After finishing the game with the Raptors, the Bulls returned to Chicago.

It was at this time that the league announced the awards for December.

Although Xu Yong's personal data in December declined, he still won the Rookie of the Month award without any suspense.

There really isn't anyone in the East who can fight.

From Xu Yong's perspective, even without him, the final achievements of the 2009 class would be: a historical superstar Curry, a superstar Harden, two All-Stars Griffin and DeRozan, and many rotation players with outstanding performances.

But in terms of rookie season performance, their performance was actually not that good.

Moreover, the Eastern Conference was originally competitive. Jennings, the former No. 1 high school student in the United States who scored 55 points in a single game, also joined the Suns because of his appearance.

However, in the Western Conference, Evans' performance in December was explosive. He averaged 22.1 points, 5.2 rebounds and 5.1 assists per game, and won the Western Conference Player of the Week for the second consecutive year.

However, the Kings have already begun to dive towards the lottery.

But this is the advantage of being on a bad team. You have unlimited firing rights. If you play well, you make money. If you don’t, you can continue next year.

Evans, this is clearly a momentum that has been built up.

With both of them winning the title again, it is inevitable that Xu Yong and Evans will be compared for the best rookie of the month.

Fans who support Xu Yong are complaining about Evans' stats. After all, the Kings are now ranked fourth from the bottom in the Western Conference, while the Bulls are seventh in the Eastern Conference.

Fans who support Evans said that those fans who support Xu Yong are just sour grapes because the intensity of the games in the West is much higher than that in the East.

Just a few days later, a video involving Joe Maloof, one of the Maloof brothers, who owns the Kings, went viral on social media.

That was Maloof chatting with his friends, although Maloof probably didn't know that his friends were secretly recording the video.

They talked about Evans winning the Rookie of the Year award for two consecutive years.

You know, Evans is not only scoring a lot of points, but also has a lot of rebounds and assists. He has a good chance of becoming the fourth player after Oscar Robertson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James to achieve 20+5+5 in his rookie season.

This is not just about selecting the best rookie, it is about selecting a rookie of historical level.

Maloof naturally couldn't hide his pride.

"Jeff (Petrie) told me that he bet his entire managerial career that choosing Xu Yong would be the best choice, but I insisted on choosing Tyreke. Who would be crazy enough to use the fourth pick to select a yellow outside player?" Maloof spread his hands and smiled as he smoked a cigar.

"Didn't you agree to choose Xu before? It seems you even promised to choose Xu?"

"Yes, I respected Joffe, but at the last minute I exercised my power."

"What a great power move, Tyrek will give Sacramento its own king."

"Haha, I have to thank those guys in Chicago, otherwise I would be really worried that Joff would go against my wishes." Maloof laughed while holding a cigar.

"Will he?"

"If you stay in one place for too long, you won't know who the real owner of the team is."

…

This is a "Friendgate" incident that often occurs in the American celebrity circle. The reason why it went viral is not only because of the competition for the best rookie, but more because it revealed the behind-the-scenes events of this year's draft.

These things are impossible for ordinary people to see.

The person who bore the brunt of the video was Kings president Geoff Petrie.

This meritorious manager who had worked diligently for the Kings for fifteen years and built the Princeton Kings never expected that his boss would view him this way.

His dedication and hard work for the team are totally worthless in the eyes of the boss who is a capitalist.

Even the gambles he was planning to make had already been seen through by his boss.

After all, after more than ten years of getting along, who doesn’t know each other?

It would have been fine if this video hadn't been leaked, but now that it was, Petrie was in an awkward situation.

Although the Maloof brothers quickly issued a statement expressing their unlimited trust in Petrie and did a good job of saving face.

But this kind of statement is like a woman cheating on you and then coming back to say that she loves you. It seems that nothing has changed, but in fact everything has changed.

The second is Xu Yong.

Before the draft, he felt that he and the Kings were going in both directions, and he basically even felt that he was going to Sacramento.

After all, the other party made a draft promise to him.

If this matter had not been exposed, he would still feel a little regretful that he was unable to go to Sacramento.

But when this news came out, he suddenly felt like someone had poured a bucket of cold water on him.

It turns out that if the Bulls didn't choose him, he wouldn't be able to go to the Kings because the owner of that team didn't think highly of him at all.

Although this is someone else's right, and because of the Bulls' interception, the incident of [making a draft promise but not picking] did not really happen, but now that it has been revealed, it is no different from happening.

Finally, there are the fans.

Because the Bulls had a game against the Kings in January, the duel between the "Best Rookies" was already quite interesting, and with this incident, the game attracted a lot of attention.

