Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

Before the intensive training began, Aidan Strong, the Trainer Yu Fei had hired, suggested focusing on a healthy diet.

"If you want to be an outstanding player, you should reject all carbonated drinks, fried foods, and red meat."

Yu Fei's question was, "What if I don't reject them?"

"Then it will be difficult to sculpt a perfect body through training, and once you reach a certain age, you will show a more evident decline than your peers."

"At what age?"

"Around 30," Strong said, "Aside from Karl Malone, no one in the history of the NBA has maintained a top level of performance after turning 35, and that's closely related to Karl's monastic lifestyle."

Given that, Yu Fei decided to obey and avoid these foods as much as possible, but a complete abstinence was out of the question— he was not the kind of self-disciplined freak that Karl Malone was.

From late July to early September, Yu Fei stayed in a comprehensive sports hall in a wealthy neighborhood of Washington D.C., where other athletes were training too, but none as fiercely as him.

Yu Fei trained three times a day.

In the morning, he had 3 hours of on-the-ball training; in the afternoon, 2 hours of strength training; and in the evening, he continued with on-the-ball training.

Even the much-criticized "three obediences and four virtues" of Chinese sports were not this intense.

On the team's side, the management entered a period of calm after the draft had ended.

Last season, Jordan made some aggressive moves, like trading away the high-salary and low-performance Juwan Howard and Rod Strickland, but the Wizards still fell into the lottery and secured the number-one draft pick.

The strongest player on the team at the moment was Richard Hamilton, followed by Christian Laettner, who was acquired in the trade involving Juwan Howard.

But no matter how bad Howard was, he was still not comparable to the current Laettner.

The existing roster lacked competitiveness, so were they expecting two high-school rookies to immediately realize their potential upon joining the league?

Or did Jordan have confidence in his own performance after coming back?

Nobody knew why, but after the draft, the Wizards only made one move— signing Tyronn Lue for the minimum salary.

Jordan disappeared after the draft convention ended.

The outside world had no idea what he was doing, whether he would come back, whether the two broken ribs caused by Artest had changed his comeback plans.

The answer was no.

Breaking two ribs did not extinguish Jordan's desire to return; instead, it gave him an urgent sense that time was not on his side.

Even before the injury caused by Artest, Jordan had been secretly training for three months. The collision forced him to rest for a month.

For someone with a three-year hiatus, training for three months and then resting for one means that the three months of training were wasted.

Just because Hisashi Mitsui could return to top form as a shooter after wasting two years in high school does not mean that the nearly 38-year-old Jordan could regain his former level of performance with just three months of training after three years of retirement.

Once his rib injury had healed, Jordan increased the intensity of his training.

Tim Grover, the veteran Trainer who had long cooperated with Jordan, realized that training at such high intensity brought many risks.

"Mike, I know you're in a hurry, but now is not the time to rush. The harder you push, the more your body will suffer. If you get tendinitis..."

Jordan didn't want to heed the advice, "Don't worry about those."

Grover had been working with Jordan for 12 years; their relationship had long since transcended that of a typical employer and employee. When Jordan was frustrated by the Detroit Pistons, Grover introduced the famous "Breakfast Club" program to help him put on muscle. In ending the reign of the Pistons, Grover was one of the most indirectly contributive individuals. Their relationship was so close that Grover could even offer direct criticism to Jordan's face—believe me, there are fewer than a handful of people on this planet who have that privilege.

Now, Grover found himself in an awkward position as he struggled with how to persuade Icarus not to fly too high.

By September, two months of grueling training had restored some of Jordan's strength and fitness from his playing days, but his health risks had unfortunately been confirmed by Grover.

Around mid-August, Jordan's knees developed tendinitis.

Thus, Grover revealed a bit of news to the outside world and expressed his opinion, "I don't think Mike will return next season."

This made the reporters think Jordan's comeback plan had gone down the drain.

This infuriated Jordan, and he had his spokesperson declare to the public that his knee encountered a slight problem, and while it was uncertain if he would make a comeback, if he did, it would be purely out of love for basketball.

Grover seldom had moments when he completely misunderstood Jordan.

In his view, tendonitis had already blocked Jordan's path to a comeback. It was an injury that required rest, and that was precisely Jordan's dilemma. If he rested, the intense training of the past two-plus months would have been for nothing. If he didn't rest, the tendonitis would only get worse, sooner or later leading to even more severe injuries.

Even if it was Jordan's destiny to get through a season with tendonitis without a major injury, could you really play well at nearly 40 years old with an uncomfortable knee?

