Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Yu Fei spent half a day "held up" in Washington.

This was not because he couldn't bear to leave his mother, but because he had another matter to attend to.

While a heated anti-Jordan convention was taking place outside, Yu Fei was inside his own Chinese restaurant, treating a guest to a meal.

"I really didn't expect you to come," Yu Fei looked at the person opposite him, "after all, everyone says that you're the least likely person in the world to betray Michael."

Tim Grover sat in front of Yu Fei, with a look of struggle on his face, but soon, the reality that Jordan was about to say goodbye to basketball forever dispelled that emotion.

"Michael was going to retire sooner or later, but I still have to keep working," Grover spoke with reason and evidence, "This isn't betrayal. I'm a Trainer, and my job is to provide you with the highest quality training..."

Seeing Grover trying to convince himself, Yu Fei smiled without saying a word.

Back when he was still in Washington, he had tried to get Lawson and Grover to build rapport.

However, no matter how Lawson tried to curry favor, Grover always kept them at arm's length, as if just like everyone said, he was the person most loyal to Jordan in the world.

Perhaps Grover's loyalty to Jordan was genuine, but that was under the premise that Jordan was still playing basketball.

As long as Jordan was playing, Grover belonged to him.

If Jordan stopped playing, Grover's loyalty meant nothing to him - and the same was true, vice versa.

A Trainer needs players worthy of their training to showcase their worth.

Grover became the most famous Trainer in the industry because of his assistance in Jordan's dominance; now that Jordan was gone, his brand remained.

Therefore, Yu Fei believed that part of the reason Grover was indifferent to him in Washington was that he had not completely proved himself worthy of assistance at the time.

Now, Grover believed that Yu Fei had great potential.

So, the day after Jordan experienced the most shameful night of his professional career, Grover accepted Yu Fei's invitation.

Yu Fei had no doubts about Grover's professionalism, but he still needed to know if he really still needed him.

After all, even without Grover, Lawson had done an excellent job.

"Tim, what do you think you can do for me now?" he asked.

"More than you can imagine," Grover said, "I know you train hard, but the people around you don't know what basketball players need the most. They just arrange your training in a formulaic way."

Yu Fei didn't understand such matters and could only listen.

"Give me a summer, and I'll take your body to an entirely different level."

Grover didn't use any scientific jargon that might sound impressive but unintelligible to Yu Fei, nor did he introduce any training methods.

What he displayed was absolute confidence.

Because he had an impressive track record.

Yu Fei didn't doubt Grover's training ability; in his past life, he had accidentally visited the latter's official website, which clearly stated Grover had provided professional training for Jordan, McGrady in 2000, Kobe in 2005, and Wade in 2008 - you know, after that, they all reached the peak of their athletic performance.

A good Trainer indeed can take a player to a whole new level.

Yu Fei asked, "When can you start working for me?"

Grover answered, "After the regular season ends."

Would he come directly to Milwaukee after the regular season ended? Wasn't that too heartless?

Yu Fei wasn't that "desperate." He didn't want to make things look too ugly and didn't want to put Grover in too difficult a position.

"No rush," Yu Fei said, "Before this season ends, you're still Michael's Trainer. It's better for both you and me that way; it's important to see things through properly."

If Grover joined Yu Fei's team right after the regular season ended, he would indeed face pressure from Jordan's side.

They were friends for many years, and with Jordan currently hating Yu Fei to the bone, if Grover switched to Yu Fei's camp, their friendship would end.

Leaving now would be a complete cut-off; leaving after the season would be drawing a clear line.

The outcomes might be the same, but the optics were different.

Grover breathed a sigh of relief.

And so it was settled, more smoothly than Yu Fei had expected.

In the afternoon, Yu Fei went through airport transfers and took a lot of time to get back to Milwaukee.

The reverberations of the Bucks vs Wizards game were still spreading, but Yu Fei no longer cared.

These were collateral damages, the backlash Jordan deserved after years of media manipulation.

The next day, Yu Fei returned to team training.

With five games left in the regular season, the Bucks had secured 59 victories and were first in the league, but their position was not stable.

The second-place Mavericks had 58 wins.

Since the Mavericks held a head-to-head record advantage over the Bucks, Milwaukee had to maintain at least a one-game lead to secure the top spot.

The Bucks' stance on rankings was to hold if possible, and since they had already clinched the top spot in the Eastern Conference, maintaining a top-three league record by the end of the season would mean reaching their goal.

Rather than focusing on the rankings, George Karl was more interested in testing his lineup in the last few games.

A day later, the Bucks faced the Knicks at home.

Karl believed that Kurt Thomas, the Knicks' starting power forward, posed no threat to Yu Fei, so he played Yu Fei in the power forward position.

During the game, Karl used Yu Fei as the Mavericks used Nowitzki. Find your next read on empire

Yu Fei's shooting performance against the Wizards had greatly surprised Karl, but against the Knicks, after battling inside, his shooting was somehow off.

He was supposed to be used like Nowitzki, but as the game went on, Karl realized that Yu Fei actually resembled Garnett more.

Switching defense, providing help defense, and particularly excelling at guarding bigger or smaller players, his back-to-basket game was a bit raw, but he had the explosive one-on-one play from the weak side and unstoppable fast-breaks that outperformed the original Garnett.

Playing power forward allowed Yu Fei to grab more defensive rebounds and increase the frequency of his fast breaks.

Through one game, Yu Fei racked up 26 points, 14 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 blocks, officially reaching a double-digit average for rebounds.

"As the only small forward in the entire league with a double-digit rebounding average, do you have any thoughts on that?"

