Chapter 696: Chapter 486 Durant Doesn’t Want to be Durant Anymore (United)_3 Chapter 696: Chapter 486 Durant Doesn’t Want to be Durant Anymore (United)_3 Crusading against Artest for his war crimes committed tonight became politically correct in the Los Angeles sports world.

The topic of James passing on the chance to be a hero and facing Yu Fei’s twenty-nine consecutive losses gradually disappeared as if it no longer mattered to anyone.

It was a PR victory for Nike, and one of media manipulation.

Because the public’s attention span is always limited.

However, saving James’s dwindling public image was just a by-the-way act for Nike.

They wanted to know how much clout Durant’s performance in the game had generated for their company.

Lynn Memitt, however, felt pessimistic about this.

Durant’s performance was no less than Kobe’s for the Lakers.

His second-half performance was crucial for the SuperSonics to win the game, even Yu Fei praised him in the post-game interview.

Memitt initially thought that Yu Fei was broad-minded, not minding Durant spreading Nike’s influence within Reebok’s empire.

It turned out, he was wrong.

The day after the game, aside from “sentencing” Artest, the media’s favorite thing was to promote Yu Fei’s explosive 45+14+13 during the Christmas battle and how playing power forward in the second half to a great extent helped Durant explode.

Durant represents Nike’s younger generation, James’s market has withered, unless he can succeed with total dominance in the Lakers, Nike feels pessimistic about his commercial prospects.

Once James falls from the facade of Nike, his end will be more miserable than Tiger Woods’s. Because no matter how many lovers Woods involved himself with due to his alleged sex addiction, his status as the Greatest of All Time in golf is unbreakable. James? It took him a very short time to go from a great marketing machine to a hometown traitor despised by everyone.

If he had succeeded, it would have been fine, but once failed, it is very difficult to turn over.

As long as James falls into a hell where he cannot turn over, Durant is the most likely among all Nike athletes under the age of 26 to take over from Kobe.

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How could they allow their most promising young athlete to look up to another brand’s athlete within the team?

Not to mention, like now, hard performance not only fails to earn recognition for Durant but leads to double the praise for Yu Fei.

As if all of Durant’s achievements were thanks to Yu Fei.

That day, Durant returned to Seattle with the team.

As soon as Durant got off the plane, he received a text from Memitt, asking him to pay attention to tonight’s ESPN and TNT basketball programs.

Durant was in a completely relaxed state.

His performance against the Lakers last night was not his best career performance, but it was enough to become one of his career highlights.

It was the first time he had performed excellently on such a big stage against a powerful opponent.

32 points, 5 rebounds, although without assists, without his 32 points, there would not have been Yu Fei and Roy’s double-digit assists, nor the SuperSonics’s victory.

That night, Durant first watched ESPN’s program.

He thought that ESPN’s experts would emphasize his contribution in the second half when recapping last night’s game.

But to his surprise, John Hollinger, who created the Player Efficiency Rating (PER), seriously said before starting the recap show, “From the point of view of efficiency, the first credit for the SuperSonics’s victory last night goes to Frye, followed by Brandon Roy.”

Of course, someone would ask, “What about KD?”

“KD’s efficiency was poor in the first half, and then he was matched up with LeBron in the second half, which I think affected his efficiency. Although he got the second highest score for the team, I believe, in terms of contribution to victory, he is not as good as Brandon,” Hollinger stressed, “My judgment is based on data, because data speaks for itself.”

These words made Durant feel angry.

Brandon Roy?

Did he make any breakthrough shots in the entire second half?

No, every ball he scored was an easy one, the rest was just passing.

How could his efficiency be low in such a situation?

How could PER, a calculation based on player efficiency, distinguish the most valuable and the second most valuable player on the court?

Is this the renowned ESPN expert?

Durant scornfully changed the channel.

He switched to TNT.

It was one of the main programs of the TNT Crew, “Inside the NBA.”

Durant believed that the TNT Crew would give him a fair assessment, not just because they had former players like Barkley and Smith, but Ernie Johnson was also a fair media person, and besides, he had a live connect with them last night.

Just for that, they should speak well of him.

“Setting aside the Ron Artest moment, what do you guys think was the key to the SuperSonics’s victory last night?”

Ernie Johnson asked the other three members of the Crew.

Brent Barry naturally said, “Frye.”

“Aside from Frye?” Johnson continued.

“KD,” Kenny Smith’s words made Durant’s brows relax, “his majority of points came in the second half, which is an undervalued key performance.”

Johnson turned to Barkley, “Chuck, what do you think?”

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In the TNT Crew, each person had their role.

During last season’s Greatest of All Time debate, Barkley was a defender of Jordan, while Barry defended Yu Fei.

At this moment, Barkley suddenly gave Barry a little nudge: “I want to hear what Brent has to say first.”

“Well, Brent?”

“Kenny’s point makes sense, KD’s scoring was key to the SuperSonics’s win,” Barry, well-versed in debate tactics, began by agreeing with some points of his interlocutor before presenting his opposing view, “But in my opinion, the key was Frye, followed by Brandon Roy. Together with Frye, they got a total of 24 assists, so one could say, they were the brains and decision-makers of the SuperSonics. KD did get 32 points, but he had no assists. He is a pure scorer, but his opportunities in the second half should have gone to Frye. Remember last night? KD said Frye would help him block Ron Artest. Is it a must for the SuperSonics to assign Frye against Artest? It’s not a multiple-choice question, which means Frye could have refused to give up the small forward position, and he could have scored those points that KD got. In that case, Frye might have ended up with 50-60 points, and the SuperSonics’s victory would still be secure.”