Champion, please stay!

Chapter 177, 175. Even if you play well, you can't steal the spotlight from Brother Pao.
The moment the Knicks-Hawks series ended, on the South Coast, in New Orleans.

After watching the live stream, Pao Ge's eyes welled up with tears... So many days have passed, and finally, some big news has arrived!

A few days ago, on April 30th, the last game of the day generated more buzz than Yi Shui's playoff debut with 40 points!
That match, to say it was entertaining... was ugly, not entertaining at all.

To say how good the star players were... well, generally speaking. Carmelo Anthony had the best performance with 26 points, 6 rebounds, and 7 assists, which was average.

The Nuggets' offense was only so-so; they scored 121 points, not the highest in the first round this year, while the Magic scored 125 points in Game 3 against the Heat.

But the Nuggets' opponent, the Hornets, only scored 63 points.

58 points difference!
That match stole the show from the entire first round!
Yi Shui set a new scoring record in his debut, but in reality, it's just 40 points in a single game. It's the most impressive among all rookies in history, but if we broaden the comparison, we can only say it's outstanding.

The Granger-Randolph combination shone brightly, but they faced a depleted Celtics team. Without Garnett and with Rondo not yet fully developed, the Celtics were just an average playoff team with 45 wins.

The skill gap in other series is huge...

A 58-point margin of victory is the largest in history! It's the largest margin of victory in NBA playoff history!
As the Hornets' star player, Paul has recently received a terrible amount of public criticism!
He shouldn't be the scapegoat; he should take responsibility, or even be held fully accountable. That night, he was defended by Billups and Kenyon Martin, shooting 2-for-7 and only managing 4 points and 6 assists!

Moreover, the topic of '58' not only generated an explosive amount of buzz on the day of its release, but its popularity also remained extremely strong. No one cared how the Hornets and Nuggets' Game 5 went; every day, the media and fans found new ways to mock, ridicule, and humiliate them...

This image has become the most popular meme on social media across the entire internet.

...

The Knicks defeated the Hawks 4-2 to advance to the second round, and Yishui once again became the focus of public opinion.

Compared to his 40 points with a shooting percentage of less than 45% in Game 1, his performance in this game was undoubtedly much better!

The Florida Sentinel commented: "The Great One broke through the Hawks' Five-Man Defense."

With 46 points, Yi Shui achieved a high field goal percentage of 55% and an exceptionally high three-point percentage of 60%!

With his performance of 16 out of 29 shots, including 6 out of 10 three-pointers, in this game, his shooting percentage improved significantly throughout the series.

In the first 5 games, his shooting percentage was 42% and 34%.

这场比赛过后，6场比赛合计161次出手、命中72球，场均26.8次出手命中12球，命中率44.7%；其中三分球57投22中，场均9.5次出手命中率3.6球，命中率38.6%。

He has been very good at free throws throughout the series, making 46 of 51, averaging 7.67 of 8.5 free throws per game, for a 90.2% success rate.

His 44.7% field goal percentage and 38.6% shooting percentage seem average, but he averages 35.3 points per game!
In addition, he averaged 10 rebounds, 4.16 assists, 1.6 steals, and 1.5 blocks!

Starting from Game 2, public opinion began to go astray. When the Knicks were mentioned, it was either that D'Antoni was a terrible coach or that Yi Shui missed too many shots...

After this game, public opinion shifted dramatically, with everyone praising Yi Shui for improving in every game of the series, consistently increasing his shooting percentage, becoming more and more adapted to the high-intensity defense of the playoffs, and improving his skills through practice...

At 4 a.m., the bright moonlight shone through the window and onto the bed in a suite bedroom of a hotel in Atlanta.

Yi Shui was holding the South Coast model he had brought back from the nightclub with his teammates. He couldn't sleep, and the model was about to give out. He picked up his phone to browse the news and saw the change in public opinion. He wasn't surprised at all.

Before, criticizing him and D'Antoni would generate traffic, but now that they've both advanced, criticizing them is just asking for trouble.

However, Yi Shui saw that even though he scored 46 points and led his team to advance, he was still not the only 'focus'.

It's impossible to completely suppress the popularity of '58'!

Yi Shui saw that even at 4 a.m., there were still many posts related to Paul on his fan forum and the New York fan forum.

Paul has truly gone viral this time!

'Forget it, I used to always steal Pao Ge's thunder, now it's my turn to be stolen by Pao Ge...'

...

The next day, May 6, Yi Shui returned to New York with the team.

He had just gotten off the plane when he received a call from Bartelstein, saying that he had won the MVP award... in second place.

Yi Shui was pleasantly surprised to be second in MVP votes; he thought he would at best be in the top five!
But his agent told him to go directly to Madison Square Garden for an exclusive interview, and that he also had to shoot a celebratory ad campaign that afternoon...

Yi Shui asked, puzzled, "I only came in second for MVP, not won MVP. Should we celebrate?"

