Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters Chapter 495: 342: I Have Decided (Two in One)

Chapter 495: Chapter 342: I Have Decided (Two in One)

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(Two-In-One)

This season, the League had reduced the amount of promotion and marketing surrounding the “Two Giants.”

Because the gap in honors between Jas and the current Yu Fei was too vast, comparing them was needless.

Even Nike stopped bundling Yu Fei’s promotion with Jas’s because no matter how grand they made the fanfare, the benefits would go to the victor.

2006 was Yu Fei’s year.

He secured an average triple-double, snatched the championship, and his reputation soared, with only one blemish: he didn’t play for the national team. Ironically, Jas’s only chance at overturning public opinion with the national team play unexpectedly lost to Greece, leading fans to see Yu Fei as a savior.

They hoped Yu Fei would make Arican basketball great again.

In light of this, Nike could only lessen the pressure on Jas and pushed its top athlete, Tiger Woods, to offset the impact of Yu Fei. However, Yu Fei and Woods’s professional fields were different, and Woods’s impact was far from the shock Yu Fei’s Reebok had in basketball.

Therefore, Nike now not only wished for Jas’s rise, they were even keener for the peak-performing Kobe to step up.

Unfortunately, Jas’s rise seed unlikely at the mont, and Kobe’s Lakers had just been pretending to build a championship team around him for the past few years without actually doing anything.

The “Two Giants” promotions decreased, and Nike’s reduced marketing efforts alleviated the pressure faced by Jas.

There was a ti when “Frye Hell” had vanished from his life.

This allowed Jas to play with less burden, averaging 27 8 8⑴ in statistics and leading the Cavaliers to a 51-31 record, third in the Eastern Conference. They defeated the Wizards in the first round, then ca to the semi-finals, where they unexpectedly encountered the toughest stone of the East.

⑴The data is slightly improved from real-life statistics.

Before the series began, mainstream dia and experts largely believed the Cavaliers couldn’t break through the Detroit Pistons’ defense.

The composition of the Cavaliers’ roster was not as good as that of the Bucks.

Jas’s technical characteristics were also not as seemingly tailor-made to tackle the Iron Bucket Formation as Yu Fei’s.

Yet the challenges on the court were only part of what troubled Jas.

The real challenge lay off the court.

After the playoffs started, the damn Darfur issue exploded within the Cavaliers.

The Cavaliers had a veteran nad Ira Newble who, looking at his NBA career, was pretty much diocre. If things progressed normally, he would be naturally phased out by the NBA in a few years, a common replacent of old with new in professional sports. By then, no one would rember his na.

Not content with diocrity, Newble decided to do sothing striking, much like the future George Hill who learned of the “Secret Technique: Astounding Kneel” by the Minnesota police against his African Arican brethren and, in a rage, called for a boycott. However, what Newble did had a far more profound impact than the fervor Hill expressed.

Even though he didn’t know where Darfur was on the map, Newble decidedly wrote a letter to Congress and hoped his Cavaliers teammates would sign it.

Except for Jas, almost everyone else on the team signed their na on the letter.

This act quickly sparked international controversy, and Jas’s decision not to sign thrust him into a whirlwind of public discourse. For Aricans, this was the mont Jas’s perfect gentleman image began to collapse. Since his debut, the “Little Emperor” had been an exemplary idol, a clear distinction from Big Fei.

When Big Fei refused to get involved with the Darfur issue saying “Chinese people also buy shoes” and “I have no conscience,” so raged, but more understood because that’s how Big Fei was. People are complex; Big Fei could organize charity matches to help the needy during the offseason or serve as a Prohibition Ambassador in D.C., but he could also ignore the so-called racial genocide for personal gain.

But what about LeBron? He was the embodint of Arica, the perfect gentleman who never erred. He should have signed that letter based on the values and spirit of “Give The World a Little Love,” even if it cost him the Chinese market.

All of a sudden, a trial about Jas began.

In the following days, one outlet after another—NPR, Fox, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe—published comntaries. The Brookings Institution and other foreign policy analysts speculated on his motivations. For the first ti in his life, Jas was seen through a political lens, and in his career, he seed caught off guard for the first ti.

So NBA players, who requested anonymity, said: “Compared to the self-interested Frye, I fear the hypocrite LeBron more.”

Jas had never thought “Frye Hell” would erge here.

Moreover, people were getting fed up with his indecision because they saw Frye’s behavior as “real.”

This type of negative public sentint that could destroy his fan base in the United States led to so subtle thoughts within Jas’s camp.

Maybe LeBron should sign the letter.

It was just a signature, after all, with probably no serious consequences.

At the very least, doing so could consolidate his image and distinguish him from extremists like Fei, who were selfish.

Then ca the first ga of the Eastern Conference semi-finals against the Pistons.

Jas played well throughout the ga but was criticized for passing the ball when double-tead at the last mont.

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