After the game against the Raptors, the Bulls returned to Chicago.
At this time, the league announced the awards for December.
Although Xu Yong's personal data declined in December, he still won the Rookie of the Month title without any suspense.
There really is no one in the East who can beat them.
From Xu Yong's perspective, even without him, the final achievements of the 2009 class were: a historical super giant Curry, a super giant Harden, two All-Stars Griffin and DeRozan, and many other outstanding performances. rotation players.
But in terms of their rookie season performance, their performance was actually not very good.
Moreover, the Eastern Conference was originally competitive. Jennings, the former No. 1 high school student in the United States who scored 55 points in a single game, also went to the Suns because of his appearance.
However, in the Western Conference, Evans' performance in December was explosive. He averaged 22.1 points, 5.2 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game, and he also won the Western Conference Player of the Week.
Although, the Kings have begun to dive into the lottery area.
But this is the advantage of playing a bad team. Unlimited firepower. You can make money if you play well. If you can't play well, you can continue next year.
Evans, this is obviously a momentum.
Both of them have won the title, so it is inevitable that Xu Yong and Evans, the two best rookies in the past two months, will be drawn out for comparison.
Fans who support Xu Yong are complaining about Evans' data. After all, the Kings are currently ranked fourth from the bottom in the Western Conference, while the Bulls are seventh in the Eastern Conference.
Fans who support Evans say those who support Xu Yong have sour grapes. The intensity of games in the West is much higher than that in the East.
Just a few days later, a video involving Joe Maloof, one of the Maloof brothers who own the Kings, went viral on social media.
That was Ma'ruf chatting with his friends, although Ma'ruf probably didn't know that his friends were secretly recording the video.
They talked about Evans winning Rookie of the Year for a second time.
You must know that Evans not only scores more points, but also rebounds and assists a lot. He has a good chance to become the fourth player to achieve 20+5+5 in his rookie season after Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James. .
This is not just as simple as selecting a best rookie, it is selecting a historical rookie.
Ma'ruf naturally couldn't hide his pride.
"Joff (Petrie) told me that he had bet his entire manager career that choosing Xu Yong would be the best choice, but I insisted on choosing Tyreke. Who would be crazy enough to use the fourth pick to select a yellow outsider? ?" Ma'ruf spread his hands and smoked a cigar with a smile.
"Didn't you agree with the selection of Xu before? It seems that you also promised to draft?"
"Yes, I respected Joff, but at the end of the day I exercised my authority."
"What a great power, Tyrek will give Sacramento its own king."
"Haha, I have to thank those guys in Chicago, otherwise I would be really worried that Joef would go against my wishes." Maloof laughed while holding a cigar.
"Will he?"
"When people stay in one place for too long, they don't know who is the real owner of the team."
…
This is a "friendship" incident that often occurs in American celebrity circles. The reason why it went viral is not only because of the competition for the best rookie, but also because it broke the news about the behind-the-scenes events of this year's draft.
These things are impossible for ordinary people to see.
The person who bore the brunt of the video was Kings president Geoff Petrie.
This meritorious manager who worked hard for the Kings for fifteen years and built the Princeton Kings never expected that the boss would view him this way.
His dedication and hard work to this team are worthless in the eyes of the capitalist boss.
Even the gambles he planned to make had already been seen through by his boss.
After all, after more than ten years of getting along, who doesn’t know anyone yet?
It would have been better if the video hadn't come out, but if it did, Petrie would be in an awkward position.
Although the Maloof brothers quickly issued a statement expressing their unlimited trust in Petrie and had done enough to save face.
But this kind of statement is just like a woman falling in love with you and then coming over to say that she loves you. It seems that nothing has changed, but in fact everything has changed.
Secondly, there is Xu Yong.
Before the draft started, he felt that he and the Kings were going in both directions, and he basically felt that he was going to Sacramento.
After all, the other party gave him a draft promise.
If this hadn't come out, he would have felt a little regretful that he couldn't go to Sacramento.
But when this revelation came out, he suddenly felt like someone had poured cold water on him.
It turns out that if the Bulls don't select him, he won't be able to go to the Kings because the boss doesn't like him at all.
Although this is someone else's right, and because of the Bulls' interception, [giving a draft promise but not being selected] did not really happen, but now that it has been revealed, it is no different from happening.
Finally, it’s the fans.
Because the Bulls will have a game with the Kings in January, this matchup between the "Best Rookies" is already quite interesting. With this incident, this game has attracted a lot of attention.
