NBA: A collection of super busts

In the days that followed, in addition to training with Dina and others to maintain his form, Ye Feng also went to watch several games at the Bucks' home arena, and then gave several interviews as arranged by Reed. At the same time, he also established several basic business partnerships with several local Milwaukee brands.

Although the amounts involved in these collaborations were not large, Reed considered them necessary. In 20 years, this could be seen as a way to "reinforce the fanbase," increase Ye Feng's influence in Milwaukee, solidify and give back to his original fans, and amplify his reputation in the community.

Even though the amount wasn't large, Ye Feng and Reid finally had some income.

And it was at this time that the NBA regular season finally came to an end.

For Ye Feng and others, the NBA playoffs are meaningless, because they will neither join those teams nor affect their draft position.

With the regular season over, the draft order for each team is basically determined. Unless some rare extreme event occurs, the rookies can basically determine where they need to try out and which cities will become their expected destinations.

Therefore, Ye Feng didn't care at all who was the best in the league. He only knew that the Nuggets and Cavaliers were tied for last place, followed by the Raptors, Heat, Clippers, Grizzlies, Bulls, and other teams in that order.

The current NBA lottery rules are vastly different from those revised in 2019.

Currently, only the top three picks are drawn, and those outside the top three are ranked from lowest to highest based on their performance.

In addition, the team with the worst record has a 25% chance of getting the number one pick, and the worst team will get the fourth pick, and so on for the other teams.

After the NBA regular season ended, these super rookies finally got busy.

Wade was the first to leave college and head to Chicago for the NBA Combine.

This guy's poor performance in the last four minutes of the Finals affected his draft prospects, so he chose to participate in the Combine. Otherwise, normally he wouldn't need to go to a place like that.

Even after going to Chicago, Wade clearly couldn't leave his respected father. He called Ye Feng almost every day, far more often than he called his fiancée.

And the message he conveyed,

"Wow, so many people!"

"I saw a lot of familiar faces. Nick Collison is here too, and so is Ford. Both of these guys came here to try and improve their seeding after getting thrashed in the Final Four."

"Today I slaughtered all my brothers! No one was my match."

"Fuck! What's he doing here? Guess who I saw, bro? Carmelo Anthony, that bastard's here too! Watch me beat him to a pulp and get revenge for you!"

"Melo seems like a nice guy. I think he's quite considerate. He came up to me and apologized, saying that it wasn't intentional, and asked me why I wasn't there."

"This bastard is the guy who came for you. He's looking for a chance to kill you and get revenge. He's really disappointed that you didn't come."

"This guy is pretty clear about right and wrong. He knows he's wronged me, but he still wants to kill you."

"He's really good; we were evenly matched today."

"The Nuggets called us in for a chat today, saying they wanted us both to try out for them, and we decided to go together. Dude, you're not angry, are you? You're not angry that I'm getting so close to them, are you?"

......

The talkative Wade gave Ye Feng a headache, and during this time, he did nothing but train.

Reed's job was equally simple: refuse! He kept refusing tryout invitations from various teams, insisting that Ye Feng would not participate in any tryouts before the lottery draw, and that after the lottery draw results were announced, Ye Feng would only try out for the top five picks!

This approach maintained Ye Feng's mystique, which made some teams even more curious about him.

However, this also prevented many NBA teams from watching Ye Feng's games and performance live, thus hindering their ability to further evaluate him and lowering their expectations for him.

Rumors even spread quickly that "Ye Feng suffered a serious injury that may affect his entire career."

These rumors even intensified and became more and more believable. One tabloid even claimed to have obtained Ye Feng's MRI results, saying that he was already dead.

Just as Ye Feng was facing increasing doubts and the reports were becoming more and more credible, especially because his refusal to participate in the trial training led to more and more doubts about him, which gradually reached a peak, someone broke the news first.

Wade.

A medical report from this guy's high school days has been leaked, revealing that he suffered a serious injury before entering college and underwent surgery to remove his meniscus.

This wasn't exactly a secret; executives at almost every team in the league had Wade's health report and past injury history.

Wade himself didn't intend to keep it a secret, but the impact was completely different when it was suddenly exposed on a large scale and on a wide scale at this time.

This sudden surge in public opinion put immense pressure on Wade.

After all, such a huge public outcry could cause teams that were originally willing to draft him to choose to give up on him due to pressure from fans.

After all, there are some things that the team can pretend not to know if others don't know them, but if everyone knows them, then the team is in a very passive position.

Originally, thanks to his near-perfect performance in the joint training and his impressive display in multiple training sessions, his ranking had risen to around the top five.

But when the injury report came out, his draft position immediately dropped to 6-10, and some radical draft websites even ranked him outside the top ten.

Ye Feng comforted him, saying that some team must have their eye on him and was releasing negative news on a large scale to lower his draft expectations. Ye Feng told him to think back to which cunning old foxes he had been in contact with recently, and then he would get the answer.

However, although he spoke lightly, his draft position was already slowly declining due to his repeated refusal of tryouts, and now he has been caught in the crossfire, also declining along with Wade.

Even worse off was Klein, who was now being called "trash who hides player injuries," and countless criticisms were directed at him.

Of course, having seen it all and been criticized and cursed by countless people, Klein didn't care. Instead, he even had the mood to call Wade and Ye Feng, telling them to relax, not to take these things to heart, and just continue to perform well.

It was at this moment that Ye Feng received a text message.

"It has nothing to do with me."

Ye Feng didn't need to look at the signature to know that it must have been a message from Jerry West.

He chuckled and replied, "Can I get the top scholar's pick?"

"I hope so."

"Will they choose me if I get the top pick?"

"Nine times out of ten, no." West's reply was quite direct and sincere.

"Then we have nothing to talk about." Ye Feng was equally straightforward and sincere: "Unless that draft pick you have from the Rockets, which has only a 1.8% chance of being selected in the top three, actually turns out to be amazing, then let's just block each other and go our separate ways."

"Can't I get you in some other way?" West sent another message, but this time he got no reply.

Although there is no "block" function in this era, Ye Feng can simply not reply!

Then, just as the injury saga of Ye Feng and Wade was escalating, another bombshell news story ignited the basketball world, causing a significant drop in the attention given to Ye Feng and Wade, finally allowing them to temporarily escape the immense pressure.