Where the noise did not reach

Chapter 72 Chaos is a Ladder (Thanks to Lonely Fun Man for the Alliance Leader Award)

Late at night, the desk lamp in Jerry West's office was the only light source in the entire administration building.

He had just hung up the phone with Mark Jafaroni.

Jaffaroni's outburst was no longer a complaint, but a near-collapsed plea—the locker room was completely out of control, the SSOL system had failed, and he begged for a "real point guard" or he couldn't continue coaching. He even vaguely mentioned resigning.

Almost simultaneously, several new emails popped up on the computer screen.

The emails came from the team's public relations department and West's trusted assistant coach. They detailed everything that had just happened: the out-of-control confrontation, Jaffaroni's inappropriate accusations, Gasol's humiliation and silence, and how Xu Ling forcefully intervened, took control of the situation, and ultimately forced Jaffaroni to apologize.

West leaned back in his chair, fingertips touching, his sharp gaze seemingly piercing the darkness as he surveyed the team's roster, quickly assessing the events of the night.

Jaffaroni is incapable of navigating this ship. SSOL is the root of the failure, but he's a bargain, and owner Heisley will never be willing to pay the severance pay to fire him. Besides, if they fire Jaffaroni, who can they find to fill the managerial position?
Gasol was already determined to leave. Keeping an all-star who isn't fully committed will only accelerate his devaluation. He needs to be traded, and it has to be done quickly.

Rudy Gay is actually the biggest problem. He's very talented, and if he can realize that talent, his ceiling will be extremely high. He used to be very humble, which misled people, including West, making them ignore the fact that many scouts had repeatedly mentioned that "Rudy Gay lacks the drive to become a great athlete." Now he is the real harmful tumor in the Grizzlies' body. He can neither provide emotional value to his teammates on the court nor help the team on the defensive end. He scores 18 points per game with the second-most field goal attempts on the team. He is inconsistent from three-point range, which means that no matter what system the team plays, opponents can concentrate their perimeter defensive resources on Xu Ling. In the past three games, if he had played the role of a secondary scorer in even one game, the Grizzlies would not have suffered three consecutive losses.

徐凌
West's shadow seemed to deepen—Memphis's only hope, his outstanding leadership and sense of responsibility had fully demonstrated his potential to become the core of the team.

West took a deep breath and first called Jafaroni back.

“Mark, forget about Phoenix. From now on, we’re going to play ugly basketball, the kind that emphasizes defense and rebounding, and get the ball to Eli as much as possible so he can decide the game. Your job is to maintain locker room unity until a trade happens.”

Jaffaroni knew that accepting this arrangement meant tacitly acknowledging that his tactical authority had been completely stripped away. But did he have any other choice?
Jaffaroni replied in a low voice, "I understand."

Immediately afterward, West called Gasol and said bluntly, "Paul, it's time. From today onward, I will push for a trade with all my might. I promise you, I will send you to a competitive team. But before that, you have to perform better. The better you perform, the greater your chances of leaving Memphis."

Gasol responded calmly, simply asking, "Will the boss agree this time?"

If it weren't for owner Michael Heisley's strong intervention, Gasol would have left the team last season. Heisley's reason for insisting on keeping him was simple: the Grizzlies' market was already dismal, and with the beloved Shane Battier already gone, how could they guarantee their record if they traded their star player again? And what would attract fans to buy tickets?
However, the situation is different now.

More and more people chanted "I am Lord Eli!" and poured into the arena wearing Grizzlies #1 jerseys. Gasol's status as the face of the team had, in fact, already changed hands.

“He will agree,” West said confidently. “He has no reason to object.”

Gasol instantly understood the meaning behind it.

After ending his call with Gasol, West found Rudy Guy's name in his contacts, but his finger hovered over the dial button, hesitating to press it.

Xu Ling and Gay were bitter rivals even before the season started.

West had spoken with him, and the conversation was not pleasant. He remembered telling Xu Ling to "pretend everything is normal."

