Chapter 25: Because You're Too Weak

Sonny Vaccaro and his assistant are standing on the sidelines, Hubby Brown is watching the court with intense attention, Jerry West, who has retired from the Lakers, is sitting quietly not far away, Gary Smith of Sports Illustrated, NBA scout, college coach... Countless professionals are interested in the showdown between Fei and Anthony.

The spotlight on this game undoubtedly surpassed the battle between James and Telfer.

Because these two junior talents, no matter how much potential they have, are tenth-graders after all, and the future is uncertain, Yu Fei and Anthony are different, one has already established himself in the same age group, and tomorrow's match with D'Angelo Collins will be decisive. The other is a rising star in ABCD's training camp, and he is seen as a second Tracy McGrady.

Prior to training camp, Anthony's reputation in the Class of 2002 was only marginally better than Maddie's reputation in 1997.

However, after yesterday's game, Anthony's super instant combat power and mature skills, as well as his young age in May 1984, make people see the strength and potential.

When training camp is over, Anthony will be parachuted into the top five high school students in the Class of 2002 based on his performance in the training camp, and there will be a lot of discussion about who is better between him and Amare Stoudemire.

Anthony's Aces team has a center of about seven feet, still black, and he easily beat Wilkins.

Anthony, who received the ball, showed his edge in the first attack, facing Iguodala's defense, dribbling hard and then making a quick stop to close the ball and make a jumper.

"Huh!"

Yu Fei does not evaluate Anthony's dribbling, and in terms of shooting at him, he deserves the evaluation of a "natural scorer".

The combination of man and ball is a general concept, and generally speaking, this phrase refers to the ability to hold the ball, but in reality, it has many indicators.

Stability in possession, coordination with the ball, balance in the air and fluidity with the ball falling from the hand and putting it away from the ground.

Anthony's most remarkable talent for man-ball combination is the process of tucking the ball away from the ground and lifting it over his head.

It's so silky that it makes people's hearts hairy.

Iguodala was not willing to admit defeat and received praise from yesterday's game, and Anthony was not the only one who built confidence.

By playing for Yu Fei, Iguodala was also appreciated by scouts.

He didn't think Anthony was better than himself, he wanted to touch the other person.

So after Yu Fei dribbled past half court, he actively opened his hand to ask for the ball.

Yu Fei passed the ball very simply, because in his impression, Anthony defended poorly.

What Yu didn't know was that Anthony wasn't always bad defensively, and the bite between him and Kobe Bryant at both ends of the offensive and defensive ends in the 2009 Western Conference Finals made people see the other side of him, but unfortunately, the bloodthirsty melon only appeared in one series, and Yu Fei never saw it, because he was only 4 years old at the time.

For Anthony, there is nothing on the pitch that he can't do as long as he wants to.

The problem is, he doesn't want to defend well.

But that's for later, and now, he needs to make a name for himself, so it's not just the offensive end that needs to hit the opponent hard, but the defensive end can't be cowardly.

With Anthony's full defense, Iguodala barely missed.

The rebounding ball flew outwards and landed exactly where Yu Fei was.

However, Yu Fei did not put the rebound ball in the palm of his hand, but gently put the ball a little under the basket, changing the flight path of the ball.

Will Wilkins received a wonderful pass from Yu Fei and scored under the basket.

"Will, don't you dunk this kind of ball?" Yu Fei teased.

Wilkins said helplessly: "Da Fei, do you think everyone can jump like you?" ”

Then, Yu Fei gave Wilkins a high-five.

Whether it's his brilliant passing or the feedback to his teammates after they score, it's impressive.

For Sonny Vaccaro in particular, he found something that sets Yu Fei apart.

NBA scouts and college scouts are obsessed with Anthony's versatility, but in his opinion, Anthony is brilliant, even outstanding, but he doesn't have the qualities to shine.

He's just a scorer.

What he did at this age was no different from what Paul Pierce, Antoine Walker, Jamal Mashburn did.

Therefore, Vacaro is more focused on flying.

Because Anthony's growth curve is transparent and predictable, he could be Bernard King in the best case scenario, while Vaccaro favors players whose ceilings are unpredictable.

Therefore, he wanted to observe Yu Fei in more detail.

Yu Fei has grown incredibly, and it took only one year to go from being an amateur player to a top-20 high school student in the United States with NBA prospects. Such a trajectory is absolutely impossible to replicate, and the question is, can he continue this progress? If so, where is his ceiling?

