Ben Simmons raised the trophy with a shout in the middle of the Barker hangar, officially announcing that Yang's pursuit of the best rookie in the past season came to naught.

To say that there is no loneliness is probably self-deception.

Yang Yiming is such a person who is easy to be serious. He has excellent emotional intelligence and knows not to make promises casually. People who boast about Haikou are often slapped in the face by their own rhetoric in the end. He will choose to bury his head in doing things first, and once he achieves the set goal, he will naturally be recognized without publicity. So at the beginning of the season, Rockets' coach Mike D'Antoni set the task of winning the Rookie of the Year award in order to fully mobilize Yang Yiming's potential. Yang Yiming himself also knew that the coach did not expect him to really win this award, but now that he has a direction to work towards, he will never look back on Rookie of the Year.

Yang Yiming and Yu Xiaochun, together with Yu Xiaochun, have made a lot of efforts for this trophy in Ben Simmons' hands. Yu Xiaochun first pointed out to Yang Yiming the positioning of 3D players: three-point shots, plus outside defensive guards. In the highlights of the candidates at the award ceremony, the clips made for Yang Yiming also reflect the accuracy of this positioning. With a height of nearly seven feet and a soft touch unique to Asian players, Yang Yiming can easily set up a mobile turret outside the three-point line; He also took advantage of his height, and the blocking and frontcourt rebounding cheats that Yu Xiaochun asked for from Scott Jr. (the third generation of the Caronsky family) finally turned it into his own, and almost became the best defender of all rookies.

But apparently these are not enough.

Enough to stand out.

Not enough to win the crown.

Ben Simmons' core stats are too dazzling, with 15.8 points, 8.1 rebounds, 8.2 assists, and 12 triple-doubles in a single season. This kind of data is installed on any player in the league, and if you can't be a big boss, you will at least have to compete, let alone a rookie who has only played for a year. So no matter how shaped Yang Yiming's 3D is, how unnatural Donovan Mitchell's athleticism and scoring are, under the suppression of Ben Simmons' comprehensive data, he can only miss the award.

The NBA's official short film for Ben Simmons' candidate elevates him to the status of a generation of legendary "Magic" Johnson, interspersing the game footage of the two, in which the intention of creating stars is not unobvious. As soon as that short film came out, Yang Yiming and Yu Xiaochun both knew that there was little hope of competing for the championship this time.

"It's Simmons." They both muttered at the same time.

"Ben-" Obviously there is not much suspense left, and the fat host on the stage, Anthony Anderson, deliberately dragged a long note to forcibly create a dramatic effect: "Simmons! ”

The camera showed the loser Yang Yiming, and he could only show a generous smile cooperatively, watching Ben Simmons take the stage to accept applause and flowers, and at the same time draw an end to his chasing journey.

But when it came to the celebration banquet after the award ceremony, Yang Yiming finally didn't have to hide his loss. The celebration was held in a buffet dinner in a shed on the side of the Buck hangar, with a lavish main food area, a seafood buffet, a dessert bar and a wine bar occupying the four sides of the shed, as well as tall and beautiful women wearing open-breasted dresses and holding snack and wine trays as they walked through the crowd. As long as the players and celebrities attending the celebration party want to eat and drink, they can stop these beauties at any time and take the food from the plate.

Sometimes, the reason for stopping the beautiful waitress is not entirely because of the food on the plate. Sometimes it's just to tease them and flirt with them. But the beauties will smile very devotedly, and even refuse to hand out a delicious little dessert, macaron biscuits, strawberry cheesecake or something, and hand it to the player's mouth; Or a bubbling glass of golden champagne in a glass as slender and delicate as their figure, tacitly touching their fingers as they exchange. Those NBA geniuses who won awards and didn't win awards will laugh very happily at this time and talk a few more words. The beauties are also happy to participate, and who makes them the most profitable basketball players on the planet.

A well-known local California rock band is singing hard, and in the other corner, a DJ is debugging his equipment, ready to wait a little later to turn the entire shed into a big nightclub, shaking all the men and women in the room.

But Yang Yiming was not in the mood to participate in these. He only took a glass of champagne when he entered the door, held it in his hand, and hid in the corner of the wine bar, secretly watching the faces of the people at the celebration banquet.

Yu Xiaochun is very busy, shuttling left and right among the high-ranking people who are almost half his body, most of them are developing business and developing potential brokerage customers. Occasionally, a beautiful woman would put a dinner plate in front of him to sell food and wine, and he would be disgusted to block it.

This kind of ruthless persistence regardless of the occasion is really hard to say whether it is the advantage or defect of Yu Xiaochun's friend. Yang Yiming thought secretly, put the wine glass to his lips, tasted a small bite, and put the wine glass down again.

"What's the matter, isn't the wine good?" A female voice came from behind Yang Yiming.

"Huh?" Yang Yiming first turned to his left, but he didn't see anyone, and then turned to the right, only to notice the female voice that had just spoken.

A woman who is not tall may be shorter than Yu Xiaochun.

The biggest advantage of this kind of player-based gathering is that Yang Yiming doesn't have to worry about standing out from the crowd, being picked out at a glance by people from afar, and there is nowhere to hide. But the biggest disadvantage is that once you get used to the eyes of the elders, there are shorter "ordinary people" around you, and they often ignore each other:

"I'm sorry, I didn't see you just now."

"It's okay, you're taller, aren't you?" The short woman said as if complimenting and mockingly, raising the champagne glass in her hand and standing on tiptoe: "How does it feel to be nominated and defeated?" Cheers. ”

"Celebrating a loss?"

"Celebrating is one step closer to the final trophy than everyone else."

"Except for one person."

"Yes, except for one person." The woman took the initiative to knock Yang Yiming's wine glass with her own wine glass, raised her head and drank half of the champagne.

Yang Yiming was forced to raise his glass, so he had to bring the wine to his lips and pretend to take a sip, peeking at the other party while drinking. Seeing the woman put down the wine glass, he quickly put it down.

The woman in front of her looked up a little proudly. She has an Asian face between her eyebrows: big eyes, high nose and deep cheekbones are all European and American, but slender willow eyebrows are familiar Asian characteristics to Yang Yiming. She has long hair over the shoulders, a simple floral skirt with a color block, her chest is not smaller than the waiters in the distance, and she has seven or eight centimeter high heels, and she is petite, but she is extremely hot. She doesn't wear heavy makeup, and a faint freckle can be seen on her face through the foundation, which is not disguised, as if it were part of her personal pride statement.

"My name is Yang Yiming." Yang Yiming introduced himself and said, "May I ask who you are?" ”

The proud woman didn't come to clink glasses this time, she drank the other half of the rest of the wine herself, and then said with a smile: "So you still want to be the one who wins the cup, isn't it?" ”

"—that way people can be remembered." ()

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