noveldrama
Chapter 857 857 534 Yu Feis Team
Chapter 857 857 534 Yu Feis Team
?Chapter 857: Chapter 534 Yu Fei’s Team Chapter 857: Chapter 534 Yu Fei’s Team With Yu Fei’s connections, organizing a team to play a few warm-up games abroad was very easy.
Yu Fei first contacted Stephen Curry and Brandon Roy; if the plan went through, this would be the Reebok squad.
But Curry had sustained an injury during the playoffs and was now in recovery, and besides, he preferred training with a group called “Quickening” over joining Yu Fei’s touring team to play in China.
Yu Fei did not insist.
Since Curry wasn’t coming, he called up Roy.
The lockout was a disaster for most players, but it was definitely a blessing for Roy.
This was like how the NBA lockdown in 2020 due to the pandemic was a good thing for the Lakers Team.
Although the League had to settle for playing in a bubble after the resumption, which made the more successful teams lose their home-court advantage, the months-long hiatus allowed Anthony Davis to get ample rest and explode with enough energy in the bubble.
The same logic applied to the Supersonics.
It was a stroke of luck that Roy’s premature return in the Western finals hadn’t led to more severe injury, and now, it was fairly certain that the lockout would affect the new season.
The players would get a much longer offseason than in the past.
This gave Roy plenty of time to rest.
Yu Fei’s intention in calling Roy this time was to keep him away from the vortex of labor negotiations. Whether he wanted to play in the warm-up games against the China Team was up to him.
In addition to Roy, joining Yu Fei’s Team were Paul George, who was just signed by Reebok, and Kwame Brown, who had clung to Yu Fei’s coattails to get a Reebok contract.
Yu Fei also called up Alonzo Gee, Danny Green, and the player they picked in the draft, Lazar Hayward (Lazar Hayward SF).
Except for Gee, Green and Hayward were not in good circumstances.
Green had a partially guaranteed contract with his former team, the Cavaliers, and Hayward was even worse off; after the draft, the team did not contact him at all.
His family was waiting for him to make money, yet he found himself out of business.
The plight of Green and Hayward was the reality for most lower-tier players.
They needed the income from playing basketball.
The longer the lockout lasted, the greater the harm to them.
But Green and Hayward were also lucky because, apart from playing two exhibition games against the China Men’s Basketball Team, Yu Fei’s Team had some commercial exhibition games lined up, which would result in several million dollars in income.
Yu Fei would not take a dime of that money; he would distribute it amongst everyone else.
Once the news spread, many lower-tier players volunteered to join.
Three players from the 2009 class were recruited by Yu Fei.
They were Sam Young, Wayne Ellington, and Patrick Beverley.
Beverley was the only one on this team with the name of an NBA player but not the substance.
He was picked by the Lakers last year, but got no chance in that star-studded team.
The Lakers chose to let him grow overseas.
Beverley played in Europe for a year and was ready to come back and fight for an NBA chance in the summer league on behalf of the Lakers when the league went into a lockout.
This left Beverley quite confused; he knew that a second-round selection like him, if he stayed overseas for too long, might “assimilate” to the local level and never get a chance at the NBA again.
He wasn’t content with that, so he joined Yu Fei’s team.
He wanted to show his skills in front of the GOAT, because it was common knowledge that the Supersonics needed a backup point guard.
Yu Fei’s Team would have two days of joint practice in Los Angeles.
This was mainly for regaining form; they didn’t have a coach, didn’t need to practice tactics, and didn’t even need tactics, after all, this was just a team of NBA players. Even without tactics and chemistry, their sheer talent could crush most national teams.
On this day, Yu Fei received an invitation from the player’s union.
They hoped Yu Fei would attend the labor agreement negotiations taking place in Las Vegas.
Yu Fei declined the invitation and made his stance clear with a lengthy statement, “My position will always align with the union. I oppose the unfair CBA terms; I refuse to use our own money to compensate those terrible owners. If you are determined to do so, I can understand, but I will not be part of it.”
“Really not going?” Roy, having heard about it, came to persuade Yu Fei, “Your presence or absence makes a big difference to those owners.”
Yu Fei joked, “What could I do there? Argue with number 23? I’m sick of his face already.”
“I just think that if you were there, the union would stand a bit stronger,” Roy was still too naive.
Yu Fei scoffed, “Their strategy is to kneel before the owners, hoping to revert things back to normal. What could I do there? The moment we decided to make concessions, the owners had already won.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“It’s like playing basketball,” Yu Fei’s gaze turned towards the court.
Although Beverley wasn’t an official NBA player, he had developed a kind of wildness in the rough European courts that was rare among current NBA players.
Sam Young, at 198 cm as a forward who averaged 7 points and 3 rebounds last season with the Memphis Grizzlies, appeared weak in front of Beverley.
As he prepared to contest for a loose ball with Beverley, Beverley aggressively secured the ball and bellowed at Young, “N-word, don’t you f*cking try to take my ball!”
Young backed down, it was just a ball, after all, no need to.
He didn’t contest with Beverley; instead, he wanted him to cool down a bit.