Anthony continued his offensive performance.

He noticed that there are a lot of professionals in the basketball world who are paying attention to themselves.

He knows where his strengths are, not defensively, but offensively.

The offense will be the guy he stands for, as for the defense? Just show a little bit and no one cares if the young players are good or bad defensively, just like not many people care about the young players who are not physically strong enough.

Because people have a growth curve, a young man like James who is less than 16 years old but looks as stout as an adult is a demon star who comes out in 20 years, even if it is James, the defense at this stage is not good, so Anthony did not raise the requirements for himself on the defensive end at all, but carefully defended in the first few minutes, and then found that everyone preferred to see their offensive performance, so they simply downgraded "serious defense" to the level of "casual defense".

However, the other protagonist of this game, Yu Fei, put most of his strength on the defensive end.

Because Yu Fei knew that there were many NBA scouts on the scene.

There is not much point in showing off their offensive skills in front of them, and in their opinion, high school level skills are difficult to put in the NBA. Every young person who wants to establish himself in the NBA needs to have the attributes of a sapper.

Therefore, Yu Fei spared no effort to show his defensive ability of assisting defense, switching defenses, opposing guards and small forwards, just to let them see that even if they are in the NBA, they can also rely on defense to gain a foothold.

Although Yu Fei wants to keep a low profile, his opponent has someone to call for a battle.

This man was not Anthony, but his teammate, fellow high school student in the Class of 2002 who was much more prevalent than Anthony's Lenny Cooke SF/PF before ABCD camp began.

Cook is currently ranked No. 12 in the 2002 class, but pundits generally believe he will fall outside the top 20 by the end of training camp.

Because Cook not only did not play to improve the ranking in the ABCD training camp, but instead gave James a wedding dress in the game and was blown up on the spot.

Then, Anthony on the same team also pretended to be a pig and a tiger, and beat the 12th graders one after another, thus becoming the most watched 11th grader in the training camp. For Cook, who is bent on skipping the NBA and going straight to the draft next year, beating Yu Fei is one of the only two options left for him to rebuild his reputation.

Another option would be to beat D'Angelo Collins, who was fifth in the 2001 class, in the next race.

But the 6-foot-9" Shaquille O'Neal's interior destructiveness chilled Cook's heart, and he was not sure of a victory, and Yu Fei, who was ranked 16th in the 2001 class, looked harmless and a good stepping stone for him.

"Yo, why do you keep passing the ball? It's cowardly behavior, scouts don't care how good your pass is! Cook responded to Fei's provocative behavior, "But looking at you like this, I guess you're not good at attacking, I really don't know how you ranked in the top 20 in the United States." ”

Subsequently, Anthony missed an outside shot, Yu Fei leaned directly on Lenny, gave the opponent a black elbow very unreasonably, grabbed the defensive rebound in an instant, and then said: "What you said is right, do you know why?" ”

After that, after Yu Fei dribbled the ball to the front court, he made a quick stop and shook Anthony, who was no longer defending, and a powerful tomahawk slammed down, deepening people's impression of his ability to control dribbling.

"You dare to do it?!" Lenny cried out as he covered his lips.

Yu Fei ignored his anger and sneered: "You can't even prevent this, no wonder you were beaten by the junior grade." ”

Damn the Cleaner! There were too many people on the scene for Cook to dare to make racist attacks on Fei, but that didn't stop him from going berserk.

Cook directly stuck Yu Fei with his waist and yelled at Anthony: "Melo, ball!" ”

Anthony passed, but he was not optimistic about Cook's offensive success rate, not to mention anything else, seeing that his position was not even stable to stabilize the center of gravity, that Frye was simply playing with him.

Yu Fei has an advantage against Cook, especially in the confrontation, he can completely disrupt Anthony's pass, but he doesn't do that, because if Cook can't get the ball, he can't humiliate the opponent on the defensive end.

Cook's self-righteous inward turn gave him the illusion of throwing off the defense.

But when he jumped to dunk, Yu Fei's defense shrouded in a higher place, directly shattering his offensive intent and throwing the ball out of bounds.

"No. 35 (Anthony) chose to team up with you for a reason." Yu Fei walked out of bounds and grabbed the ball on the ground with one hand, and said heartily, "Because you are too weak, it is just right to set him off." ”