Chapter 356: Chapter 106: [You Will Pay the Price for Disrespecting Jack]
...
The China Derby made this game a highly anticipated event. Chinese fans from all over Texas gathered for it, and tickets to the Houston Arena were nearly impossible to get.
People still remembered the first time Su Xi came to Houston for the derby. Back then, Su Xi didn’t even get to play—or rather, he was traded by the Cavaliers before he could even step on the court.
With this eager move, the Cavaliers had outrageously humiliated Su Xi and his fans.
Su Xi was incredibly restrained at the time. He did everything he could to make it up to the fans who had traveled so far. During halftime, he sang a song with Coco and told the fans to keep their hopes up, promising he would be back.
Everyone knew what happened next. The Cavaliers became an out-and-out laughingstock. Even their so-called King, LeBron James, came out looking worse in comparisons to Su Xi. Su Xi led the Pacers to their best record in franchise history and their first-ever championship title. He also made history by being named Finals MVP and followed that up in the summer by winning the most prestigious Olympic gold medal in men’s basketball history.
Houston was the turning point of Su Xi’s career.
Tracy McGrady also hoped Houston would be the turning point for his own career. He was ambitious and full of expectations. Although he was only 25, he had already played for two teams. In Toronto, he was the Pippen to his cousin, a role he refused to accept. When the Magic Team extended an olive branch, he immediately left for Orlando. Of course, at the time, Orlando also wanted him to play Pippen to Grant Hill, the original heir apparent to Jordan.
But Grant Hill was simply too fragile. His injury-prone body prevented him from taking up the mantle, allowing Tracy McGrady to rise to the pinnacle of the league’s perimeter players and win two scoring titles.
Now that he was with the Rockets, he believed his era was about to begin.
Before the game, he said, half-joking and half-serious, "I know a lot of people are here tonight to see Little Sheep Su Xi and Yao Ming, but by the end of it, they’ll all be my fans. Because everyone knows I can dominate the game."
He also talked about his first matchup against Su Xi. "Back then, he was just a very ordinary rookie. I could always embarrass him with ease. He even said to me, unconvinced, that he wished he had my talent. I told him right then and there, ’Even if you had my talent, you still couldn’t beat me.’"
"Later, he actually asked if I was really willing to give him my talent. Of course I was! Hahaha."
Tracy McGrady said with a laugh.
Then, a CCTV reporter asked him a crucial question: "So did you win that game in the end?"
"Uh... well... uh." Tracy McGrady was visibly awkward for a few seconds. "...You know, I was playing in Orlando back then... The Magic Team didn’t have many good players to help."
"Jack was also on the Cavaliers at the time, I remember. They were dead last in the East back then..." the CCTV reporter added.
Tracy McGrady’s expression stiffened. It wasn’t until the reporter burst out laughing, "But now, you’re two of the most-watched teams in the East and West. Who do you think will win tonight?"
"The Rockets!" Tracy McGrady said with supreme confidence.
Of course, these words reached Su Xi’s ears. Before Su Xi even had a chance to speak, Artest couldn’t hold back anymore. "He dominates the game? What game did he dominate? The game that got the Magic Team the first overall pick in this year’s draft? The game that gave them the worst record in history? The games where he jacked up a crazy number of shots to pad his stats for two scoring titles?"
"What does he have to compare with Jack? The fact that he’s never made it past the first round? The fact that he blew a 3-1 lead and got reverse-swept?"
"I’m pissed off!"
"And the consequences will be severe!"
Artest’s words to the reporters were firm and resounding.
Then, he turned and stormed into the locker room while Su Xi was still smiling for his interview. Artest was already shouting in there, "Alright, brothers, we gotta be on our game tonight! Someone disrespected Jack."
BOOM!
That sentence was like a bomb going off in the locker room. Everyone stopped what they were doing. Some pulled up their pants, some took off their headphones, some threw stockings into the trash can, some got down from a stripper pole... They all swarmed Artest, their objective clear: "Who? Who disrespected Jack?"
"Tracy McGrady."
Artest said the superstar’s name. Any other team might have flinched, but this was the Pacers. This was the defending champion.
"He needs to be taught a lesson."
"We need to give him a humiliation he can’t refuse."