The voice on the other end of the phone said: "Of course we should celebrate being second in MVP! In the last 30 years, only Bird, Duncan, and you have made it into the top five in the final MVP votes in your rookie season. And you are the highest. Bird is fourth and Duncan is fifth."

King received five second-place votes in his rookie season, finishing 9th, and Nike even held a celebration for him. If he had it, you should too. It's just a pity you made the playoffs and haven't been eliminated yet; you can only shoot a commercial first, otherwise the celebration and TV shows could be scheduled right now.

"..."

Yi: Listen to this, is this even human language? What's there to regret about making the playoffs? What's there to regret about not being eliminated!

But then I think about my agent's money-grubbing personality...

Indeed, from a commercial promotion perspective, the best time to start commercial activities is immediately after receiving a high number of votes.

Since they didn't actually win an award, and the current hype has died down, any further hype won't be as effective as it is now.

After agreeing on the work schedule, Yi Shui hung up the phone, gave a small tip to the team's staff to drive him home, and then took the team bus directly to Madison Square Garden.

On the way, Yi Shui took out his phone to browse the news.

At 12 o'clock, the league announced the final two individual awards of the regular season—MVP and DPOY.

James received 63 of the 115 first-place votes, accounting for 31% of the total score, and was named the regular season MVP.

This year's MVP award is pretty much a foregone conclusion. Paul's record was a disaster, and although Wade led his team back to the playoffs, the record was just so-so. Neither of the two superstars with the best regular season stats could salvage their careers. Kobe was ranked first in the early stages, but his playing time and stats dropped sharply in the middle of the season. If it weren't for the last two games against Rose and the Jazz where he scored a combined 100 points, he wouldn't have been able to maintain his 27 points per game average. Even if he had won first place in the regular season, he wouldn't have been in a position to win.

The only remaining competitors are his high-class image and Beast.

However, James only received 63 first-place votes, barely exceeding half, and did not achieve absolute dominance in scoring, which was quite unexpected.

This situation arose precisely because of him!
With 38 first-place votes, accounting for 28.6% of the total score, Yi Shui received one-third of the first-place votes and a large number of second and third-place votes!

Based on his team's regular season record and individual statistics, Yi Shui felt he deserved this ranking, especially since before the season started everyone thought they would be competing with Thabeet.

But it must also be related to playing in New York, and Dolan played a significant role in this.

Duncan, whose rookie season record and statistics were comparable to his, and whose defensive performance was even better, was 'only' ranked fifth.

However, after winning second place in the MVP competition, he received even more news and posts attacking him.

He browsed other media websites and forums and found a bunch of news articles and posts saying he didn't deserve so many first-place votes.

Comparing him to LeBron James in terms of regular season record, points, assists, speed of advancing to the first round of the playoffs, etc., some people say he shouldn't have received so many first-place votes, and those votes should have gone to James.

Yi Shui thought to himself, 'Why only compare these things? Why not compare rebounds? Why not compare the highest single-game score? Why not compare steals and blocks?'

If it weren't for the hassle of switching accounts and replying on a mobile phone, he would have immediately created a new account to have a few words with them.

As he scrolled through the comments, he came across one in a post that was criticizing others: "The owner of this media company is James."

He scrolled up and saw the news source that the post was reposted from—Sprinkleand Arraignment.

Super Firefighting Team?
That's a pretty good name.

Yi Shui knew that James would one day own a media company that lost more than 2000 million yuan a year, but it opened so early? How much money will it lose!
It's hard to say. With such a large investment in media, the returns must be even greater; otherwise, it would be impossible to persist in investing for so many years.

Fan comments are sometimes unreliable. He knows that there are also some extremists among his fans who spread rumors and attacks other stars.

He searched for the media company, which can be roughly translated as 'fire brigade'... Well, he apologized; he had misunderstood the fans.

It really is LeBron James' media company. It was registered together with Rich Paul when James and Richie Paul established their agency in 2007!

Yi: This career planning... is amazing!
Feeling a little ashamed, Yi Shui hesitated for a moment, but still called Bartelstein and asked him and Shen Zhiyu to help him open a media company in the two countries of Rabbit and Eagle.

Its name is—Flame? Blaze? Fire?
Let them discuss it and see which one is suitable and which one hasn't been registered yet; in any case, it has to be related to fire.

We can't afford to lose out in the public opinion arena!

However, Yi Shui doesn't plan to start this company like James does, trying to "break out" into other fields such as movies, rap, and documentaries. He's just a player, what does he know about those things? It would be a waste to lose hundreds of millions of RMB every year.

If he really wants to have a go at the big screen, with his face, his playing in New York, and his immense popularity in California, he could easily get a cameo role just by mentioning it. He could even get a big-budget film role like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, without having to scrimp and save to make a terrible movie that would annoy himself and his fans.

Now that smartphones are becoming more and more common, it's possible to develop related industries. Hardware has a high barrier to entry, but software is a viable option.

Finding an agent won't help; you need to find a professional... My dear alma mater, Cornell University, has no shortage of talent in this area!

During the off-season, I must spend more time with my alumni!
(End of this chapter)