Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Sonny Vacarro and his assistant stood on the sidelines, Hubie Brown watched the court intently, and Jerry West, who had already retired from the Lakers Team, sat quietly not far away. Gary Smith from Sports Illustrated, NBA scouts, college coaches... Countless professionals were interested in the face-off between Yu Fei and Anthony.

There was no doubt that this game's level of interest had surpassed that of the duel between James and Telfair.

Because no matter how much potential these two underclassmen prodigies had, they were still sophomores, with a future full of uncertainty, while Yu Fei and Anthony were different. One had already established his status among his peers, and his match against DeAngelo Collins tomorrow would be decisive. The other was a new star who had emerged at ABCD Camp, seen as the second Tracy McGrady.

Before the camp, Anthony's reputation in the class of 2002 was only slightly better than McGrady's had been in 1997.

However, after yesterday's game, Anthony's strong immediate combat strength and mature skills, along with his young age, born in May 1984, left people seeing both power and potential.

By the end of the camp, Anthony would catapult into the top five high school players of the class of 2002 based on his performance at the camp, and many would debate whether he was better than Amar'e Stoudemire.

Anthony's center on the Ace Team was about seven feet tall and black; he had easily defeated Wilkins.

With ball in hand, Anthony showed his prowess on the first offense, pulling up and then stopping suddenly for a jump shot against Iguodala's defense.

"Swish!"

Yu Fei didn't comment on Anthony's ball handling, but just from his shooting form, he deserved the title of a "born scorer."

Being one with the ball is a broad concept that generally refers to ball-handling ability. But in reality, it includes many indicators.

Stability while dribbling, coordination with the ball, balance while moving with the ball in the air, and the smoothness with which the ball leaves the hands and is picked up from the ground.

The most outstanding aspect of Anthony's innate ball-handling talent was the way he picked up the ball from the ground and lifted it overhead.

It was so smooth it gave watchers the chills.

Iguodala was not one to admit defeat; through yesterday's game, he gained positive feedback, building his confidence—not just Anthony.

Helping Yu Fei, Iguodala likewise received appreciation from the scouts.

He didn't think Anthony was better than him; he wanted to clash with the opponent.

So, as Yu Fei dribbled past half-court, he eagerly gestured for the ball.

Yu Fei promptly passed it because, in his impression, Anthony's defense was poor.

What Yu Fei didn't know was that Anthony wasn't always bad at defense; his entanglement with Kobe in the 2009 Western Conference Finals revealed another side of him. Unfortunately, that bloodthirsty Melo only appeared for one series, and Yu Fei had never seen it, since he was only four years old at the time.

For Anthony, if he wanted to do something on the court, there was nothing he couldn't do.

The issue was that he didn't want to play defense well.

But that was a matter for the future. Now, he needed to make a name for himself, so he could not show weakness on the defensive end, not just the offensive one.

With Anthony's full effort on defense, Iguodala was forced to take a difficult shot that missed.

The rebound flew out, landing right where Yu Fei was positioned.

However, Yu Fei didn't catch the rebound. Instead, he lightly tapped the ball toward the basket, altering its flight path.

Will Wilkins received Yu Fei's exquisite pass and scored easily underneath.

"Will, you wouldn't dunk that kind of ball?" Yu Fei teased.

Wilkins replied helplessly, "Big Fei, do you think everyone can jump like you?"

Afterwards, Yu Fei gave Wilkins a high-five.

Whether it was his splendid pass or his response to a teammate's score, both left a profound impression.

Especially for Sonny Vacarro, who found a unique trait in Yu Fei.

NBA scouts and college coaches were engrossed by Anthony's versatility, but to him, while Anthony was excellent, even outstanding, he lacked a dazzling quality.

He was just a scorer.

What he's doing at his age isn't any different from what Paul Pierce, Antoine Walker, and Jamal Mashburn did.

Therefore, Sonny focused more on Yu Fei.

Because Anthony's growth curve was transparent and predictable, in the best case, he could become the next Bernard King, while Sonny preferred those players whose potential was hard to foresee.

Thus, he wanted to observe Yu Fei more carefully.

Yu Fei had an incredible growth rate, going from an amateur player to one of the top 20 high school prospects with NBA potential in just one year. Such a trajectory was simply not replicable; the key question was whether he could maintain that rate of progress. If so, what was his ceiling?

