Chapter 681: Chapter 481: The Fall of the Hero (Part One) Chapter 681: Chapter 481: The Fall of the Hero (Part One) Chapter 481: The Fall of a Hero
Before Christmas, the SuperSonics solemnly announced that they had reached a multi-year contract extension with Kevin Durant.

The world reacted with: Huh???

Yu Fei set a precedent in 2005 by signing a 2+1 short-term contract with the Bucks.

Since then, the time a superstar has to build a championship team for their home club has been reduced from eight to six years.

This is definitely a case that will be written into basketball history.

Remember, the great number 23 took seven years to reach the top of the world in Chicago.

The influence of Yu Fei was almost subversive.

Starting with him, the 03 generation’s James and Wade also signed short contracts, followed by Dwight Howard, Chris Paul, and Deron Williams.

Of course, there are exceptions like Yao Ming, an international player who is willing to sign a long-term contract with his home team, or Stoudemire, who has injury risks and prefers long-term security over glory. Not to mention Anthony, who lacks future planning. He signed a long-term contract, and now regrets it, looking at James’s “Decision” and the increasingly revered status of Yu Fei, it’s hard not to be tempted by the thought.

But what about Durant? According to external expectations, he too would sign a 2+1 short-term contract.

However, there was no controversy between Durant and the team.

As the team’s general manager, Sam Presti certainly wanted to lock in Durant with a long-term contract.

But he also understood that short contracts are the current trend, and if Durant insisted on a short-term deal, he would have to concede.

Yet, whether it was Durant, his agent, or Nike’s thoughts on the matter, they all demanded a long-term contract.

This was simply astounding.

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Looking back, the answer lay with Durant himself.

He was a rare modern NBA star known for being “friendly, approachable, down-to-earth, and totally unpretentious.” How could such a person consider those complex futures?

All he wanted was to play basketball.

A person who only wants to play basketball of course wants a stable life.

So, going against the current trend and signing a long-term contract with the team, securing his ties to Seattle until the summer of 2016, isn’t that just right?

Since Durant was selected to the third team last season, this triggered the Yu Fei clause, resulting in a 5% salary increase, and therefore, he signed a 5-year, $98 million contract with the SuperSonics.

Counting Durant’s contract, the SuperSonics now had four major contracts, but since Durant’s major contract wouldn’t take effect until the 2011-12 season, there wasn’t much immediate pressure on the payroll.

However, by 2012, if they wanted to retain their current roster, luxury tax would become a terrifying monster.

Before that, there were still a few good years left for the SuperSonics.

Durant’s renewal brought a sigh of relief to many people.

Some basketball experts believed that Nike would try to take Durant away from Seattle because Durant’s presence there could not effectively impact Reebok’s market, and would actually create negative marketing. After all, he played in a market dominated by Reebok; no matter how well he played, in the end, he was promoting Reebok’s products.

Now, Durant’s future has been settled.

He will stay in Seattle at least until 2016, by which time Yu Fei will be 34 years old, and Durant will only be 28, a prime time for a generational shift.

No one asked if Durant was willing to wait that long, nor did anyone know if Yu Fei would be willing to step aside at that time.

Everyone felt the SuperSonics had a bright future because they controlled both the present and the future of the NBA.

Durant’s renewal was the last major news the NBA world could expect before the anticipated Christmas battles began.

But that wasn’t the last major news in sports before that.

Reebok was heavily promoting Yu Fei’s ninth generation of The Chosen One basketball boots. This boot, co-branded with “Empire,” was the culmination of Reebok’s latest sports technology and highest creativity, planned to be released in multiple versions and colorways, aiming to sweep the global basketball shoe market as the new decade approached.

In the realm of sneakers, Nike could not find a suitable candidate to match Yu Fei’s influence.

Whether it was Kobe or James, their legacies were diminished by Yu Fei’s emergence.

What was Kobe’s legacy? It was his solo struggle after 2004, then averaging 36 points per game during the first year of the NBA’s hand-checking ban, and single-handedly leading a Lakers team that was unworthy of the playoffs into the postseason. This should have been the best villain-hero rebirth story of the new century’s first decade. However, the year before Kobe’s remarkable feat, Yu Fei averaged 36 points under the allowed hand-checking era, and single-handedly swept the Detroit Pistons in the Eastern Conference semifinals, taking the lone hero epic to a higher dimension.

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A year later, Kobe’s tearful average of 36 points, his classic single-game 81 points, and scoring more in three quarters than the entire Mavericks team were all classic performances. But with Yu Fei’s prior achievements, these could no longer stir up the cultural craze they deserved.

James was even more thoroughly suppressed.

Haters summarized James’s career with the Cavaliers in one sentence: “The life of the pseudo-king tormented by The Chosen One.”

They were the world’s second and third, but aside from the All-NBA selections, nothing could prove they were the second and third men.

They lacked MVPs, and had not single-handedly led a team to the Finals. With such, how much allure and appeal did Kobe and James have left in the eyes of fans?