How come I almost forgot this point when the time came?
Is now really the best time to openly discuss a trade? Gasol is destined to leave, while Gay is still nominally a key player the team is developing—if they were to trade him, they should have done so when his value was at its peak, not now. The team is already mired in difficulties; if they add another player with wavering resolve and an uncertain future to the roster, how can they possibly escape their predicament?

West quickly swiped the screen and found Xu Ling's name in his contacts. He didn't call, but simply sent a message: "Chaos is not a disaster, chaos is a ladder."

Xu Ling didn't know what chaos was.

When he woke up, he discovered that the locker room conflict from the previous night had been completely leaked. Not only did ESPN report on the Grizzlies' locker room infighting through an insider, but many other sources, both true and false, and outrageous rumors also spread like wildfire.

First, ESPN's Marc Stein reported: "A heated argument broke out in the Grizzlies' locker room after their three-game losing streak, with head coach Jaffaroni and star player Pau Gasol getting into a serious conflict. Rookie Eli Xu was also involved and exchanged words with both of them," and he explicitly pointed out that "the conflict involved fundamental questions about the team's tactical system."

Subsequently, bizarre rumors quickly spread, and Xu Ling unexpectedly became the center of the storm: "According to insiders, the conflict was almost out of control at one point. During the process of breaking up the fight, Xu Ling's 'movements were too strong,' and he even picked up nearby objects (rumored to include baseball bats, folding chairs, etc.) and accidentally injured Gasol, causing the latter to 'bleed from the head,' and he was rushed to the hospital for stitches!"

Even more absurdly, because Xu Ling had posted a joking tweet about the "Memphis Three Musketeers" during the training camp, many fans who were unaware of the truth quickly dug up this old tweet and left comments mocking him: "So, after all this time, you are the real perpetrator of locker room violence!"

Although Pau Gasol contacted ESPN to publicly clarify the alleged incident of being "beaten and hospitalized by Xu Ling," he did not deny the existence of the conflict itself.

Following this, Grizzlies Vice President Dick Vissach held a press conference and issued a statement that was considered weak and unconvincing: "There were indeed heated discussions within the team about how to win, which is normal in professional sports. The rumors about a bloody incident in the locker room are completely unfounded."

Finally, Xu Ling's agent, Leon Rose, vowed to sue the rumor-mongers for defamation, but this threat was still somewhat ineffective, because it is very difficult to establish a defamation charge in any country.

At this very moment, news broke that the Grizzlies had begun listening to trade offers for Pau Gasol and were actively exploring various trade possibilities.

Everything seemed to connect.

There may not have been any bloodshed, but a conflict certainly occurred. To outsiders, the core of the conflict was undoubtedly Xu Ling and Gasol—one a red-hot rising star, the other a seemingly abandoned All-Star in his prime; one favoring an aggressive, fast-paced perimeter game, the other a traditional center accustomed to a slower, more set style. Wouldn't it be truly strange if these two didn't clash?

Even more alarming is the apparent invisible force behind the scenes, constantly gathering and amplifying these negative news stories, ultimately converging into a wave of criticism against Xu Ling. ESPN's Chris Sheridan, in his daily column, subtly hinted at this: "Regardless of the truth, the fact that such a large-scale conflict erupted in the locker room demonstrates that the Grizzlies are a team that is spiraling out of control. We have already pointed out that the SSOL system is simply not suitable for the Grizzlies' current roster. Forcing Eli to the point guard position has led to a severe imbalance between the team's offense and defense—this is precisely why his individual stats are impressive yet he struggles to win games, and it is also likely the root cause of the ongoing locker room conflicts."

Ironically, this was originally an article summarizing the performance of NBA rookies to date.

However, when discussing Xu Ling, Sheridan avoided mentioning his individual performance, instead focusing on the team's predicament. Later, when Kevin Durant was mentioned, he suddenly "remembered" this was a rookie feature, not only expressing delight at Durant's recent string of 20+ point performances but also actively defending the SuperSonics' dismal record: "Let's put aside the discussion of wins and losses for now. Kevin Durant doesn't have All-Star teammates, he doesn't have a suitable system, he's carrying the team entirely on his own. You can't ask for more from a rookie. KD doesn't talk much; he's just a pure-hearted boy with a backpack, who sees basketball as oxygen. I firmly believe he will be this season's Rookie of the Year."

