Chapter 132: Strong Flavor, No Need For Words
In the 2007-08 season playoffs, in terms of record, it presented a clear bipolar dominance situation.
The Celtics in the Eastern Conference ranked first in the league with a 64-18 record, while the Mavericks in the West suffered from time constraints; they assembled a dual superstars lineup of Kobe and Nowitzki in the mid-season, but had no opportunity to pair them with the most suitable teammates. Before the trade deadline, they quickly signed Sam Cassell and Chris Webber to bolster the team’s strength, but it was still somewhat insufficient.
Because the degree of involution in the West this year was rare even looking at NBA history.
Not mentioning the hellish Southwest Division, the Warriors, ranked ninth in the West with 46 wins, and just the Lakers, ranked eleventh in the West, had 39 wins. Such a record, if placed in the East, could enter the playoffs as the eighth in the Eastern Conference.
In such a competitive environment, even a strong team like the Mavericks couldn’t bomb fish in the East like the Celtics; targeting 60 wins, they ultimately achieved 59 wins, ranking first in the West and second in the league.
And this still wouldn’t affect experts’ evaluation of them.
Despite still having flaws at the three position, they were the kind of team that could conquer the West just by playing normally.
And the West wasn’t just these changes alone.
The Grizzlies ranked seventh in the West with a 51-31 record; they would face the second in the West, the New Orleans Hornets, in the first round.
The Jazz, who were supposed to meet the Rockets in the first round, were indirectly affected by the Grizzlies’ rise due to the butterfly effect of the traverser, becoming invisible victims, and would face the Spurs in the first round.
Although the Rockets avoided the Jazz, their situation wasn’t much better; they would face the fifth in the West, the Phoenix Suns, in the first round.
The series between the Grizzlies and the Hornets was considered one of the first-round series with the least suspense.
Because they had a genius-like third-year guard Chris Pau, who delivered MVP-level performance this year; if nothing unexpected happened, he would also become the youngest MVP in history at 23 years and 1 day old（23 years and 1 day）.
Pau not only saved professional basketball in New Orleans, this was even literal. To understand this, one needs to review the Hornets’ bumpy background: due to the devastating blow of Hurricane Katrina, the team was forced to relocate to Oklahoma for two seasons, and this season was their first year back home.
And it was in this season carrying hope and return that Pau fully exploded. He led the team on a strong charge, especially after All-Star Weekend, putting up jaw-dropping stats—22 points, 13 assists, 4 rebounds per game, with shooting percentages of 50%, 41%, and 80% respectively. Over the entire season, only two teams truly frustrated him: one was the league defense benchmark Boston Celtics, and the other was the Utah Jazz led by Deron Williams.
Bill Simmons ranked Pau second on his famous column’s annual value list and wrote: “Among all top players, no one is more important to his teammates than him except Kevin Garnett. In fact, my favorite thing to watch this year is Chris Pau’s games, like him missing two free throws to lock in the win in Orlando, then watching Turkoglu’s three-pointer miss at the final buzzer. After the game, Pau was disappointed in himself and didn’t celebrate, so his teammates and coach immediately surrounded him, patting his head, his back, doing everything to let him know how important he is to them. To be honest, besides KG, he’s the only MVP I can accept!”
Besides Chris Pau as the stabilizing force, the Hornets’ lineup also featured David West, who grew into a star-level inside player this year; although he seemed a grade below the star bigs of other Western playoff teams, he was absolutely not to be underestimated.
From the outside perspective, the Hornets’ main problem was over-reliance on Pau; if Pau ran into trouble, the whole team might fall into panic.
However, even so, most experts still believed the Hornets could easily overcome the Grizzlies hurdle. The reason was simple: from the outside view, the Grizzlies were still a team that hadn’t completed rebuilding.
That mid-season four-team trade, while dismantling the biggest locker room hazard Rudy Gay, brought Jason Kidd to the weakest point guard position, but the cost was losing two mainstays, Pau Gasol and Mike Miller.
After the trade, the Grizzlies’ structure was more reasonable, and Xu Ling played more smoothly, but this didn’t represent a qualitative leap in overall strength.
Their most prominent problem was a lack of scoring points, especially insufficient firepower from the bench. Whenever entering rotation phase, they were often exploited by opponents to narrow the gap or extend the lead, and this deep structural issue couldn’t be solved in just one season.
It could be said that if not for Xu Ling’s sudden meteoric rise, the Grizzlies management should be pondering lottery draft luck in May right now, rather than considering how to deal with the Hornets led by Chris Pau.
Fate pushed them here, yet almost no one was optimistic about their prospects. Even local Memphis fans’ biggest hope at this moment was just for Xu Ling to lead the team to win one playoff game— even just one would be satisfying.
April 19 was the opening day of the NBA first round; the Grizzlies departed for New Orleans.
