The Way of Basketball: Never Talk Shit to Him!

"After the battle for the bronze," the finals commenced.

The two teams contending for the title hadn't changed, still Argentina versus Italy. And the final result remained the same, with Argentina clinching the ultimate gold medal thanks to Manu Ginobili's magical performance.

For the first time since the United States assembled the "Dream Team" in '92, the gold medal went to another country.

That day arrived sooner than anticipated.

After the match, the organizing committee awarded the Olympic medals, and Ginobili also secured his first Olympic Finals MVP trophy.

And his peak period was just beginning.

"The magical Manu" was far from reaching his most dazzling moment. Of course, for Argentinians, this was his most dazzling moment.

The Olympics are about dreams; the NBA, well, that's just a place to make money!

The "Best Lineup" of the men's basketball at the Olympics was also released on the same day.

The Huaxia Men's Basketball Team emerged as the biggest winner:

Su Wan and Yao were both selected for this listing.

To put it in perspective, even gold medalist Argentina had only Manu on the list. The other two spots went to "Dream Six's" Tim Duncan and Spain's Paul Gasol.

But their selection was well deserved and raised no objections.

Yao Ming averaged 22.3 points, 10.3 rebounds, and 1.7 blocks across seven games.

Su Wan's stats were even more comprehensive, averaging 24.6 points, 5.6 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 1.6 steals, and 0.6 blocks per game. He was not only the Huaxia Men's Basketball Team's "Scoring King" but also the "Scoring King" of all men's basketball in the Olympics.

Joy brings spiritedness, and for the Huaxia Men's Basketball Team's last meal before returning home, "farewell dinner," Su Wan even indulged in some red wine, with Bartel absent.

The rest drank themselves into a frenzy, elated by making history.

By the end, Captain Zhang, patting Del Harris on the shoulder with boozy breath, said, "Del, you keep coaching like this, and you'll be leading the next men's basketball team. Next time, we'll aim to bring back a medal!"

Even Yao was a bit slurred in his speech.

Apart from the Huaxia Men's Basketball Team's final Olympic top four finish and his selection to the "Best Lineup" alongside Su Wan, he had another reason to be cheerful. Carol Dawson had just called to inform him of a major trade by the team:

The Rockets traded Francis, "Old Cat" Mobley, and Kevin Cato to the Magic Team in exchange for the "Super scorer" who was the league's "Scoring King" for the last season, Tracy McGrady.

Next season he would collaborate with a top-tier perimeter player.

It's not that he disdained Francis or Mobley.

Rookie season, Francis had covered for him, allowing him to adapt to the NBA more swiftly. He always remembered that favor.

But his cooperation with Su Wan made him realize just how comfortable it was to play with an offensively and defensively proficient perimeter player. "Franchise" and "Old Cat" could score, but their defense was notoriously leaky across the league.

The tremors from this trade lasted many days.

Some media never imagined that the Magic Team would actually trade McGrady for Howard. — Even if McGrady himself publicly requested a trade, couldn't they have said a few soft words? In today's era, superstars need to be pampered; if you don't pamper them, who will stick with you? They still thought it was the era when teams could dispose of players at will.

TNT believed the level of stupidity of the Magic Team's management move was comparable to letting Shaquille O'Neal go in '96.

Another part of the media was shocked by the birth of another "superstar duo." ESPN called this trade a "major earthquake that changed the league's landscape." Yao Ming and McGrady were called the "New OK Combination."

Only Su Wan knew that this trade, which now shook all over the United States, would be left with nothing but sighs six years later.

One could say Yao wasn't Shaq, or one could say McGrady wasn't Kobe, or perhaps injuries were as fierce as tigers; in any case, they did not exhibit the dominance that the outside world expected.

The "Yao and McGrady" duo's best result was just the first round of the playoffs.

Ironically, without McGrady, Yao led the Rockets into the second round of the playoffs.

This was a classic example of 1 plus 1 being less than 2.

Compared to this trade, Su Wan was actually more curious about what heights the Rockets could have reached if Francis and Mobley had stayed on the team and this trade had never happened. After all, this lineup was originally modeled after the '94/'95 "back-to-back" championship Rockets, with the original plan being that the team would play the "One Star and Four Shooters" strategy after Yao developed. Unfortunately, just as the lineup was about to be successfully tested, Tomjanovich was diagnosed with "bladder cancer" and had to retire to seek treatment.

The "One Star and Four Shooters" strategy also dissipated in the night winds of Houston following his departure.

Van Gundy took good care of Yao during his tenure as head coach of the Rockets, protecting the increasingly heavy Yao very well. But in Su Wan's view, "One Star and Four Shooters" was the strategy that could allow Yao to showcase himself to the greatest extent.

But as JJ said, unfortunately there are no "ifs"...

Such a Yao was ultimately never seen!

This trade caused a sensation all over the United States, but not every city put this report on the front page of their media.

So Houston has good news, huh?

Doesn't every family have something to be happy about?

For instance, San Antonio reported a lot of news mainly about Manu Ginobili, and the sports headlines in Cleveland were full of Su Wan's name. Su Wan, who had already won over a slew of fans from the summer league, made Clevelanders even more expectant after finishing the Olympic Games.

Such a huge exposure was definitely good for Su Wan, with newspapers led by the "Cleveland Plain Dealer" saying things like "LeBron's strongest perimeter support for the new season is in place" or "The uncle is set to replace Zha Zhunas as a more suitable second-in-command for the Cavaliers," as if "His coming is to assist LeBron" was a given.

He didn't rush to publicly contest this.

What he needed to do now was to quickly immerse himself into the training.

After seven Olympic games, he acquired 195,000 ZONE points. On the plane to Cleveland, he opened his attribute panel and spent all those ZONE points. 96,000 of those points were used to continue improving his Physical Potential Value, which now reached 88 points.

The remaining 97,000 points were all allocated to Core Strength, which also reached a Potential Value of 88 points.

Such allocation was the result of deep consideration by Su Wan.

During the seven Olympic games, to ensure "The Zone" mode lasted long enough, he usually played in support of Yao during the first half, staying in 'energy-saving' mode. Even then, he could only maintain "The Zone" mode for a maximum of 20 minutes per game. And when he needed to invest a lot of energy on both offense and defense, like the game against Puerto Rico, he couldn't maintain it for 20 minutes.

This indicated that 72 points in physical fitness were far from enough for his style of play; he needed to keep strengthening his physical fitness.

Increasing the Potential Value of "physical fitness" would allow him to improve his stamina even faster.

Core Strength largely determined his operational limit in "The Zone" mode, and Su Wan needed to continue improving that too. And whether it was strength or physical fitness, both aspects were unimprovable during the season, so he had to make the most of the little remaining off-season time.