According to official news from the Kings, tickets for this game in mid-January have been sold out.
This also perfectly explains a major feature of the NBA: topic/traffic.
The NBA is a business league. In addition to competition, these off-court topics have an unprecedented impact on the game.
Many players even focus on how to create traffic because of this. Of course, that will happen after the players "awaken".
All in all, the attention this game received was absolutely unprecedented.
…
Time flies so fast, it’s already mid-January.
The Bulls flew to Sacramento and faced off against the Kings the next night.
Not only fans are paying attention to this game, but even the media is coming smelling the traffic.
As the broadcaster of this game, TNT directly sent ace combinations such as Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith to provide on-site commentary.
Before the game even started, the two began loudly discussing the tape.
"If I were Jeff, I would definitely leave. He shaped the team culture of the Kings. It is extremely unfair to be treated like this." Barkley's "big mouth" fully demonstrated that watching the excitement is not too big a deal. Heart.
Of course, this matter has been a hot topic recently, and it would be inappropriate not to dwell on it.
"Charles, we are all adults, this video was just an accident." Smith tried his best to praise himself.
The connotation in his words is also obvious. This is the relationship between capitalists and employees. You don’t really expect a capitalist to treat you as one of their own, right?
However, their discussion was heated, and the most embarrassing thing was Petrie who came to the scene at this time.
As the president and general manager of the Kings, he must appear on the cusp of such a storm to stabilize the morale of the army.
But judging from his dark circles and haggard appearance, he was under tremendous pressure during this period.
At this moment, players from both sides began to enter the stadium to warm up.
The scene immediately showed split shots of Xu Yong and Evans, which caused a burst of cheers from the fans at the scene.
In fact, it’s not just Sacramento fans who came to the scene today. The Kings have had poor performance in recent years, and the attendance rate at home has never been high. A large part of these fans came to watch the fun, and of course many came to support Xu. Forever.
There were some fans from Tempe, many Chinese from various places, and some even came from China.
"Charles, who do you think will be the winner tonight?" After seeing this, Smith ended the topic and asked instead.
That's right, it's about who is going to be the winner, not which team is going to win.
Compared with the outcome of the game, what attracted more attention in this game was the performance of Xu Yong and Evans.
"You know, I have always been a fan of Xu, and he will be a big winner." Buckley said with a serious expression.
Since the tape incident was exposed, most of the voices on social media are biased towards Evans. After all, Evans is playing better now.
In this era, this season, he averages 22 points per game, ranking 11th in the league!
Not to mention 5 rebounds and 5 assists, Maloof's pride is by no means unreasonable.
So this is Buckley's consistent style, which goes against the mainstream voice.
And he uses big winner here, which means he not only thinks Xu Yong will win the data, but also the game.
"No, no, Charles, you have no basis for this." Smith kept shaking his head.
"Twice." Buckley suddenly stretched out his hand to make a gesture.
Smith looked confused.
"When they were in the NCAA, they met twice, and Xu was the winner." Barkley pointed out a historical statistic.
Although he may be a loudmouth, his arguments are well-founded.
Back then, he bet that Yao Ming would not score 19 points. At that time, Yao Ming had 0 points in two games and 2 points in one game. His highest score in a single game was 10 points.
Smith smiled and nodded, but couldn't help but cast a caring look at Xu Yong.
Being favored by Barkley is not a good thing!
On the field, the players on both sides have finished their warm-up, and the opening ceremony has begun.
The Bulls took the lead as the visiting team. When Xu Yong came on the stage first, he received warm cheers from the fans who came to support him.
Rose, Xu Yong, Deng, Gibson, Noah, the Bulls are the regular starting five.
After the away team, the home team, the Kings, enters the venue.
Evans was also the first to appear. His current scoring average is the highest in the Kings. However, the Kings' highest-ranking player is Kevin Martin, who has been with the team for many years.
Evans, Martin, Dante Green, Jason Thompson, Spencer Hawes, the Kings' starting five.
Another basis for Barkley's remarks is that regardless of the East and West, the Bulls are indeed stronger than the Kings now in terms of strength.
The opening ceremony ended and the starting players from both sides came on stage one after another.
"Xu Yong, come on!"
At this moment, Chinese fans who had traveled thousands of miles shouted loudly.
This shout attracted Xu Yong's attention. He turned his head towards the fans and made a fist bump gesture.
Then, like a hunter, he looked at Evans in the opposite half.
bring it on!
(End of chapter)
