Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

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Yu Fei spent his last night in Seattle at Brandon Roy's house.

It was initially Roy's invitation, as he was a Seattle local and the Nike regional invitation tournament was taking place in Northwest Seattle, right near his home.

After talking it over with Hank Sylvan, Yu Fei went home with Roy.

The main reason Yu Fei accepted Roy's invitation was that they got along well. Roy did not fit Yu Fei's stereotype of African Americans; he was humble, polite, considerate, and did not use regional slang or pepper his speech with "yo" or "what's up" constantly.

From this perspective, Roy's behavior was more akin to that of white people.

Due to the negative coverage of African Americans in his previous life's domestic news, Yu Fei had a bit of a stereotypical bias against them, even though he was friends with someone like Anthony Lawson, a pure African American. The impression hadn't dissipated.

This was where Roy was valuable; his personality matched Yu Fei's, and he lacked the African American traits Yu Fei disliked.

Then there were two secondary reasons. Roy was the only person in the camp that Yu Fei was certain could make it to the NBA in the future, and he was curious about what life was like for a future NBA all-star before becoming famous.

What he found was somewhat surprising.

Unlike the typical Hollywood rags-to-riches stories prevalent in the NBA, Roy's life was quite ordinary. His father, Tony, was a city bus driver outside the Seattle Metro Station, often leaving for work at 5 a.m. and returning home at 7 p.m. Roy's mother, Gina, worked at a cafeteria, frequently providing free lunches to kids who couldn't afford them.

By this measure, Roy was already winning much more than most African Americans—he at least had a father.

In this regard, even Yu Fei was losing out.

Roy's family wasn't wealthy, but they never struggled. The hardest times saw the family of six squeezed into a two-bedroom apartment or living in the grandmother's house on Beacon Hill. But Roy never felt his life lacked anything.

When Roy asked about Yu Fei's family, Yu Fei simply responded, "I live with my mom. Um, I don't feel I'm missing out on anything."

Roy didn't ask about Yu Fei's dad because Yu Fei didn't mention him.

Normally, there are only a few situations in which a dad would be missing from this scenario.

A, He's dead, for whatever reason.

B, He's divorced from his wife and doesn't care about the family.

C, He's an irresponsible piece of human trash.

Roy steered away from topics that would make both him and Yu Fei uncomfortable, and after dinner, they sat in the room and launched into a heated debate about the Greatest of All Time.

As a lifelong Seattleite, Roy had been a Supersonics fan since he was a child and didn't like Jordan.

So, he directly cursed Jordan's stint as a Wizards GM: "I can say with certainty that MJ has already failed halfway in Washington!"

Yu Fei, eating the snacks Roy's mother had sent over, smiled and asked, "How so?"

At that moment, Roy's face displayed one of the most complex expressions Yu Fei had ever seen. There was a sense of Schadenfreude over Jordan's impending failure, a fleeting review of painful memories, and a wariness of Jordan's dominance.

The mix of emotions crafted Roy's expression at that moment; he tried to laugh but couldn't quite do it, and he tried to make a bold prediction but lacked the confidence.

"Because he has never lost before!" Roy's statement was more philosophical than predictive.

Yu Fei didn't want to play the prophet, so he said, "But he's the biggest asshole of all time, you can't underestimate him."

"Exactly, he's the most detestable asshole of all time!" Roy's words and expressions were filled with the kind of wariness encountered by those who had been dominated by Jordan.

"Whenever you think he's gone as far as he can go, he rises to an even greater level of asshole!"

True, but to be fair, although the '96 Supersonics had no chance of winning the series against the Bulls, they did manage to turn Jordan into Kobe through Ron Harper's "X-rated defense." That was the championship Jordan relied on his teammates the most. The Bulls, having seized the match point early, were overturned two games in a row by the Supersonics, yet this incidentally led to the storybook ending of Jordan's Father's Day championship victory.

In later years, the media tended to hype up the narrative that "Jordan deliberately lost two games to set up the Father's Day championship," by then the Supersonics fans were numb and unreactive. Their team had been stolen from them after 2008.

With the team gone, what was the point of revisiting the past?

The part about Jordan that Roy hated the most was this. Jordan's team had overhyped the Father's Day championship win to the point that the poster of Jordan clutching a basketball while mourning his deceased father in the locker room was extremely popular for a while.

"Have you seen that poster? It's the most shameless piece of hype I've ever seen! Anyone with insight could tell that the shoes under Michael's feet were brand-new; he was totally selling his shoes!"

