion was Anthony Lawson.

Third-year guard Anthony Carter, in whom Riley had high hopes, also had the habit of arriving several hours early for shooting practice. When he saw a player from the visiting team on-site, he was quite surprised.

"When did he arrive?" Carter asked the staff at the court.

"An hour ago."

When Riley arrived at the venue, he learned about Yu Fei's warm-up situation from Carter and hoped the team would pay special attention to him tonight.

"I know him, he's the young man who has a conflict with Michael." Riley's eyes shone as if he could actually emit light, and he watched Yu Fei for a long time before saying to someone beside him, "Go find out if Frye always does this at away games or if today is just an anomaly."

Riley admired those players who could endure hardship; he believed only hellish training could forge strong will and dependable skills.

Those who fell in hell were not worth mentioning.

That night, the Heat dragged the Wizards into the abyss of missed shots with their tenacious defense.

Yu Fei's penetration lost its effectiveness against the Heat's disciplined zone defense, and his passes resulted in his teammates' missed shots.

Fortunately, the pre-game shooting warm-up proved to be valuable.

In the second half, Yu Fei began to take shots from the free-throw line, successfully helping the team break the stalemate, and Jordan also played a beautiful game—making 10 of 20 shots, scoring 22 points, grabbing 11 rebounds, and dishing out 4 assists.

Yu Fei followed closely, scoring 18 points, collecting 9 rebounds and 3 assists on 7 of 13 shooting.

Together with Hamilton, who made 6 of 19 shots, the Wizards had three players scoring in double figures and eventually defeated the Heat 88 to 77.

After the match, Riley and Jordan were seen laughing and chatting.

Yu Fei intended to just greet Riley and leave, but to his surprise, the latter warmly shook his hand, "You were the best player for the Wizards tonight!"

"MJ is," Yu Fei emphasized, "the best chosen by your home court."

Riley seemed to hear the displeasure in Fei's tone and said, "In my heart, you are the best player."

Fei's impression of Riley had stopped in 2015, the old man who through devilish training had squeezed the talent out of a bunch of low-drafted and undrafted players, thereby growing the Miami Heat into a strong team in the Eastern Conference and entering the finals twice only to be crushed by the talent of the Western Conference champions.

His relationship with Jordan seemed pretty good. Fei remained wary of him, so he responded like a young man who didn't understand courtesy, "Thanks, but I don't care."

Having said that, he left.

Assistant coach Keith Askins could see what Riley was thinking: "Pat, are you interested in that kid?"

"The rift between him and Michael must be real," Riley said with a faint smile. "Let's keep a close eye on the Wizards' news. If one day Michael has had enough of him…"

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Askins felt Riley's words were somewhat far-fetched.

Would the Wizards trade Fei?

It sounded incredible. Fei was undoubtedly the best rookie of the 2001 class, currently averaging 14 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block per game. Considering his age and the rate of his improvement, he certainly had the potential to be an All-Star or even a superstar. How could the Wizards possibly trade him?

"I know what you're thinking, but remember, behind every seemingly irrational thing, there is an absolutely rational factor," Riley prophesied. "Trust me, it will happen."

That evening could be said to have gone smoothly. The Wizards won, Jordan's shooting percentage reached fifty percent, and the topics of "how the tendinitis affected Jordan" and "does Jordan really have tendinitis" were somewhat curtailed. The media were obsessed with it because Jordan hadn't been performing well. Once Jordan played well, they could ignore even the claim that his brain was electrocuted.

The day after, the Wizards arrived at San Antonio.

Interestingly, on the Wizards' way to the hotel, they could often see Spurs fans with extra-large figures on the street holding up signs that read "MJ, You Need Charles Barkley."

The signs always made Jordan laugh.

Barkley's claim of a comeback to assist Jordan was just the start of his abstract career on TNT. Next year, he had a big stunt planned that even Chinese fans would be familiar with.

As usual, Fei always arrived at the arena early to warm up.

However, it would have been better had he not come, for the sight of the Spurs' home court greatly surprised Fei.

The Alamodome was a massive dome-shaped stadium.

It could accommodate 65,000 spectators, which meant that since the Spurs chose it as their home court in 1993, they had never filled it to capacity.

Just which genius chose this home court, a huge 65,000-person stadium for watching basketball games?

The advantage of a large stadium is that when there is a focus game, many supporters will buy tickets.

That evening, the people of San Antonio had not become immune to Jordan like the people of Washington. A total of over 36,000 spectators were present, and the momentum was indeed extraordinary.

Then, Fei saw Tim Duncan and Tony Parker for the first time.

Before Fei traveled back in time, people often said online, "Duncan only averages these stats; how is he the first power forward?" He didn't know why Duncan was the first power forward because he had never watched Duncan's games. But he had seen James play, and he felt that Duncan's career value depended on James', just as Curry's historical status also depended on James'.

If Duncan was the first power forward, then James, who was defeated by him in the finals twice, must be top five in history. The only reason Duncan isn't the first power forward is that some people can irrefutably argue that Curry is a system player. Once the narrative that Curry is a system player succeeds, the three finals victories over James mean nothing in terms of value; hence, James doesn't even have the qualifications to be a top ten in history, let alone a top five, and doubts naturally arise on whether Duncan deserves to be the first power forward.

It seems like a triangle relationship, but living in 2001, Fei couldn't see their respective debaters enter the fray to argue.

So he decided to lift James into the top ten in history and label Curry a system player so that no one would argue anymore, and the basketball world would become peaceful. Wouldn't that be beautiful?

That night, the Wizards made a slight change to their starting lineup, which included Jordan (playing as point guard), Hamilton, Fei, Ratner, and White.

For the Spurs, the starting lineup was Parker, (Steve) Smith, Bowen, Robinson, and Duncan.

This was Collins's lineup experiment. He allowed Jordan to play the point guard position, which meant Hamilton could enter the starting list.

It was a bold move. Throughout his whole career, Jordan had only played as a point guard for a brief period at the end of the '80s, then in 11 games, he achieved a triple-double in 10.

Undoubtedly, this was proof of Jordan's "if he wanted, he could average a triple-double," but it must be pointed out that the Bulls lost 6 of those 11 games. Therefore, the reality is "even if he could, they would be Westbrook-style triple-doubles (1)."

However, that was Jordan at the peak of his career; what an elderly Jordan playing point guard would look like was yet to be seen, and Fei had his doubts.

(1) Jordan often went to the scoring table to ask how many assists and rebounds he needed to get a triple-double. If I wanted to criticize Jordan, I would stop the discussion here, but I'm just stating the facts. These facts also include that at the time, public opinion was that he wasn't as selfless as Magic Johnson or as well-rounded as Bird, and couldn't lift his teammates, so his triple-double pursuit was actually out of spite. As a fan, I can understand this, how about you?