Reporters who loved to kiss up to Jordan repeatedly quoted the spokesperson's words, hyping up Jordan's love for basketball, as if the fans didn't know this was someone who had left basketball at the peak of his career, not once but twice.

He didn't love basketball that much, at least not as much as he claimed.

What did he love? The lofty status as the only deity of the United States sports world. He once thought that what he sought was to direct from his office comfortably after retirement, but now he realized that the control and satisfaction he had sitting in the office couldn't hold a candle to the Michael Jordan who ran around on the court.

This is the difference between longing for someone and returning to someone's side. For Jordan, being the president of the Wizards Team didn't provide half the joy that being a player did.

Jordan's assistant, Rod Higgins, consoled Grover with these words, "As long as Mike overcomes this hurdle, everything will get better. There's nothing better than him returning to the court."

Grover gave a bitter smile. He felt a sense of loss, like watching the Titanic set out to sea.

Loss is a bad word in Jordan's camp; it carries a hollow image, implying a certain desperation. In contrast, Jordan and his PR team talked about his love—"love for basketball." That sounded much more pleasant, as if he was responding to a call rather than fleeing the emptiness of an office. Love lent a professional halo to his return, tinged with just a slight addiction—he referred to it as a craving that needed to be satisfied.

The pain of tendonitis gradually exceeded what a player could tolerate, and Jordan reluctantly heeded Grover's advice to slightly reduce the intensity of his training.

Then, in late September, Jordan's agent David Falk announced to the world through a simple press release: The man was coming back, again!

Think about the earthquake in the esports world when UZI made his comeback to Team EDG, and this was Jordan, the genuine Greatest Of All Time. His second return was bestowed with noble value—to give Americans, who had experienced the 9/11 attacks, the courage to face life again.

This is a god.

He still stands at the highest place, looking down on all beings, and anything he does sparks wild fantasies—as long as you don't carelessly remember that he's nearly 40, you'd be filled with anticipation.

On September 23, Jordan sold his share of the Wizards Team, stepped down as president, and signed a contract with the team.

At this time, the Wizards' management and coaching staff were preparing for the upcoming preseason training camp in Wilmington, North Carolina.

As news of Jordan's comeback spread, Susan O'Malley, in charge of the team's marketing and business partnerships, flew back to D.C. immediately. At the time, Jordan was training at the Verizon Center in his practice jersey.

O'Malley spoke to Jordan in an irrefutable tone just as he had stepped down as president, "Michael, we need to hold a large press conference. There are a lot of events, and the 'Jordan return' gimmick will certainly..."

"I'll handle the press conference myself," Jordan said with an indifferent tone, "and as for promoting the team, no, I've done enough."

O'Malley frowned and wasn't ready to back down, "Every player has a responsibility to promote the team."

Jordan felt it was enough that he had let the Wizards use his name and image for marketing promotions without charging a penny. He thought the team shouldn't expect more, but O'Malley didn't see it that way.

That's right, the eyes of this 40-year-old, single, blonde white woman saw nothing but making money for Pollin, that dwarf. Apart from this, she didn't care about anything else.

"Listen, I'm going to say this one last time, I don't want to do any of that bullshit!" Jordan raised his voice, "I am making a comeback, and that's the best advertisement you could ask for. You just need to seize that, and I won't do anything beyond it. I won't lie to the people of Washington D.C. under your arrangements about achieving great things in the new season. You know how bad we were last season. If we make a fuss with promotions and then perform miserably in the new season, what will the people who came to watch the games because of those promotions think? They will think I'm a liar! I'm telling you, as soon as we start winning games, people will buy those unattractive products you sell without any promotions, and every home game will be sold out!"

At that moment, Susan O'Malley faced reality.

Jordan was not an employee as she perceived, and in Jordan's view, he wasn't an employee; he was a collaborator with Pollin.

Pollin wanted O'Malley to force Jordan to do some extra work with her capabilities to help the team, but Jordan would define for himself the scope of his collaborative work. He wouldn't do anything beyond that boundary.

O'Malley left the court with a dark expression, and when she got to the corridor, she furiously knocked over a trash can.

Then, the assistant quickly followed her, not saying much, only offering a backup plan, "Maybe someone else could host today's event."

"Who?"

"Frye," the assistant suggested, "He's unexpectedly popular in D.C."

(1) Icarus is the son of Daedalus in Greek mythology. He escaped from Crete with wings made of wax and feathers constructed by Daedalus. Flying too close to the sun melted the wax on his wings, leading to his fall into the sea and death. He was buried on an island.