Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Chapter 943 943 562 Extraordinary Mid-Autumn_2

?Chapter 943: Chapter 562 Extraordinary Mid-Autumn_2 Chapter 943: Chapter 562 Extraordinary Mid-Autumn_2 James’s decision was one that Nike was happy to see.

Durant had already gone to New York, the biggest market in the NBA. As Kobe aged, James was Nike’s only active superstar, but this superstar’s reputation stank to high heaven.

What to do?

A Hong Kong actress, known for her roles in adult films, said after making it big in mainstream cinema that she had to “put her clothes back on, one piece at a time.”

This is essentially the process of whitewashing.

You start cleaning up where the smearing began, with standards, formula, and the right sentiment. Note, the entire process follows a priority order, and one shouldn’t be repulsively eager, like saying “Taito is the coolest” without proper emotional groundwork.

Therefore, in the following days, the foundation was laid by the outside world.

First, media close to James leaked, “Looking back, LeBron believes he still has unfinished business in Cleveland.”

ESPN reporter Brian Windhorst, known as a mouthpiece for James, broke the news: “LeBron has reconciled with Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert!”

WOJ also followed up with inside information: “LeBron will return to Cleveland via a sign-and-trade deal.”

Then, on July 11, LeBron James’s famous “letter to his hometown” was published against this backdrop, two years ahead of its original timeline.

Speaking solely of PR writings by basketball stars, no article in the history of the NBA is more moving than this one.

However, the James of today wasn’t returning as the two-time champion as on the main timeline. He wasn’t seen as the league’s top player and no one thought this decision would affect the league’s landscape. In fact, those who really knew what was going on were aware that Cleveland was only James’s backup option.

Before James made his decision, the Houston Rockets and the Golden State Warriors had gone all out to recruit him, especially the Warriors, who were desperate to the point of being shameless, but were rejected because they only had Joe Johnson as a star.

If there had been a better option, James would not have returned to the Cavaliers.

It was a decision made out of helplessness.

It was this very helplessness that almost certainly set the stage for a third “Decision” in the future.

But for the moment, this decision indeed helped James regain a lot of popularity.

Americans love stories of great figures who stray, suffer humiliations and setbacks, and then suddenly repent to take the righteous path.

That’s also why screenwriters love to redeem villains in movies and TV shows.

On the same dimensional level, villains often shine brighter than heroes because they exhibit such a low starting point that when they decide to do something good, the audience feels a particularly strong impact.

James’s camp had cleverly captured this popular psyche, putting on a good show for the national audience during the summer when James went to battle for his country.

Presti didn’t like seeing the attention of the outside world and the tempo of public opinion being manipulated by superstars.

But he was also aware that if Yu Fei’s camp were to engage in a similar endeavor, they would pull it off even more brilliantly.

The year Yu Fei returned to Seattle after a year-long buildup, he came back like a savior, didn’t he shine with an exceptionally brilliant light?

From then on, the free market was no longer dominated by the management.

Or rather, from the moment Yu Fei started signing short-term contracts on his second deal, management was put in shackles.

They had to serve the stars, and if they couldn’t build a competitive team in a limited time, the stars would choose to leave.

This kind of player empowerment, after a few years of development, led to Kobe and LeBron choosing to team up in the summer of 2009.

That’s how we got where we are today.

In the world of basketball stars, the initiative of the founding members of the group vastly exceeds the operations of management.

They were like parasites, choosing the right teams to lodge with, and the success or failure of the season depended entirely on them; management’s sole responsibility was to sign the players they recruited.

Is this still a healthy professional basketball league?

With this trend continuing, is there any need for management at all?

Presti didn’t know, but perhaps he should be grateful to James for stirring up so much trouble. In this way, the negative publicity of the Supersonics abandoning their progeny and snubbing mercenaries could also be diminished.

So what did Presti do while the Cavaliers became the protagonists of the free market, stirring up storms?

He signed 2009’s second overall pick, Hasheem Thabeet.

As the player with the highest theoretical ceiling in the 2009 draft, he actually hit the theoretical floor of that underestimated draft class.

After being selected by the King as the second pick in 2009, Thabeet averaged 3 points and 3 rebounds in his first year, followed by a lockout, averaged 1 point and 1 rebound last season, and the Kings did not even pick up their team option after the season, letting him go and declaring the draft’s no. 2 pick a complete bust.

Thabeet was a microcosm of the decline in the center position, possessing only talent, with rim protection being the only skill up to the NBA standard, but having rim protection alone is far from enough for a center.

Presti’s signing of him was merely an attempt to find a backup for Stoudemire without expecting much from his performance.

The Supersonics, wanting to capitalize on their dynasty’s renown to recruit talent, found their appeal had greatly diminished.

The repercussions of mishandling Chris Bosh’s renewal issue would not disappear in just a few days.

Presti could sign someone like Thabeet, who could still sell his talent, but he couldn’t persuade those free-agent veterans to join the Supersonics.