One Year Left to Play

Chapter 499 - 151: Set Another Small Goal?

"God, Aix, you actually won MVP! I thought Malone and Stockton would get it together, but it turned out to be you and the Magician. Didn’t see that coming..."

"Yeah, I didn’t expect it either."

"You’ve got some incredible luck. Good thing it’s the Magician’s comeback season, otherwise even if you played so well and made the clutch shot, the MVP might have been taken by the Karl Malone and John Houston Stockton duo..."

Listening to Pierce’s never-ending chatter, Zhang Hao felt like the Magician was riding on his coattails.

An hour ago, when he had just won the All-Star MVP, he was dazed again. All-Star MVP, this unexpected achievement completely overwhelmed him, even though he hadn’t set his mind on this year’s All-Star Weekend.

After the game, Zhang Hao just gave a brief interview, finished his therapy, and left—a consistent display of cold nobility. The media is used to it by now, as Zhang Hao doesn’t say much he doesn’t want to during interviews. Even when he occasionally appears high-profile, analysis shows that Zhang Hao is simply choosing that moment to be high-profile. His answers and the information he voluntarily reveals are still those he wishes to share.

Now, in a quiet environment, without noise, cameras, or a crowd of people asking questions, Zhang Hao remembered David Stern’s especially enthusiastic handshake...

Forget about that, the award is in the bag—celebrate!

And...

"Special signing player Zhang Hao wins the Most Valuable Player award at the 1996 San Antonio All-Star Weekend’s main event. Congratulations to the host for receiving an unexpected reward: Special Card, Lakers Legend’s Favor.

Lakers Legend’s Favor (*): The host can designate a signing player, specify a retired jersey-level Lakers legend, and the specified legend’s favorable impression of the signing player will significantly increase."

Great reward!

Zhang Hao was just worried about not being able to contact the reclusive Jabbar to learn a center’s technique when he has time in the future. Now, it’s solved!

Summer plans progressed one step further, but no rush; the present task is to improve his skills as much as possible in the second half of the season. Combining training and games gives the most effective improvement, and such opportunities shouldn’t be wasted.

Listening to Pierce’s babbling, Zhang Hao interrupted him, asking, "Where’s Kobe?"

"That annoying guy? He flew back to Philadelphia overnight, probably because you hit him hard... OH, NO, I’m hit too. I need to work harder next..."

...

...

Rookie wins All-Star Game MVP! The last occurrence was in 1961, and before that, in 1960, when Oscar Robertson and Wilt Chamberlain accomplished this during their rookie seasons.

After that, not even super rookies like Jabbar, Bird, or Jordan who entered the NBA and immediately secured First or Second Team selections have managed this feat.

After the game, major media outlets competed to report on Zhang Hao and the Magician winning the All-Star MVP, mainly promoting Zhang Hao’s win. Unsurprisingly, this brought Zhang Hao higher attention and more controversy.

On the controversial side, there’s an undeniable fact—Stockton, Malone, Olajuwon, and even Drexler performed better than Zhang Hao and the Magician.

Even if you add up the scores for combinations, Stockton + Malone, Olajuwon + Drexler, overall performances were better.

But precisely because there’s controversy, topics can be created.

Domestically, under the leadership of the Imperial Channel and Xinhuanet, the public opinion about Zhang Hao is much more positive. Zhang Hao’s triumphant progress in the NBA made negative voices temporarily retreat.

As the year-end approaches, the Basketball Association’s leaders, having been on holiday for a long time, had to issue a statement in the afternoon: "The national team’s lineup for this year is already complete, having undergone multiple training sessions to integrate. It’s not suitable to add new players for now, but we’ve listed absorbing Zhang Hao back into the national team as part of the agenda..."

On the morning of February 12th, Zhang Hao, accompanied by two girls and Pierce’s mom, boarded the team owner’s private jet and flew back to Los Angeles.

The Magician saw Zhang Hao already studying the data on eight opponents for the latter half of February, truly impressed.

So rational!

Yesterday, he just achieved the brilliance of winning All-Star MVP in his rookie season, and today, he puts all that behind...

"Maybe that’s why he can accomplish things I couldn’t..."

The Magician reminisced about his own rookie year over a decade ago, when he was selected as an All-Star starter, but during the game, he couldn’t manage to do what Zhang Hao calmly and focusedly did with teammates all possessing All-Star skills. He wanted to showcase himself but didn’t know where to start.

Regarding winning the MVP with Zhang Hao, the Magician roughly guessed it wasn’t as the media said that Zhang Hao was basking in his glory; rather, he was basking in Zhang Hao’s glory.

Even if Zhang Hao benefited from his comeback, Zhang Hao’s final assist and clutch shot helped the Western Team win the game.

"I never imagined that I just wanted to experience being a professional player again upon my comeback, but got so lucky to run into a rookie like Aix..."

On the other side, Zhang Hao quietly studying the upcoming opponents’ information, thought simply—I had a really dreamy All-Star Weekend, still feeling delighted about this All-Star journey, but I should start preparing for the latter half of the season.