Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

The second day of the All-Star Weekend, Yu Fei got up early.

After breakfast, Yu Fei decided to stroll around the gym and then ran into Vince Carter, who was venting excess energy.

Seeing Yu Fei, Carter also set aside his training, and the two found a place to sit down and chat.

"If my trade had happened just a few months later, maybe we could have teamed up in Milwaukee," said Carter with a face full of regret.

Because the Brooklyn Nets had already entered into a rebuilding mode, Carter hadn't been traded to the Nets.

The team that got Carter was the Golden State Warriors.

The Warriors were a middle-of-the-pack team in the Western Conference, even swapping benchwarmers for Carter, they were only playoff material at best.

After all, the Western Conference is known as a fierce battleground, where achieving a 55% win rate might, at most, get you a touch at the playoffs.

Yu Fei felt a bit of regret as well.

In terms of style of play, Carter wasn't as compatible with him as Ray Allen.

But the two had partnered up in last year's All-Star game.

Yu Fei and Carter shared a tacit understanding, and though they weren't teammates, Carter's every move in Yu Fei's eyes wasn't just a simple physical action.

Yu Fei could tell from Carter's rhythm of movement whether he wanted the ball for a shot or was looking for an opportunity to attack the basket.

Such a telepathic kind of understanding was much rarer than a technical style fit.

But now, it was too late to say this.

Yu Fei said, "As long as we're both still playing, there will always be a chance."

"Are you confident about tonight's three-point contest?"

Carter suddenly asked.

"If you can get a few hot-bodied beauties to hold banners and support me, maybe I could take the championship," Yu Fei joked.

Carter laughed, "That's easy, I know a few cheerleaders in Denver..."

This made Yu Fei's expression wickedly amused. To think that Carter, with his thick eyebrows and big eyes, would get up to this behind the scenes, not even sparing the cheerleaders. Was this guy even human?

Yu Fei reminded him, "No petite ones."

Carter grinned, "Buddy, I got your message."

That evening, the Pepsi Center hosted the various individual competitions for the All-Star game.

In the three-point contest, Yu Fei noticed some familiar faces.

There were former teammates like Quentin Richardson, Joe Johnson who he had once tried out with for the Celtics, and then there was Ray Allen, who had recently been traded to the King Team. Apart from these three, the other two competitors were Kyle Korver from the 76ers and Rasho Nesterović from the Supersonics.

"Rey-ray, you're here to join in the fun too?"

Yu Fei greeted his old teammate.
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Ray Allen replied seriously, "Just for entertainment, what's wrong with that?"

Big Q boasted before the start of the contest, "I'm destined to win the three-point contest this year! It doesn't matter who else comes."

Yu Fei, indifferent, said, "Then I'll just congratulate you on winning in advance."

For the audience on site, the three-point contest was just an appetizer; what they were genuinely interested in was the slam dunk contest, which followed the conclusion of the three-point contest.

In a sense, the slam dunk contest was the most popular event of the All-Star Weekend, only this year Carter wasn't participating, James was sidelined with a smart ankle injury, and the notorious slam dunk king, Jason Richardson, outright blamed James. Richardson refused to participate in the slam dunk contest, stating that without a worthy opponent, namely James, he wouldn't compete.

So this year, there were no famous dunkers among the contestants.

Yu Fei looked around the stands and finally found Carter's position.

This scumbag who wouldn't even spare cheerleaders had indeed kept his word, bringing along three voluptuous women holding a banner for Yu Fei's slam dunk poster.

Yu Fei made a gesture of tapping his chest from afar to show his appreciation.

"You and Vince are close like that?" Ray Allen asked in surprise.

Yu Fei admitted candidly, "We really do get along."

Ray Allen looked at Yu Fei, then glanced at the distant Carter, and couldn't help but think of a saying—They were like two peas in a pod.

In terms of popularity, Carter was the Eastern Conference's top vote-getter, Yu Fei the second, but in terms of reputation, Carter was seen as a rat crossing the street in the fourth estate's eyes, with the Raptors trading him away like cutting off rotten flesh with no desire for anything in return, only hoping for his disappearance.

Yu Fei... actually, Yu Fei hadn't done anything terribly wrong, just thoroughly offended Jordan and Shaquille O'Neal, and not long ago he had targeted Los Angeles with sarcastic remarks, followed by getting involved in the Auburn Hills brawl, then tying his name with scum like Sprewell who choked fans, and now he was considering signing a SHORTEN 2+1 contract... Nothing serious, just actions that would lead Nike and Los Angeles media to thoroughly blacken his name, and then getting a touch of a reputation for violence on the court and poor judgement of character, and lastly the delusion to challenge the traditional operations of professional basketball, resulting in a backlash from across the industry.

Ray Allen suddenly felt the urge to stay further away from Yu Fei, lest he be caught in the crossfire.

Soon after, the three-point contest preliminaries began.

Kyle Korver, a favorite to win, was up first.

Yu Fei had always rued the Bucks' miss on drafting Korver.

Because at the start of the draft, he hadn't even considered this guy.

It was precisely because of the miss on drafting Korver that Yu Fei became extremely attentive to the draft, which led to his early discovery of Martin and Ariza this year.

However, Korver couldn't find the same touch from the Rookie Challenge the day before.

After one round, he scored only 14 points.

Unless everyone else underperformed, he was essentially out of the preliminaries.

What Yu Fei didn't expect was that the second home court's Joe Johnson turned out to be a heavy hitter, constantly bricking shots, making people wonder if he might break Jordan's embarrassing record in the three-point contest.