"Let’s get to it, brothers. Tracy McGrady should not be leaving this arena with a smile on his face tonight."
"We gotta string him up and whip him!"
"..."
The Pacers were fuming with righteous fury.
The newcomer, Stephen Jackson, wasn’t quite in the zone yet. He couldn’t help but ask Artest, who was next to him, "Isn’t this a bit of an overreaction? He was just a little disrespectful to Jack."
"No, Stephen. You don’t know what Jack has led us through. Disrespecting Jack is disrespecting all of us," Artest said. "You have to have this sense of collective honor, or you won’t last on this team. Tonight, you’re on Tracy."
Huh?
"Alright!"
While Su Xi’s brothers were in the locker room, crying for blood and vowing to take Tracy McGrady down, Su Xi himself was facing the CCTV cameras with a graceful smile. He greeted the audience across the nation and, with great foresight, pointed the way forward for Chinese basketball: as long as they focused on grassroots basketball and built a solid talent pipeline, the NBA’s China Derby would become a common, everyday sight.
When asked about Tracy, Su Xi just let out a couple of laughs and brushed it off.
In front of the CCTV cameras, Su Xi was as elegant as a godfather.
After all, this was the God of Basketball in Asia, the true deity who had delivered the only men’s basketball Olympic gold medal.
How could he stoop to getting into a war of words with someone? It was beneath him.
However, in front of the American media, Su Xi presented a completely different image. Flipping the table was his standard move.
...
Tonight’s starting lineup for the Pacers was: Su Xi, Artest, Stephen Jackson, Little O’Neal, and Jeff Foster.
Larry Bird looked at his elite warriors on the court, all dressed in their striped black uniforms, and his heart swelled with excitement. ’This lineup... we could beat the Rockets even if we played sloppy. Who the hell do the Rockets think they are? All they do is talk big. What gives them the right to even be compared to us?’
Before the tip-off, the two teams stood on opposite sides of the center line, and the contrast was even more striking.
The Rockets’ lineup was: Tyronn Lue, Jim Jackson, Tracy McGrady, Morris Taylor, and Yao Ming.
Besides McGrady and Yao Ming, they were a bunch of scrubs.
TWEET!
The whistle blew.
Foster won the tip-off against Yao Ming.
Su Xi got the ball and slowly advanced it up the court. The Rockets were actually using Tyronn Lue to guard him. He was disappointed. He started backing Tyronn Lue down from the three-point line. He could have easily blown by him with speed, but Su Xi felt there was no need.
He pushed Tyronn Lue near the free-throw line and hit a turnaround jumper... Tyronn Lue couldn’t apply any defensive pressure at all.
SWISH!
It went in cleanly.
Su Xi’s Super Offensive Talent was now at 82 points; he wasn’t just a bricklayer anymore.
With Jeff Van Gundy using Tyronn Lue to guard him, Su Xi could easily drop thirty or forty points in a single game like it was child’s play.
"Jeff, you need to tighten up the defense on the number one position."
Su Xi said this as a friendly reminder while jogging back on defense, seeing Van Gundy sorting through his little notes on the sideline.
Van Gundy looked up. ’Tighten up the defense on the number one position?’
Meticulous as ever, he looked back down at his notes. He had stayed up until two in the morning last night preparing a pocketful of tactical notes. He just had to find the one about strengthening the defense on the point guard first.
Seeing this, Su Xi thought to himself, ’How could a man as sharp as Pat Riley have taught a disciple like this?’
’Are the Rockets ever going to be good?’
McGrady received the ball outside the three-point line. It wasn’t much different from his time with the Magic Team; Tyronn Lue was still the one passing him the ball, after all.
The moment McGrady got the ball, Stephen Jackson blanketed him, one hand up and one hand down, his fiery gaze locked on McGrady.
Jackson’s face was so intimidating he’d look terrifying even in a lineup of murderers. Being stared at like that made McGrady’s skin crawl.
’What’s his problem?’ he thought. ’Do I fucking owe him money or something?’
"You’re going to pay the price for disrespecting Jack!" Stephen Jackson said savagely. He spoke with the tone of a murderer holding a knife to your throat: ’I feel like letting you bleed a little.’
