Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

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 James and the current Yu Fei was too vast, comparing them was needless.

Even Nike stopped bundling Yu Fei’s promotion with James’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, James’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 American basketball great again.

In light of this, Nike could only lessen the pressure on James 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 James’s rise, they were even keener for the peak-performing Kobe to step up.

Unfortunately, James’s rise seemed unlikely at the moment, 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 James.

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

This allowed James 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 came 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 media 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.

James’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 James.

The real challenge lay off the court.

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

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

Not content with mediocrity, Newble decided to do something striking, much like the future George Hill who learned of the “Secret Technique: Astounding Kneel” by the Minnesota police against his African American 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 James, almost everyone else on the team signed their name on the letter.

This act quickly sparked international controversy, and James’s decision not to sign thrust him into a whirlwind of public discourse. For Americans, this was the moment James’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,” some 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 embodiment of America, 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 James began.

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

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

James had never thought “Frye Hell” would emerge here.

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

This type of negative public sentiment that could destroy his fan base in the United States led to some subtle thoughts within James’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 came the first game of the Eastern Conference semi-finals against the Pistons.

James played well throughout the game but was criticized for passing the ball when double-teamed at the last moment.

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