Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

The 2003 Draft came to a successful conclusion, and oddly enough, the most widely circulated photo, aside from the one with all the rookies, was of Yu Fei posing with various other rookies.

When Yu Fei took a photo with James, he gave a thumbs up, then, with Wade, he flashed a "2", and by Anthony's side, his gesture was a "3".

It seemed like he was using his own way to rank these rookies.

The Bucks smoothly used their first-round 29th and second-round 29th picks to select Zaza Pachulia and Udonis Haslem, respectively.

The day after the draft ended, predictably, something unpredictable happened.

Every year, ESPN's Bill Simmons writes a "Draft Diary" to express his views on the draft. This is his signature series of articles. Last year, he infuriated Yu Fei with his demeaning comments and uncomfortable jokes about Yao Ming.

This led to a year of back-and-forth sniping between them.

Of course, Simmons is a true fan; he admitted his misjudgment of Yao Ming when his friends thought Detroit would regret missing out on Anthony with the second pick.

In his article, he reflected on his mistake from last year: "I really thought my friends were smarter than Joe Dumars; any basketball fan could have made a better choice than him. Then again, I'm the same person who once wrote, 'Years from now, we'll remember 'Yao Ming over Jay Williams' just as we remember 'Bowie over Jordan,' 'Traylor over Nowitzki,' 'Carroll over McHale and Parish,' 'Aguirre over Thomas,' and all the other great draft day blunders in NBA history.' The lesson, as always: I am an idiot."

Yu Fei's impression of Simmons improved slightly because of this.

But a person who likes to offend others, like those jerks who think stand-up comedy is an art of offense, always repeats the same mistakes.

During LeBron's high school top draft pick moment, commentator Mike Dirick said, "LeBron and his mother Gloria live together. Gloria has made many sacrifices. She had LeBron at the age of 16 and survived on welfare and food stamps, and now they're here, life will be completely different for them, it's a great American story."

Simmons' critique was, "What about those parents who support each other, work hard, raise their children, and send them to school? Since when did winning the DNA lottery through unprotected X and becoming pregnant become a sacrifice?"

Yu Fei's initial reaction was: Well written.

Then, he got angry, how dare he talk about my little brother's mom like that?

When LeBron's camp lambasted Simmons' article, Yu Fei also shared his opinion: "I think BS never learns his lesson. There are some things you just can't joke about, just like I really hate BS, but I would never make jokes about Len Bias, Reggie Lewis, and the Baby Curse."

The questioner reminded him, "You did mention those things..."

"Oh, that..." Yu Fei said seriously, "I was just wondering if Boston sports have suffered so many tragedies because they have too many people like BS around."

This action reinforced the impression that "LeBron is my little brother".

Is there a more reliable big brother than Big Fei? He comes to your defense the moment you're bullied; what more could you ask for?

LeBron was unaffected by the off-court drama; to him, it was just a small matter.

A week later, he was off to New York to vacation with Jay-Z.

Yu Fei also had other matters to attend to.

Right after the draft ended, he was greeted with a busy summer schedule.

First up in July, Yu Fei had to restart negotiations with Reebok.

As Reebok's biggest star athlete, he was currently earning a $3 million endorsement fee per year, which was obviously not commensurate with his value.

They needed to renegotiate.

If all went well, Yu Fei would then shoot commercials for the third generation of "The Chosen One" and record his first personal documentary.

If he could wrap up these activities in a month, he planned to expand his influence in Asia, just like he did the previous year.

It seemed like he had almost no time to practice basketball.

But Yu Fei already had a plan for that.

No matter what activity he was doing or what country he was in, his requirement was to have at least three to four hours of training time every day.

For NBA teams, the battle among the management was officially beginning.

This year belonged to a major free agency market, with numerous expiring contracts of All-Star players.

The most-watched undoubtedly was Jason Kidd, the league's best point guard for the past several years.

He had been flirting with the Spurs for a year, and now, with David Robinson officially retired, the Spurs had the most salary cap space among the contenders, allowing them to sign Kidd outright.

For Kidd, it was merely a simple choice to leave behind the immature Kenyon Martin and the aging Dikembe Mutombo.

In his previous life, although Kidd took that step, he quickly retracted.

If he joined the Spurs, it wasn't just a simple move from a 49-win Eastern team to a 60-win Western team.

It was the best player from the previous season's runners-up team, who believed he could not win the championship alone, deciding to join the team that had just defeated him in the Finals. At the same time, it was the runner-up for the 2001-02 season MVP joining the MVP winner, creating a super team.

Do you know what Durant, as the top defector, needs to do to surpass this in the future?