Hmm... Yu Fei admired Roy's insight, much like he admired those who noticed that LeBron only read the introduction of books every time he was photographed reading.

But this alone couldn't prove that the GOAT was using his deceased father to sell shoes, right? Unless something as dubious as LeBron's afterthoughts on Malcolm X's autobiography occurred⑴.

After the fierce critique of Jordan, Roy talked about his plans for the future.

He planned to continue playing in AAU games with the Five Tigers Team.

Moreover, Roy also invited Yu Fei to join the Five Tigers Team.

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It was clear that this had been Roy's initial plan.

In terms of skill, Roy definitely belonged to the top tier of high school basketball players, but their frontcourt lacked dominance. If Yu Fei could join, then the strength of the Five Tigers Team would undergo a qualitative change; they could even hold their own in those fiercely competitive AAU tournaments in California.

"Thank you for the invitation, Brandon, but I must decline," Yu Fei said, having finished the pastries made by Roy's mother by himself. "Because I have other plans afterward."

Roy continued to persuade, "Fulai, you've just made a name for yourself and need to keep building on it through AAU tournaments. Otherwise, I can guarantee that in less than half a month, people will forget about you."

Yu Fei believed in the hype power of the AAU, but he did not need it now.

The goal of participating in the Nike regional invitational had been fully achieved; through this competition, at least, Yu Fei's status as a top high school player in the State of Washington had been established.

In the following months, although there would be AAU tournaments everywhere, aside from increasing Yu Fei's college offers and improving his high school ranking, they would not be of any other help.

Going to college had always been Yu Fei's backup choice.

His goal was to go straight from high school to the NBA.

The halo of "top high school player in the State of Washington" was a ticket for him.

A ticket to the status of a top high school player nationwide.

If he could become one of the top high school players in the country by the following year, he would have the qualifications to skip college, register for the 2001 draft, and be selected in the first round by an NBA team.

Before that, Yu Fei needed to continue his internal training.

His physical fitness problems had yet to be completely resolved, his fundamentals in the paint needed further consolidation, and shooting was the weak point he would focus on for his senior season.

With so many weaknesses to address, a multitude of games was not beneficial for Yu Fei at the moment.

Roy, unable to convince Yu Fei, sighed and couldn't help feeling regretful.

But after all, it was a matter of personal will, and could not be forced.

Then, Roy brought up another matter, "Fulai, have you heard of the ABCD Camp?"

Yu Fei looked puzzled.

"It's the best training camp in the country," explained Roy. "KG, Kobe, Tracy McGrady—all became famous there."

Yu Fei asked, "Have you participated?"

"I was invited this year, but I didn't dare to go..." said Roy with a look of regret. "I wasn't in good form at the time. But next year, I definitely want to go. If I perform well at the ABCD Camp, maybe I'll go straight to the NBA draft after high school."

Yu Fei had not expected Roy to have such a plan.

He had always thought of Roy as someone who would dutifully go to college; to think that Roy also contemplated skipping college?

Is that something you should be contemplating?

"Don't you want to go to college?"

Yu Fei asked.

"Of course, I do,"

Roy answered.

"Yet you still want to skip college and go straight to the NBA draft?"

"The premise of going to college is to have a college to go to..." Roy turned into a pessimist. "If I have a 10% chance of making it to the NBA directly from high school, then my chances of getting into college are zero."

Although there were differences between the Chinese and American curricula, after transmigrating, Yu Fei quickly adapted to the high school courses and could be said to have managed both training and study without dropping the ball. He could not believe that Roy's reason for not being able to go to college was insufficient grades.

Despite wanting to laugh, seeing as he had enjoyed the pastries made by Roy's mother, Yu Fei held back and said, "Hmm... Brandon, I'm sorry to hear that."

⑴ "Uh, I started reading about a few days ago, and over these years, I read a lot of books. This is the first time I've read this book from beginning to end. Uh, Malcom was a very... a very intelligent man, extremely, extremely, extremely smart. In fact, uh, the things he said and did in the '60s, what happened in that era, it's still happening now. He also let me know how powerful black people can be; our power is strong, but we need to unite, present a united front, because there will always be challenges, and challenges will weaken us, make us feel that black people are not kings and queens, he is a person of powerful thought."—LeBron James' reflections after reading the autobiography of Malcom X⑵.

⑵ A podcaster asked Richard Jefferson, "Richard, does LeBron really like reading books in the locker room?"

Jefferson replied, "Honestly, he just likes scribbling on them⑶."

⑶ I think this is the only explanation for why he read a book and came up with such a jumbled reflection.

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