In the end, Joe Johnson furiously scored 8 points.

Yu Fei felt somewhat regretful. Although the score was bad enough, breaking Jordan's record was out of the question.

Then it was Yu Fei's turn to take the stage.

Yu Fei's performance was neither good nor bad, scoring 17 points, basically securing a spot in the finals.

After him was Teacher Q, just like Korver, racking up 14 points.

Next up was the heavyweight of the event, Rasho Nesterović, contributing 6 points, only one point shy from tying Jordan's record.

Then, Ray Allen's hot hand seemed to be contagious among the contestants, scoring a mere 13 points.

As a result, a certain Mr. Yu entered the finals in first place with a high score of 17 points.

Once in the finals, everyone's touch improved quite a bit, with Korver kicking things off with 18 points, followed by Big Q's 19 points, and then Ray Allen's 16 points.

Yu Fei was the last to play. At first, his shooting was off, but for some reason, the Pepsi Center suddenly erupted with boos.

Yu Fei, originally set on coasting through, suddenly got serious, shooting flawlessly from the last two racks, especially from the last corner, sinking all four shots, and, on the final money ball, he even hooked the ball in with an unconventional side-arm shot, eliciting boos mixed with gasps and cheers from the audience.

"Seeing that last shot, you know there's a reason the fans love Frye!"

During the award ceremony, when an ESPN reporter asked Yu Fei whether he would participate in the three-point contest next year, he playfully responded with a meme, "I'm 95% sure that I'm probably going to retire from the three-point contest."

The 95% certainty meme came after the Dream Team's crushing defeat in Athens, when Duncan, upon returning to the United States, showed his disillusionment with FIBA's ludicrous officiating by stating, "I'm 95% sure that my career with FIBA is over."

Yu Fei brought highlights to an otherwise dull three-point contest. The camera followed him to the sidelines where it was revealed that Carter had prepared a cheerleading squad for him. Yu Fei's big poster looked cool, and the girls holding the poster were all looking sexy and fiery.

Mike Breen commented, "The relationship between the NBA's two most controversial players is unexpectedly harmonious. Is this our good fortune, or misfortune?"

The following slam dunk contest had its moments for Fei, but they were few given that he had seen the epic battle between Zach LaVine and Aaron Gordon in 2016.

The highlight of the night was Nash heading the ball as an alley-oop pass to Stoudemire, brimming with creativity.

However, everyone guessed the star of the show wrong.

Because among the contestants was a guy named Birdman Andersen who proclaimed before his performance, "It's time for the Birdman to fly!"

Then, in front of twenty thousand people and a global audience, he continuously missed his shots, making the scene so awkwardly prolonged that Fei felt like he failed a million times (nine times), ultimately setting a record low in the history of the dunk contest with a total score of 69 points.

Even if Golden State's LaVine had competed, the outcome would have been the same.

Oh wait, Andersen is indeed a player for the Warriors, so this might truly be a legacy.

"This is why I don't compete anymore," Carter declared confidently. "Who were my competitors back then? Steve Francis, T-MAC. Who are these guys now? They're not even worth competing against!"

When it comes to dunks, Carter certainly had the authority to speak, and Yu Fei nodded in agreement.

After the next day's games ended, Yu Fei and Carter attended the Eastern All-Star's own private party, followed by another day full of events.

In that evening's All-Star game, everyone seemed very tired, and they weren't used to the League's new ball, which was directly reflected in the game.

Neither side had any interest in defense, nor did they exert much effort in offense. Thus, Yu Fei, coming off his three-point contest victory, had an excuse to recklessly shoot three-pointers from the outside, but he wasn't accurate.

The most interesting part was James, playing in his first All-Star game as if he was the boss of the Eastern All-Star Team.

"Switch places, Shaquille."

He even expected Shaquille O'Neal to switch on defense during an All-Star game.

Then pointing at Carter, he said, "You take Nash." And then, looking at Yu Fei, "Frye, you know Ray Allen the best here, you guard him."

"OK..."

Yu Fei responded languidly and then was breezed past by Ray Allen.

But Ray Allen was just coasting too, not driving to the lane after getting past his man, opting for a jump shot behind Yu Fei instead.

And he missed.

That was the ugly part of the game: virtually no defense, but both teams shot below 50%.

Kobe and O'Neal didn't talk throughout the game, and nothing exciting happened between them that would get the fans on their feet.

After throwing down a powerful dunk, James remembered he had just declined to participate in the dunk contest citing an ankle injury, so it wasn't wise to be too active in the All-Star game.

Shaq was the only one who tried to show off, at one point balancing the ball on one hand at the free-throw line while resting his other hand on his butt, but his clowning didn't last very long.

The most outrageous was Nowitzki, who inexplicably showed more interest in blocking shots that night.

Yeah, the worst defender on the floor was trying to make plays on defense.

Yu Fei, who entered sage mode after winning the three-point contest, coasted through the entire game.

The game had no entertainment value or competitiveness, so Iverson, who seemed more eager to win, became the game's MVP, leading the Eastern All-Star Team to defeat the more brick-laying Western All-Star Team.

Iverson also lifted the AMVP trophy.

After the game, reporters asked Yu Fei, "Why did you struggle so much on the court?"

Yu Fei replied, "I think it might be due to altitude sickness, and also, the new ball is terrible, nobody's used to it."

Altitude sickness was an excuse, but the new ball really was terrible.

Yet, when you play so poorly, whatever you say sounds like an excuse. This might have been the most unattractive All-Star game in history.

PS: I deleted about a thousand words in the end; that content is not suitable for uploading, see the skirt file.