Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Chapter 922 922 555 As the Sovereign Commands Heaven

?Chapter 922: Chapter 555: As the Sovereign Commands, Heaven Bestows; As the Sovereign Commands, Heaven Takes Away Chapter 922: Chapter 555: As the Sovereign Commands, Heaven Bestows; As the Sovereign Commands, Heaven Takes Away By mid-April, the regular season was nearing its end.

This season’s Supersonics were like the Lakers in 2004, showing strong signs of a dynasty in decline.

The sense of collapse reached its climax after Fei got injured; Durant’s burner account incident erupted, and it seemed they were about to disband, but for some reason, the downtrend stopped after Fei made his comeback.

With one game left before the regular season ended, the Supersonics had achieved a record of 60 wins and 21 losses, ranking third in the league.

The teams ahead of them were the Heat with 66 wins, the Spurs with 64, and the Brooklyn Nets with 61.

Moreover, the Nets’ regular season had already concluded.

If the Supersonics won their final game of the regular season, they could claim the league’s third place based on their head-to-head record.

That was their goal.

“Sports Illustrated,” at the juncture when the regular season was about to end and the playoffs were on the verge of beginning, prepared to stimulate sales with an attractive magazine issue.

The so-called media is the tool for grasping the latest news.

Before the advent of television media, newspapers were the sole tool for obtaining news from the outside world. The rise of television media meant a decline for print media, but magazines like “Sports Illustrated,” which focused on traditional long-format sports reporting, still had a place.

However, the advent of social media has made the frequency at which people receive news quick and fragmented; long-format reports are no longer popular. Take, for example, the recent burner account incident with the highest traffic; all interest was consumed by TV shows and independent media on social media platforms, and the magazine’s latest issue was late to the party, discussing matters others had already talked about.

Nowadays, the sales of the world’s most famous sports magazine are declining year by year, and its disappearance can be predicted if this continues.

This outcome is unchangeable, but that doesn’t affect their efforts to save sales before that happens.

So, they found the key to traffic.

“Sports Illustrated” hoped to feature Fei on the cover of the next issue under the name “The Chosen One’s Tenth Anniversary” and to conduct a lengthy exclusive interview with him.

Fei now no longer needed the newspaper’s traffic; it was the other way around.

But he didn’t refuse because it was this magazine that made him a nationally known high school player with an article titled “The Chosen One” years ago.

Even though that was Gary Smith’s personal desire, without the platform of the magazine, the subsequent events would not have occurred.

So, Fei gave the magazine writer a two-hour interview before the regular season finale.

In this interview, Fei talked about a lot.

About his fiancée, about Durant, about the burner account, about the ups and downs of the Supersonics this season.

“Some say this year for you is like 1998 was for Michael Jordan,” the reporter asked, “how do you view this comparison?”

Fei has always disliked being compared to Jordan, just as Jordan doesn’t like being compared to Fei.

But on this matter, Fei had actually made the comparison.

His answer was that Jordan’s troubles were clearly greater than his own.

The problems the Supersonics faced were, to put it bluntly, those that any dynasty team under the league’s anti-monopoly trend would inevitably face.

They had difficulties renewing contracts because the owner was unwilling to spend the money needed to maintain competitiveness.

Durant’s own outburst was the result of long-standing pressures.

The ’98 Bulls? The head coach and the general manager were openly at odds, the general manager set the tone of “The Last Dance” before the season began, the second-in-command, angry about not getting the high salary he demanded, underwent back surgery before the season started and requested a trade, vowing he would never play for the Bulls again. During the season, there were even incidents of traitors within the team and cases of trading away rookies the team had developed in order to re-sign players at a premium price.

No matter how you look at it, the Bulls were a team with sharper conflicts.

In Seattle, Fei still held the initiative.

Especially after his return, when he broke the isolation between the team and Durant, the team got back on track.

Fei wasn’t sure if he could have done better if he were back with the ’98 Bulls, but in Seattle, he had done everything he could.

“Fairly speaking, number 23 had it tougher than I did that year,” Fei joked, “If I were to receive ten times the salary of KD, I cannot imagine what words KD would use in his anonymous account.”

The interview was over.

This exclusive interview would be published in half a month. By then, Fei would be dressed in a suit, prominently displaying his seven championship rings, with the headline: “Ten Years On, Still The Chosen One.” But that was for the magazine and Fei’s team to worry about.

With the season nearing its end, Fei only needed to focus on one thing: the last battle of the regular season, Supersonics at home against the Cavaliers.

Three years had passed, and Clevelanders still hadn’t recovered from the blow of “The Decision.” John Wall looked like a very capable point guard, with absolute speed and an overall view of the game, but the advent of the era of space basketball made his lack of long-range shooting ability particularly fatal. Wall continued to lead the Cavaliers into the lottery zone in his junior season.

The Supersonics, intent on achieving 61 wins to secure the league’s third spot, could not afford to give the Cavaliers any chance. By the end of the third quarter, the Supersonics had established a 24-point lead, turning the fourth quarter into garbage time. At the final buzzer, the Supersonics defeated the Cavaliers 115 to 88, ending with a record of 61 wins and 21 losses, ranking third in the league and second in the Western Conference.

If they aimed to contend for the championship, they would face the toughest playoffs. They would first meet the Timberwolves in the first round, likely face the Lakers in the second round, and then the Spurs in the Western Conference Finals.