Anthony continued to perform well on the offensive end.

He noticed that many professionals in the basketball world were watching him.

He knew where his strengths lay—not in defense, but in offense.

Offense would be his bread and butter. As for defense? A minimal showing was enough; no one cares if a young player is good or bad at defense, much like no one really minds if a young player's physique isn't very strong.

After all, everyone has a growth curve. A teenager less than 16 years old who's as physically developed as an adult, like James, is a rare phenomenon that appears maybe once every twenty years. Even James's defense at this stage isn't great, so Anthony didn't place high demands on himself defensively. He just played a few minutes of serious defense at the start, and then realized that people preferred to see his offensive performance. So he relegated "serious defense" to the level of "casual defense."

However, the other main character of this game—Yu Fei—was putting most of his energy into defense.

Because Yu Fei was aware that there were many NBA scouts in attendance.

Showing off his offensive skills in front of them was meaningless—high school level skills were difficult to execute in the NBA. Every young player who wanted to secure a spot in the NBA needed to have a "grunt's" attributes.

Therefore, Yu Fei spared no effort in showcasing his help defense, switching, and guarding against point guards and small forwards—to let them see that even in the NBA, he could hold his ground with his defense.

Though Yu Fei wanted to keep a low profile, he had an opponent who insisted on challenging him.

This person was not Anthony but his teammate, Lenny Cooke—a high school junior from the class of 2002 like Anthony, who had been more renowned than Anthony before ABCD Camp began.

Cooke was currently ranked 12th nationwide for the class of 2002, but experts generally believed he would fall outside of the top 20 once the camp was over.

That's because Cooke had failed to perform well enough at ABCD Camp to improve his ranking, instead he ended up being a foil to James, who completely outclassed him on the court.

Then, his teammate Anthony, who had been playing possum, repeatedly crushed the seniors, becoming the eleventh-grade student who received the most attention at the camp. For Cooke, who was determined to skip the NCAA and enter the draft the following year, dismantling Yu Fei was one of the two remaining options to rebuild his reputation.

The other option was to defeat DeAngelo Collins, ranked fifth nationwide for the class of 2001, in the next game.

But the destructive inside force of the so-called 6-foot-9 Shaquille O'Neal made Cooke apprehensive; he was not confident he could beat him. Compared to that, Yu Fei, ranked 16th nationwide for the class of 2001, seemed harmless and perfect as a stepping stone.

"Hey, why do you keep passing? That's cowardly. Scouts don't care how good your passing is!" Cooke provoked Yu Fei. "But looking at you, I guess you're probably not good at offense either. I have no clue how you managed to get into the top 20 in the nation."

Following that, Anthony missed a pull-up jumper from outside, and Yu Fei firmly boxed out Lenny, unfairly landing a hard elbow on him. He immediately grabbed the defensive rebound and then said, "You're right, do you know why?"

After that, Yu Fei drove the ball to the frontcourt, stopped suddenly, backed dribbled to shake off an unguarded Anthony, and followed up with a powerful tomahawk dunk that deepened people's impression of his ball-handling ability.

"You dare to play dirty?!" Lenny cried out, holding his mouth.

Yu Fei ignored his anger, taunting, "If you can't defend even this, no wonder you got blown out by younger players."

Damn nuisance! There were too many people watching, so Cooke restrained himself from making racial attacks against Yu Fei, but that didn't stop him from losing control.

Cooke blocked Yu Fei with his body and shouted to Anthony, "Melo, give me the ball!"

Anthony made the pass, but he was skeptical about Cooke's chance of success on offense—just looking at Cooke's unstable center of gravity when asking for the ball made it obvious. That Frye was simply toying with him.

Yu Fei had the advantage in the matchup against Cooke, especially in terms of physical confrontation; he could have easily disrupted Anthony's pass, but he chose not to because if Cooke didn't receive the ball, he couldn't humiliate him on defense.

Cooke's self-assured pivot gave him the illusion that he had shaken off the defense.

But when he leaped to dunk, Yu Fei's defense loomed higher, decisively shutting down his attempt to score and swatting the ball out of bounds.

"Number 35 (Anthony) chose to team up with you for a reason," Yu Fei went to the side of the court, picked up the ball with one hand, and said cuttingly, "because you're weak, and you're just right as a backdrop to make him look good."