Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters Chapter 1160: Afterword

Chapter 1160: Afterword

After the 2018 NBA Finals, Yu Fei, holding twelve championship rings, announced his retirent following the end of the ga, closing the chapter on his seventeen-year-long career.

Seventeen years, that’s a long stretch of ti, yet after all that ti, Yu Fei was only 35 and a half years old.

For many people, he could’ve played another four or five years.

Had he been willing, he would have been not only the tallest mountain in the NBA but also its longest river.

However, this ti, the one who always fulfilled the fans’ expectations did not go along with them.

Clippers owner Steve Ballr posted a screenshot on his Twitter, which was an exchange of ssages with Yu Fei.

“Frye, I think you could play until 40, retiring now is just too early!”

This was Ballr’s persuasion.

Yu Fei replied: “I have devoted the best 20 years of my life to basketball, for the ga I love, Steve, I have had enough.”

The Greatest of All Ti’s journey thus ca to a halt in 2018.

Seventeen years, an accumulation of over 37,000 total points and 10,000 rebounds with 10,000 assists, twelve championships, twelve tis selected as FMVP, eight tis selected as MVP…

This season is not only one of farewells but also of nostalgia.

Countless people have shared their beautiful mories of Yu Fei on social dia.

And Yu Fei, it seems, was already ready to move on to the next chapter of his life.

He didn’t beco an actual GM as people thought he would after serving as the Clippers’ Player GM.

He did not stay in professional basketball.

His next step was Hollywood.

He appeared in various movies, and although his acting was frequently criticized, any movie he was in always did well at the box office.

It seems the NBA has also entered a brand-new era.

An era without the GOAT.

This ans opportunity.

Why? Except for the lockout year of 2012, Yu Fei had won twelve of the past sixteen championships.

He virtually overshadowed an entire generation, causing stars of the post-Jordan era to pale in comparison and making the platinum class of 2003, led by Jas, repeatedly co up short.

Now, they finally saw the day.

Yu Fei had retired, leaving only his legends in the basketball world.

That’s good, a truly great figure should live on in legends.

Although the Clippers no longer have Yu Fei, it does not stop them from targeting a five-peat in the new season.

“Does Frye’s retirent an he has no influence on the team?” Rivers said, “I don’t think so, he profoundly impacts everyone on the team, Giannis wants to take over his baton, he’s ready, just wait and see!”

Indeed, it was a transformative season for both Antetokounmpo and Jokić.

The two unicorns in possession of great power began to venture into entirely new realms.

Most unexpectedly, Pascal Siakam, selected by the Clippers in 2016, rapidly improved and beca a starter for the team in his third season.

Just when people thought that without Yu Fei the Clippers would face trendous organizational pressure, Jokić stepped up with an average of 9 assists per ga as a center, completely compensating for the team’s lack of a point guard.

So, Antetokounmpo’s rise to stardom beca unstoppable, leading the team with an average of 27 points, 9 rebounds, and 6 assists to a 70-win season and being nad MVP.

In the subsequent 2019 NBA Finals, the Clippers once again faced their old rivals, the Miami Heat.

They believed that this was their best chance to defeat the Clippers and win the championship.

However, the growth of Antetokounmpo and Jokić, Thompson’s outside shooting, and Siakam’s progress as a third-year player completely exceeded the expectations of the Miami Heat.

The Clippers defeated the Miami Heat with a safe 4-1 series score to accomplish the impossible five-peat.

But the perfect season that should have belonged to Antetokounmpo did not have a perfect ending.

In the selection for FMVP, Jokić, with his 22 points, 13 rebounds, and 11 assists per finals ga, outperford Antetokounmpo to be nad FMVP.

In Yu Fei’s first retirent season, the two successors he had chosen each took ho MVP and FMVP, which seed like the best way to pass the torch.

But for Antetokounmpo, it was not the best outco.

The GOAT never let the FMVP slip by.

Perhaps soone might use the odious “viewer fatigue” as an excuse to snatch the GOAT’s MVP, but never has a teammate taken the GOAT’s FMVP.

FMVP is a peculiar award; its value is locked into a seven-ga series because this round of playoffs determines the success or failure of the season, and hence its importance keeps getting inflated.

The winner who owns it is the true champion; otherwise, the rit of the leader is questioned.

Fortunately, in an era dominated by Yu Fei, Iguodala did not cheapen the award like in the main tiline with a heist-level FMVP theft because what he stole was Curry’s FMVP.

How could soone whose influence on the sport far exceeds all 21st-century basketball stars combined have the FMVP taken away by a teammate at his peak? If it wasn’t a problem with Curry, then it had to be a problem with the award itself.

Thanks to Yu Fei’s dominion, this did not happen.

The prestige of FMVP has not diminished, and the world has forgotten that decades ago, a Celtic nad Cedric Maxwell snatched Larry Bird’s FMVP, and even further back, Wes Unseld with 9 points, 11 rebounds, and 3 assists in the finals took the FMVP from Elvin Hayes, who averaged 20 points and 12 rebounds.

Moreover, Jokić’s statistics indeed looked the part.

The mont Adam Silver announced the FMVP winner, one could see Antetokounmpo’s face visibly turn red with the naked eye.