After losing to James in 2012, request a trade and designate Miami Heat as his next team.

Besides this, there's nothing more nauseating, shameless, or dreadful "admission of defeat" to be found in modern NBA.

Now, everything is different.

Duncan and Kidd, aside from an MVP rivalry, have no grievances. Duncan hasn't defeated Kidd in the finals, and he was even beaten by Yu Fei. The Spurs aren't even the reigning champions, while the Nets' internal potential has been depleted.

Kidd is well aware that staying in New Jersey, apart from maintaining a good reputation, won't get him anything else.

But what if he joins the Spurs?

Duncan alone is far more valuable than Martin and Mutombo combined, not to mention that the Spurs have the entire runner-up lineup—even though David Robinson has retired, he was no longer a decisive player.

Once desire overcomes conviction and there's little influence from public opinion, many things become natural.

On July 2nd, ESPN broke the news, "Jason Kidd plans to sign with the San Antonio Spurs!"

Also from ESPN, Marc Stein wrote an impromptu column: "The question now is, which Eastern Conference team can pose even a slight challenge to Milwaukee next season?"

Bill Walton, seemingly worried about not enough pressure on the Eastern teams, wrote in his column, "In addition to Jason Kidd, there are many impactful big men entering free agency this year. If the Bucks can sign one of them, their biggest weakness will no longer be a weakness."

Walton is right.

Aside from Kidd, the free agents include Jermaine O'Neal, P.J. Brown, Brad Miller, Karl Malone, Juwan Howard, and Alonzo Mourning.

The Bucks are interested in Brown, Malone, and Mourning.

Brown is the best choice, being a super blue-collar center grounded in defense and rebounding, his arrival would make the Bucks flawless.

But Brown is still young. He's not at the age to forsake money for a championship, so when he asked the Bucks for a lucrative, long-term contract, the defending champions could only decline.

Next is Malone. Last season, he could still average 20+9 with the Jazz; his abilities are not to be underestimated.

However, Malone, although coveting a championship, prefers the Lakers because he dislikes Yu Fei.

"Frye is the most influential player in the entire league, who wouldn't want to play with him?"

"I wouldn't."

Karl Malone remembers that Yu Fei said his 1999 MVP was as undeserved as Gwyneth Paltrow's Oscar.

Although Yu Fei made some amends later on, Malone took note.

Moreover, a healthy Shaquille O'Neal would definitely make the Lakers the strongest team in the league again.

Last season's failure for Shaq and Kobe was just a small-probability event made up of many coincidences. The luck of the Bucks and Spurs had run out.

Malone was determined to go to Los Angeles and soon reached a verbal agreement with the Lakers.

As for Mourning, although he too wanted a championship, he had no interest in playing in a small market like Milwaukee. With all of the Bucks' free agency targets falling through, they had to start dreaming.

Hoping that Pachulia and Haslem could grow into strong frontcourt leaders to relieve some pressure from the perimeter within a year... Amen.

If the free agency market doesn't provide reinforcements, then the team must ensure it doesn't lose internal strength.

In the Bucks' main playoff rotation, aside from Tyrone Hill who chose to retire at the end of the season, only Anthony Mason's contract was expiring.

Among the others, Fei still had two years of his rookie contract, Ray Allen signed a 6-year, 70 million US dollar deal with the Bucks in 1999 that would expire in 2005, Christian Laettner's contract, close to 6 million a year, also runs until 2005, and players like Devean George and Michael Redd had just completed the first year of their new contracts, so there's no need to consider extending them.

The only imminent contract to expire was Latrell Sprewell's. As the highest-paid player on the Bucks, he had two more years left, with the final year being a player option, which means discussions about his extension should start from next season.

Although the Bucks appear to be on the rise, the NBA's main partners are not so optimistic about the league's future.

This can be seen from the NBA's new television broadcast contract, which, in contrast to the ever-increasing value of major league broadcasting contracts, secured less money than the previous one.

This led to an unprecedented event since the salary cap system was introduced—the salary cap for the new season is lower than the last.

Last season, the NBA's salary cap was 42 million US dollars, but this season it's only 40 million US dollars.

With the luxury tax looming, most teams without high hopes will control their spending.

The Bucks made a lot of money last season, and paying the luxury tax is not particularly painful for them—unless the amount is too large—but the low appeal of a small market makes it difficult for them to supplement with quality veterans.

George Karl wanted to recruit Gary Payton, but because the Bucks couldn't provide a starting guarantee, Payton turned his attention to the West.

So, without further aspirations, the Bucks announced the re-signing of Anthony Mason to a 2-year, 5 million US dollar contract (with the second year being a team option), and then fell silent on the free market.