"Please take this as a warning, small forwards should just grab six or seven rebounds per game; any more is overdoing it."

This game proved that if the opposing power forward isn't the strong type, Yu Fei can indeed play at the four.

Still, Karl wanted to see if Yu Fei could maintain shooting stability under high pressure.

However, this idea was dissuaded by Coach Ron Adams.

"We'll have plenty of time to test Frye's skills later on. Right now, the most important thing is to get the team ready for the upcoming playoffs."

Adams' advice hit home with Karl.

The experiment was halted, and for the next few games, the Bucks went into battle with their standard starting lineup.

Yu Fei's average rebound numbers decreased from 10 to 9.

The suspense of who would finish first in the league was quickly ended by the Mavericks themselves.

In their last five games, the Mavericks suffered consecutive losses; first getting thrashed by the Suns at home, and then playing a tough game against the savvy Jazz on the road, where John Stockton delivered the coup de grâce in the final half-minute.

Despite winning their next three games, the Mavericks' record stopped at 61 wins, whereas the Bucks, with four wins and one loss in their last five games, finished the season as the league leader with a record of 63 wins and 19 losses.

For the league, this was a revolutionary moment.

Since Jordan's retirement, Eastern Conference teams have often been at a disadvantage in playoff contention, a weakness that frequently manifested during the regular season.

Since the turn of the new century, the most anticipated team has been the Magic Team anchored by McGrady and Hill, widely regarded as the most talented Eastern Conference team since the '95 Magic.

However, a healthy Hill had become a mythic figure.

McGrady, struggling to carry the team alone, turned the "Ultimate Magic" into a mirage.

It seemed to be a curse.

In competitive sports, any team dubbed as "limitless in potential" inevitably met imaginable lows.

As an Eastern Conference team that rose abruptly, the Bucks increased their record from 40 victories to 63 after widely dismantling their Eastern Finals roster.

Yu Fei went from the Rookie of the Year to vying for Most Improved.

In his second professional season, with full attendance, Yu Fei averaged 26 points, 9.8 rebounds, 8.4 assists, 1 steal, and 1 block per game; not only covering his excellent rookie season performance completely but also becoming a super versatile player who led the team in three fundamental statistical categories – a rarity throughout history.

Now, the observers no longer compared Yu Fei to Magic Johnson.

Because, data-wise, a sophomore Magic Johnson, restrained by injuries and team tactics, was "no longer qualified" to be compared with Yu Fei on the same level.

Ambitious experts put Yu Fei on the ultimate all-around player template: Oscar Robertson and Larry Bird.

Their conclusion was that he couldn't surpass the sophomore The Big O with an average triple-double, and he had his strengths and weaknesses compared with Bird. But the sophomore Bird led his team to a championship; Yu had more work to do.

At the end of the regular season, the first-round playoff matchups were also revealed.

The Bucks, first in the Eastern Conference, would face the Magic Team, eighth in the East, in the first round.

This year's first round had a distinct difference from previous years as the league officially changed the format to a seven-game, four-win series.

Facing the Magic, a rapidly declining team with championship potential, Yu Fei harbored special feelings, as his first game as a starter with the Wizards was against the Magic.

This playoff encounter, the Magic were no longer the team of the future people once admired.

Tracy McGrady was also doomed not to have the chance to utter his famous line in this playoff series as in his past life.

However, someone would say it for him.

In the first game of the playoffs, McGrady played like a god, scoring 45 points alone, but apart from him, only one other player on the Magic scored in double-digits.

Though no Buck matched McGrady's offensive firepower, Yu Fei, Ray Allen, and Sprewell combined for 88 points, and the outcome was an expected loss for the Magic in the opening game.

In the second game, McGrady descended from the heavens once more, racking up 46 points, 5 rebounds, and 1 assist, but on the other side, Yu Fei's 30-point triple-double helped the team mount an unstoppable offensive.

The Bucks had six players score in double-digits, while McGrady was the only Magic player to do so.

In the following third game, McGrady was tired, no longer divine, and Yu Fei managed to contain him, outperforming his opponent with 29 points, 8 rebounds, and 6 assists.

The Magic's collapse was complete.

After the game, Yu Fei told the reporters, "I don't like the current first-round format."

"Why is that?"

"You know, if it were last year, we'd already have advanced to the second round."

━━━━━━━━━━━━━

"Is Jerry Krause's departure a signal of MJ's return?" — Chicago Tribune

"LeBron James rejects Reebok's one hundred million US Dollar offer and reaches an agreement with Nike." — Cleveland Beacon Journal

"Welcome to MVP Simulator Predictions. Based on performance, impact on the team, and feedback on and off the court, we believe that Frye Yu will defeat Tim Duncan and Jason Kidd to become the NBA's youngest regular-season MVP in history." — ESPN News Flash

"Hey, Frye, I married a fanatical sports fan. Actually, he's a super Jordan fan, and I have to hide the fact that I am your fan from him. Do you have any advice for me?" — Diane May, New York State, New York

"I don't have much to say, look forward to your call after your divorce."

"I curse you, you ungrateful bastard, MJ will never forgive what you did in D.C., you damned @￥#!@￥" — Dave V, Chicago, Englewood

"No offense, but each episode of our show always witnesses a magic moment from a MJ fanatic."

"Frye, while having sex with my wife, she always yells out your name at the most crucial moments, which really troubles me. Can you help me?" — Tom Bronk, Milwaukee, St. Francis

"Sure, these are my fans."

— Yu Fei Radio: "Conversations with the Chosen One"