Just before boarding the team’s private jet, Xu Ling casually posted a tweet that enraged Hornets fans: “I’m already ready for the second round. #Don’t say it’s impossible”
The most special thing about this tweet was that Xu Ling used “#” as a hashtag.
In the future, the “#” hashtag is the hallmark of social media like Twitter, but now, few people did it, until the California wildfires in October last year（2007/10）, when reporters used #sandiegofire in Twitter news to unify the information flow, making people realize it could improve searchability.
But this was still limited to news.
Xu Ling suddenly doing this, given the outside impression of him, clearly showed he didn’t take Pau and the Hornets seriously at all, and believed he had a better chance of reaching the second round than Pau, the nailed-on regular season MVP.
But the Grizzlies had never even won a single playoff game in their history; is it really appropriate to talk so big?
Thus, a new batch of haters flooded Xu Ling’s tweet.
As the biggest traffic account on Twitter, Xu Ling’s page was practically the trash dump of the internet basketball community.
Lakers fans, LeBron James fans, and other fans who disliked him or loved bandwagoning, plus random passersby, would all come to dump trash under his tweets.
Now it was just one more wave.
Angry Hornets fans rioted under Xu Ling’s tweet.
“Reminder to history illiterate: your team has 0 playoff wins in history. And we have an MVP!”
This was relatively mild.
There were less mild ones: “Shut your dog mouth, rookie! Wait until you score a point in the playoffs before spouting this crap!”
And mysterious spammers: “League’s number one point guard VS league’s number one egomaniac!”
Whenever Xu Ling stirred up chaos on Twitter, people around him would always add fuel to the fire.
Kyle Lowry took advantage of the chaos to retweet and say: “I support Eli, you can curse me now.”
Then Lowry’s tweet was filled with insulting “Who are you?”
Xu Ling himself didn’t pay too much attention to the reactions on Twitter.
If he cared, he would’ve stopped long ago.
Who would care about a social media where thousands wait daily for his new posts to curse him?
He posted on Twitter mainly for fun.
Moreover, his sponsors encouraged him to post on Twitter.
So he posted one on the first day of the playoffs, and it really offended so many Hornets fans; it’s regrettable, have Americans’ sense of humor died?
Chris Pau just smiled it off.
This point guard might be one of the few normal people in the league.
If it were other arrogant stars, they probably would’ve seen this as outright provocation. But Pau was different; he perfectly controlled his emotions, like a model star trained in professional PR, always maintaining a decent smile to reporters: “Eli is Eli, he always likes to joke. I have nothing to say, we’ll see on the court.”
This response was impeccable.
When the underdog bares its teeth claiming to upset, others at most praise the courage; but when the favorite humbly lowers its stance, praise for humility pours in endlessly. Whether sincere or not, Pau lived up to being LeBron James’ close friend.
This perfectly pitched response indeed needed no further words.
On the contrary, Pau’s teammates couldn’t hold back.
Starting center Tyson Chandler was the first to stand up for his partner, believing Xu Ling’s words disrespected Pau.
For Chandler, Pau’s arrival completely changed his career. The once highly touted but talent-unrealized former top high school player in the United States transformed into the league’s top blue-collar big under Pau.
Alley-oop slam dunks, rim protection blocks, rebound protection— all his value was maximized under Pau’s lead.
“I don’t care what others think,” Chandler said decisively after training in an interview, “No one can disrespect Chris like this. He’s not only our leader, but the MVP of this league. Some people may have forgotten how to spell respect, but we’ll soon give them a good lesson on the court.”
Chandler’s words might represent most of the Hornets’ thoughts; they believed Pau deserved respect from everyone.
But respect depends on the person, especially seeking it from a guy who publicly shakes his finger at an opponent he’s already shaken down; that’s unwise.
When the Grizzlies arrived in New Orleans, outside the airport, reporters surrounded Xu Ling, asking about Hornets players saying he should respect Pau.
“What did Chris say?” Xu Ling asked.
After hesitating, the reporter answered: “He thinks you’re just joking and doesn’t mind.”
Xu Ling said: “I do want to reach the second round; this isn’t a joke.”
Moreover, this had nothing to do with respect.
Which playoff team doesn’t want to advance to the next round? What does that have to do with respect?
After responding, Xu Ling boarded the team bus with his teammates to head to the hotel.
The professional basketball world probably wouldn’t pay much attention to the series between Memphis and New Orleans, unless suspense arose.
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Game time: April 19, 2008, 19:00
Game location: Charlotte Bobcats Arena
Matchup: Charlotte Hornets vs. Memphis Grizzlies（Playoffs first round game one）
Attendance: 17,446, sellout
Broadcast network: TNT
Commentary team: Kevin Harlan（play-by-play）, Doug Collins（analyst）
Officials: Dick Bavetta, Sean Corbin, Joe Ford
