noveldrama
Chapter 947 947 563 GOAT Doesnt Care_3
Chapter 947 947 563 GOAT Doesnt Care_3
?Chapter 947: Chapter 563 GOAT Doesn’t Care_3 Chapter 947: Chapter 563 GOAT Doesn’t Care_3 Kyrie Irving’s defense was never good, at least not since his school days.
Yet, he truly believed he could guard Yu Fei.
Yu Fei didn’t know where his confidence came from.
It might have something to do with his father Drederick.
It was said when Kyrie was a child, he lacked confidence, so Drederick would constantly fill him with forced confidence to make his son believe he was the strongest person in the world.
Yu Fei didn’t know the specifics of what Drederick did, but it surely wasn’t as abstract as Mima Ito’s mother’s approach.
Under the gaze of the entire team, Yu Fei didn’t hold back at all, swiftly stepping past Irving’s defensive position, tearing through the defense, and scoring with a layup.
“Don’t casually spout dreams next time,” Yu Fei mocked.
Kyrie was dead serious.
But the more serious he was, the harder it was for Yu Fei not to crack up.
Because his defense was really that bad.
It was so bad that Yu Fei doubted Kyrie had ever trained in defense from childhood to adulthood.
One on the left, another on the right, and then another straight on.
After getting pumped up, Yu Fei started to pull off all sorts of moves.
Suddenly, he gathered the ball at the free throw line, leaned against Irving, and delivered a long-distance skyhook.
“Swish!”
“Doing okay, Kyrie?”
Kyrie was not doing okay.
Irving had thought that as long as he defended with all his might on every play, he’d manage to stop Yu Fei once or twice.
In the end, his defense didn’t put any pressure on Yu Fei.
Yu Fei wasn’t just scoring on him at will, but it seemed he was getting more and more casual about it.
This made Kyrie, who had mustered up the courage to challenge Yu Fei, feel utterly defeated.
In the last play, Yu Fei obviously faked to Irving’s left, but his opponent still fell for it.
Yu Fei swept by with a behind-the-back crossover, shaking Irving’s center of gravity, accelerated to the basket, and scored with a dunk.
Irvring, who had lost his balance, not only failed on defense but also stumbled forward and fell flat on his face.
It was undoubtedly one of the most embarrassing moments for a defender.
11 to 2
Yu Fei didn’t give Irving a second chance.
“Your offense is passable,” Yu Fei simply commented, “but unfortunately, your defense is just too poor.”
“Doesn’t Coach K teach defense?”
“He does,” Irving admitted unexpectedly honestly, “but I don’t really take it to heart.”
Yu Fei jokingly suggested, “You’d better start taking it seriously, or there will be more and more people teaching you a lesson like I just did.”
Irvring stood up, having lost completely.
But that wasn’t important—the failure was expected. His real purpose was to discover his own shortcomings by challenging the Greatest of All Time.
From their one-on-one game, it was clear his offensive abilities were no issue; the problem lay in defense.
This skill, long neglected by him, might just be the key to his further improvement.
Therefore, he decided to add a new task to his rookie season goals: lead the team on the defensive end.
Afterward, Yu Fei approached Coach Lu and suggested that he assign more defensive tasks to Irving.
Granting young players authority on the field and the freedom to shoot at will is a common way for weak teams to train core players, but this approach produces just as many failures as successes.
However, in strong teams, due to different levels of competition and goals, the development of superstar rookies is always more restrained. The first thing to be done is not to promote their strengths, but to correct their flaws.
Coach Lu realized this after watching today’s bullfighting match.
Irving looked dazzling, but he also had quite a few problems. Now that he’s a rookie, it’s the perfect time for the coaching staff to use their authority to restrain him. If he were given the same or even greater treatment than Roy during his rookie season, he might become overly arrogant in the future.
A few days later, media day arrived.
Even without Durant and Bosh, the SuperSonics remained the most talked-about team in the entire league.
The prestige of winning four consecutive championships overwhelmed the entire league, and no one could declare their defense hopeless before their complete failure.
After all, the Greatest of All Time was still there.
Even if they failed to defend their title, the SuperSonics would still be contenders for the championship in the years to come.
As long as the Greatest of All Time was still there.
That was the key point.
The media wanted to know if the Greatest of All Time, with only one year left on his contract, believed his future was still in Seattle.
“I don’t consider anything other than a fifth championship,” Yu Fei said, “As for the future, personally, I hope it’s a mutual choice. Behind the choice lies the effort made for it. I think I have made that effort.”
His words were cryptic.
Cryptic enough that it needed media insiders who understood Yu Fei’s intentions to interpret for the public: “Frye, as the Savior, has completed his mission to save the SuperSonics. Seattle is his place of honor, where he has achieved glory, and where he wants to end his days. But as the Greatest of All Time, he needs to consider his own legend. However, the team’s owner seems to have never considered this. He let go of DeAndre Jordan and Chris Bosh and traded Kevin Durant for a number two draft pick who needs time to grow and Amar’e Stoudemire, who has suffered a severe ACL injury. That’s the reality. Frye gave his all for Seattle, and when he needed the SuperSonics to defend his legend and honor, the team’s owner told him through actions— ‘to hell with your legacy, Frye, I don’t want to spend more money to defend it!'”
Some things need to be set up in advance, and while Yu Fei doesn’t know what the future holds, the people around him have started to warm things up for it.
What Yu Fei spoke was the plain truth; his short-term goal was a fifth consecutive championship, and his future depended on choices, which had yet to be determined.
During the family photo shoot that day, Irving held a piece of paper in his hand, a letter he wrote to himself.
Kyrie is a sensitive person with a rich inner world. He has always had the habit of writing letters to himself since he was a child and has never been shy to admit it to others.
Today’s letter was for media display, where Cyberspace Kyrie Irving was writing to the three-dimensional Kyrie Irving, telling him his goals for the rookie season.
Overall, Irving set three goals for himself:
Lead the team on the defensive end.
Be selected as Rookie of the Year.
Achieve greatness.
After reading the letter, Yu Fei said, “If you just accomplish the first goal, you can be considered great already.”
“I think the second goal is also important,” Roy chimed in from the side.
“Rookie of the Year? Is that an honor?” Yu Fei asked.
“Isn’t it?”
“Who remembers the Rookie of the Year?” Yu Fei retorted, “Who was the Rookie of the Year last season?”
This conversation later spread widely and became an amusing story among Yu Fei, Roy, and Irving.
Until Harrison Barnes, the Rookie of the Year for the 2011-12 season, complained on Twitter, “Why would Frye say such a thing? Young players need respect too!”
Kwame Brown replied, “Little bro, what are you talking about? How did Frye disrespect you?”
After that, more NBA players gathered under this tweet.
Barnes became angrier because, really, really, nobody remembered he was Rookie of the Year last season.
In the end, Fei’s Army, rampant across the internet, descended on Barnes’s Twitter like locusts, forcing him to delete his tweet and apologize.
From then on, the world had one more person who loathed Yu Fei.
It’s alright, the Greatest of All Time doesn’t care.
(1) A national table tennis player from Japan, whose mother would say by her bedside every night as a child: “Only you can defeat China.”