The Kings have played 19 games, nearly a quarter of the schedule, and have seen their winning percentage drop slightly to 12-7 as they enter December with losses to the Thunder and Clippers.

At this time, the time has also come to the middle of December.

Teams are in the process of further grinding, with some teams already showing signs of success, such as the Kings, but compared to the beginning of the season, some fans are declining, especially for non-die-hard basketball fans and basketball fans who are relatively tight on time, after the first month of fanatical pursuit, they no longer spend a lot of time following the NBA every day.

Still, a piece of news in mid-December caught the attention of many basketball fans.

On November 17, the 13-14 season All-Star voting was officially launched, and on December 12, local time in the United States, the official announcement of the first round of voting results, and among them, Li Tian's vote ranked second among Western defenders.

In the official first-round results of the All-Star Poll, LeBron James became the first-round vote leader with 609,336 votes, and after two consecutive championships, James's popularity began to climb. Kevin Durant was a close second with 607,407 votes and Kobe Bryant was third with 501,215.

This is from the perspective of the entire league, from the perspective of divisions, because the league changed the rules in 12 years, using a combination of three frontcourt and two backcourt players, the Eastern frontcourt James is naturally ranked first, and the second is Paul George, the Pacers have performed well in the playoffs in the past two years, and the team's performance and George's performance since the start of the season have been very good, which allowed him to get 489,335 votes.

Carmelo Anthony was third in the Eastern Conference frontcourt with 424,211 votes.

The top two backcourt pairings in the East are Dwyane Wade with 396,279 votes and Kyrie Irving with 365,712 votes.

The Western frontcourt is led by Durant, who is followed by Dwight Howard with 295,120 votes and Blake Griffin with 292,925 votes.

Kobe Bryant had the highest number of votes in the Western Conference backcourt, followed by Li Tian, who received 429,335 votes, a difference of more than 70,000 votes from Kobe, but more than 30,000 votes more than Chris Paul, who ranked third in the Western backcourt, and after the first round, the Clippers' star received 393,313 votes.

As soon as such statistical results came out, they immediately attracted heated discussions among basketball fans at home and abroad.

Basketball fans in China are naturally excited, and they seem to see another Chinese player enter the All-Star game, but for foreign fans, especially Paul's fans, such an outcome is obviously difficult for them to accept.

It must be admitted that there is still a gap between Li Tian and Paul in terms of personal strength and importance to the team, but the power of Chinese fans is obviously huge, and the fact that Li Tian is Chinese alone has allowed him to get a lot of votes.

Therefore, such a vote obviously does not satisfy Clippers fans.

Originally, the Clippers fans hated Li Tian a little, and after the league's voting results were announced, the Clippers fans immediately became extremely disgusted with Li Tian.

In the clipper columns of some foreign websites, a large number of posts criticizing Li Tian appeared.

"If this guy is selected as an All-Star starter, that's the biggest joke, can this guy be in the top 10 among defenders in the West? Do those damn Chinese fans understand basketball? ”

"It's ironic that Yao Ming squeezed Shaquille O'Neal out of the All-Star starter in '03, and now it's going to happen again."

"Is there anything else to praise about that king's guy other than being a little popular in China, FU*CK!"

……

The huge number of these critical posts was discovered by some Chinese fans, and it immediately attracted a counterattack from many Chinese fans:

"We have a lot of people in China, what's wrong?"

In these counterattacks, there were many fan messages, and the most recognized by many fans was this sentence. As a result, many Chinese fans rushed to copy and paste, leaving such a sentence in those posts.

And this sentence quickly spread to the entire basketball fan community from such a counterattack, and then quickly spread to the entire Internet.

"We have a lot of people in China, what's wrong?" This sentence is on fire, and as the root of this sentence, Li Tian is even more popular.

Li Tian had his ups and downs at the start of the season, but as his performance picked up in mid-to-late November, coupled with his outstanding performances in key moments in several consecutive games, his popularity in China skyrocketed, which is why he was voted All-Star

The reason why the vote is only behind Kobe Bryant.

And now, with the popularity of this sentence, more people have paid attention to Li Tian's performance, and after learning what happened, those Chinese fans who were not used to voting for All-Stars also logged on to the official website to vote for Li Tian, resulting in a surge in Li Tian's votes, which was unexpected by Clippers fans.

However, because the NBA's official voting results are announced regularly, these Clippers fans are not aware of the surge in Li Tian's votes.

While domestic fans responded online, Li Tian and the Kings responded on the court, and in the next six games, the Kings achieved a 4-2 record against not very strong opponents, improving their record to 16-9.

At the same time, Li Tian averaged 19.5 points per game in these 6 games, and his performance was also quite good, and Li Tian's average points per game in the season have also risen to 17.6.

Although many people criticized Li Tian for scoring mostly relying on the opportunities created by his teammates and relying too much on the assists of his teammates, everyone has to admit that his performance is getting better and better.

Every night, if the Kings' opponents want to win, they need to think about how to limit Lee's off-ball running and outside shots.

Although in Adelman's tactical system, he got a lot of offensive opportunities in the first month and a half, but Li Tian also knew that with the passage of the schedule, when the king's offensive tactics were more studied by other teams, such opportunities would be reduced, and if Li Tian wanted to maintain such an average of points per game or even improve, he needed to have more ability to create offensive opportunities.

What made Li Tian excited was that after a month and a half, the Iron Book ushered in the seventh unsealing.

Last season, Li Tian scored a total of 577 points, and this season, in 25 games, Li Tian scored another 441 points, which brings his total score to 1018 points.

"Reach a career total of 1000 points, unlock the seventh page, and get a dribble upgrade to an A reward!"

Looking at this line of words on the page, Li Tian's heart blossomed, in the previous period, Li Tian had been looking forward to the improvement of dribbling and layups, but he didn't expect Tieshu to really fulfill his wish.

Most of Li Tian's previous breakthroughs relied on feints to shoot to shake out space to find opportunities, or to cut directly to the basket with the help of running ability.

However, with the attention of other teams and the familiarity of defensive players, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to score under the basket or make a pull-up jump shot in the middle so easily.

However, now, when the dribble is improved, it means that Li Tian can find more offensive opportunities by dribbling.

Although there is still a gap between A-level dribbling and the league's top dribblers, it is not bad compared with the vast majority of outside players, coupled with his A-level speed and agility, and top-level shooting ability, Li Tian believes that his attack power will definitely be improved.