According to official news from the Kings, tickets for this mid-January game have been sold out.

This also perfectly illustrates one of the characteristics of the NBA: topics/traffic.

The NBA is a commercial league. In addition to competition, these off-court topics have an unprecedented impact on the game.

As a result, many players have focused their energy on how to generate traffic. Of course, that will happen after the players "wake up".

All in all, the attention to this game is absolutely unprecedented.

…

Time flies, and it is already mid-January.

The Bulls flew to Sacramento and faced the Kings the next night.

Not only fans were paying attention to this game, but even the media came to smell the traffic.

As the broadcaster of this game, TNT directly sent out the ace duo of Charles Barkley and Kenny Smith to provide on-site commentary.

Before the game started, the two began to discuss the tape loudly.

"If I were Geoff, I would definitely leave. He shaped the team culture of the Kings. It is extremely unfair to be treated like this." Barkley's "big mouth" fully demonstrated his willingness to watch the fun.

Of course, this matter has been a hot topic recently, and it would be inappropriate not to take advantage of it.

"Charles, we are all adults, this video was just an accident." Smith tried his best to be the funny one.

The implication of his words is also very clear. This is the relationship between capitalists and employees. You don’t really expect a capitalist to treat you as one of their own, do you?

However, as their discussion was heated, the most embarrassing thing was Petrie who arrived at the scene at this time.

As the president and general manager of the Kings, he must appear at such a critical moment to stabilize the morale of the team.

But judging from his dark circles and haggard appearance, he must have been under tremendous pressure during this period.

At this time, players from both sides began to enter the stadium to warm up.

The scene immediately cut to shots of Xu Yong and Evans, which caused a burst of booing from the fans.

In fact, it is not only the fans from Sacramento who came to the scene today. The Kings have not performed well in recent years, and the attendance rate at home games has always been low. A large number of these fans came to watch the fun, and of course there were also many who came to support Xu Yong.

There were some fans from Tempe, many Chinese from all over the country, and even some who came all the way from China.

"Charles, who do you think will be the winner tonight?" After seeing this scene, Smith ended the previous topic and asked.

That's right, it's about who will be the winner, not which team will win.

Compared with the outcome of the game, what attracted more attention in this match was the performance of Xu Yong and Evans.

"You know, I've always been a fan of Xu, and he will be the big winner," Barkley said seriously.

Ever since the videotape incident was exposed, most voices on social media have been in favor of Evans. After all, Evans is playing better now.

In this era, this season, averaging 22 points per game ranks 11th in the league!

Not to mention 5 rebounds and 5 assists. Maloof's pride is definitely not without reason.

So this is Barkley's usual style, going against the mainstream voice.

And he used the term big winner here, which means that he not only thinks Xu Yong will win the data, but also win the game.

"No, no, Charles, this is totally unfounded." Smith kept shaking his head.

"Twice." Barkley suddenly stretched out his hand and made a yeah gesture.

Smith looked puzzled.

"In the NCAA, they met twice, and Xu was the winner." Barkley mentioned a historical statistic.

Although he is a big mouth, his arguments are all well-founded.

He bet that Yao Ming would not get 19 points. At that time, Yao Ming had 0 points in two games and 2 points in one game, and his highest score in a single game was 10 points.

Smith smiled and nodded, but couldn't help but cast a caring look at Xu Yong.

Being favored by Barkley is not a good thing!

On the field, players from both sides had finished warming up and the opening ceremony began.

The Bulls were the first visiting team to take the court. When Xu Yong first came on the court, he received warm cheers from the fans who came to support him.

Rose, Xu Yong, Deng, Gibson, and Noah are the Bulls' regular starting five.

The entrance ceremony of the home team, the Kings, after the visiting team.

Evans was also the first to appear on the court. His current scoring average is the highest on the Kings, but the player with the highest status on the Kings now is Kevin Martin, who has been playing for the team for many years.

Evans, Martin, Dent Green, Jason Thompson, and Spencer Hawes, the Kings' starting five.

Another basis for Barkley's remarks is that regardless of the Eastern Conference or the Western Conference, the Bulls are indeed stronger than the Kings in terms of strength.

After the opening ceremony, the starting players of both teams came on the court one after another.

"Xu Yong, come on!"

At this moment, Chinese fans who had traveled thousands of miles to the scene shouted loudly.

The shout attracted Xu Yong's attention. He turned towards the fans and made a fist-bumping gesture.

Then, like a hunter, he looked at Evans in the opposite half.

bring it on!