Chapter 680: Chapter 480: Damn Good Guy (Combine Volume)_4 Chapter 680: Chapter 480: Damn Good Guy (Combine Volume)_4 Would anyone call Scottie Pippen the “Son of America”?

Would Nike offer Scottie Pippen a $70 million endorsement contract before he even entered the NBA? No, even Scottie Pippen of the ’90s wouldn’t deserve a $70 million endorsement contract.

“I know, Uncle Memitt, but it takes time,” Durant looked very aware of his own situation, “Frye is our leader, Brandon is his assistant, and I need to find my proper place.”

“Whether it’s actual combat or statistics, from your performance on the basketball court, you have already surpassed Brandon Roy. Kid, I know you don’t want to disturb the status quo, but you must try to compete. If you want to be the face of Nike, you have to fight for your rightful place just like Michael did!”

“Just give me some time, Uncle Memitt.”

“Make it quick.”

The phone call ended.

Durant gripped his cell phone, his gaze icy.

A confidant asked, “What did Lynn say?”

“The moment I was chosen by Seattle, Nike found me,” Durant said coolly, “They drew me a blueprint, promised me a great future, and told me all I had to do in Seattle was compete with Frye.”

Clearly, the way Yu Fei had been mentoring Durant for the past two years couldn’t be called “competition.”

“Now, they suddenly tell me to try and compete with Brandon Roy, to fight for the place that belongs to me.”

Just two years’ time, and Nike’s expectations of him had fallen from competing with Fei to competing with Roy. What had gone wrong?

Had Nike already put all their bets on the pair in Los Angeles?

“What do you guys think,” Durant said something a good guy like Durant should never say, “is it because I’ve always been acting too much like a damn good guy?!”

***

Nike believed that they must join forces to end Yu Fei’s reign, thus thwarting Reebok’s ambitious expansion.

In just eight years, Reebok had grown from a tottering sports brand to the world’s third-largest with a market value of $9 billion. If Fei could continue to dominate like Jordan, Reebok would reach the same scale as Nike in the 2010s.

For Nike, this would be the most terrifying thing.

Therefore, where James would go this summer actually determined how Nike would stop the birth of the Reebok empire.

That’s when a top executive named Lynn Merritt suggested, “Neither 23 nor 24 can stand alone against 44, but if we can bring them together, there is great potential.”

Merritt was no ordinary Nike executive; he had deep ties with Jordan and was the key person who dug Kobe out of Adidas to Nike, followed by facilitating James’s signing.

Basketball players signed with Nike usually respectfully called him “Uncle” or “Daddy.”

At that moment, having just finished his call with Durant, Merritt gave a brief report to the top brass: “KD is a kind kid, expecting him to stir up waves within the Supersonics in a short term is unrealistic.”

“Our hopes are still on the Lakers Team.”

But even if Nike’s twin pillars led the Lakers Team to defeat the Supersonics, could they really break Fei’s dominance? That’s at best a sports fable of being outmatched by numbers.

However, they couldn’t take care of so much anymore.

Ending Fei’s reign was a symbolic event, and it had to be completed by an athlete under the Nike umbrella.

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Once it happened, perhaps there would be a public opinion that the Supersonics lost but Fei didn’t lose; yet on a global scale, one fact would be unshakable: Nike defeated Reebok.

All of it would begin in two weeks, on Christmas Eve.

Before that, Reebok still had to launch the first “Chosen One” in the history of sports, “Tiger” Woods, to compete with Fei.

It seemed ironic that compared to basketball, golf was a relatively niche sport, but Woods was a figure who broke the barriers of sports and was the only person under Nike who could rival Fei.

As Reebok devoutly sang praises of Fei’s eight-year, six-championship legend, Nike was responsible for reminding the public: “Has anyone ever told you that ‘Tiger’ Woods was actually the first ‘Chosen One’ in American history?”