Subsequently, Sheridan claimed on Twitter that he had received thousands of "hate emails" from Memphis, with some even warning him that "you'd better not show up in Memphis, or you'll die like Martin Luther King Jr."

This tweet did nothing more than add to the already negative image of Memphis, which was already labeled as "blustering," without serving any real purpose. Yet Sheridan still chose to publish it, demonstrating not only his prejudice against Xu Ling but also his lack of basic respect for the entire city of Memphis.

For many Grizzlies players, they are not yet used to the intense attention the team is now receiving. Once an obscure team, they are now frequently making national headlines, their popularity rivaling that of high-profile franchises like the Lakers and Knicks.

What an honor this is!
The atmosphere on the flight was unusually tense. No one openly questioned how the information was leaked—it seemed anyone could be involved, but the one bearing the most pressure in the entire scandal was undoubtedly Xu Ling, at the center of the storm.

However, Xu Ling himself showed no intention of confronting him. He wore headphones and closed his eyes to rest the entire time, as if all the disturbances outside were irrelevant to him.

The other players exchanged bewildered glances, their eyes filled with suspicion, as if they all wanted to personally expose the mole hiding in the locker room. But this was destined to be an unsolved mystery.

As the Grizzlies' private plane landed at the New Jersey airport, the players had just stepped out of the arrival gate when a large group of reporters who had been waiting swarmed around Xu Ling.

Various issues regarding internal strife, tactical conflicts, and loss of control in the locker room were raised one after another.

Faced with a barrage of questions, Xu Ling remained calm, simply repeating the same sentence in different ways:

"I won't talk about locker room stuff."

"We will handle the internal issues of the team ourselves."

"Sorry, we cannot disclose the details at this time."

"All I care about is the next game."

"These things are not worth discussing publicly."

He didn't say a single meaningful word to the reporters before boarding the team bus and leaving the airport with the whole team.

Nine p.m
Continental Aviation Stadium

This arena, which has stood here since 1981, has witnessed the New Jersey Nets transform from a cursed underdog into an Eastern Conference champion that reached the NBA Finals for two consecutive years.

Jason Kidd deserves to be remembered forever in this arena—in the decades before his arrival, the Nets had only won one round of the playoffs. Although he didn't bring the team a championship, those two consecutive Finals appearances have become the most precious memories for New Jersey basketball fans.

However, with the aging of their core roster, the former Eastern Conference powerhouse has long since lost its glory. For the past few seasons, they have been eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. Even the best teams, if they cannot consistently win, can crumble in an instant.

After the warm-up, the starting players from both sides took to the field one after another.

Nets forward Richard Jefferson walked up to Xu Ling and asked sarcastically, "If you guys lose again tonight, will I see news tomorrow that you killed someone in the locker room?"

Xu Ling didn't look at him, but simply replied, "Instead of worrying about our locker room, you should worry about whether you can score in front of me tonight."

After the game started, Jefferson seemed determined to give Xu Ling a hard time, actively demanding the ball for a one-on-one attack. In a subsequent fast pick-and-roll offense, he used his experience to shake off the defender and drove straight to the basket, releasing what he thought was a sure layup.

In the blink of an eye, a figure suddenly leaped up from the side and behind!
Xu Ling arrived as expected, delivering a clean and decisive chase-down block that sent the ball flying out of bounds!

A gasp of surprise erupted throughout the entire Continental Aviation Center.

Xu Ling then received the ball at the top of the arc. Facing Jefferson's close defense, he made two quick crossovers and suddenly accelerated to drive hard.

Jefferson tried his best to move sideways to block, but Xu Ling forcefully pushed him aside with his body, and he could only watch helplessly as Jefferson charged straight into the paint and took off.

"boom!!!"

Xu Ling unleashed a powerful one-handed slam dunk, the rim slamming loudly as he hung above it, looking down at the still-dazed Jefferson.

(End of this chapter)