The 2007 NBA Draft

The day before the 2007 NBA Draft, ESPN broke the news: “Eli Xu is set to sign with Adidas, in a multi-year deal worth a total of sixty million dollars!” The matter was all but settled. It was only the number that still left people stunned. Outsiders never learned the exact length of Xu Ling's contract, but anyone in the circle with a decent source could find out it was four years, sixty million. What did that mean? Adidas was paying Xu Ling more in endorsement money than the seven-year, eighty-six-million-dollar deal Nike had given James in 2003. What's more, within Adidas no one held a bigger endorsement contract than Xu Ling. When Yao Ming jumped ship from Nike to its subsidiary Reebok, all he signed was a ten-year, seventy-five-million-dollar long-term deal. For a rookie who had yet to prove himself in the NBA and was certainly not regarded as a shoe-selling prospect with LeBron James's bottomless potential, that was an absolutely astronomical figure. Criticism was inevitable. So was jealousy. And it would hardly be surprising if some peers took open offense at how enormous Xu Ling's endorsement deal was. Then, in the blink of an eye, draft day arrived. That morning, Xu Ling was dragged out of sleep by an overseas phone call. He fumbled for the phone, didn't even look at the caller ID, and answered with a groggy “Hello?” “A-Ling! You awake? Have you eaten yet?” His mother's voice came down the line. “Your dad's in Macau right now, there's a big deal he has to talk through—super important stuff. He's saying he might not make it to the arena.” Xu Ling held the phone and said nothing for a moment. As a transmigrator, his feelings toward this life's parents had always carried a faint, delicate haze. They were the closest people to this body, and they had given him unreserved support, but to him they were more like the most familiar strangers imaginable, people he had a duty to look after. Over the past half year he had thrown himself entirely into the college season and draft preparation; the handful of routine calls each month was already the full extent of the contact he could manage. Hearing this, he was even secretly relieved. It seemed he wouldn't have to split his focus at one of the most important moments of his life by playing the role of a perfect son. “Yeah, got it. Business comes first, let Dad handle his.” Xu Ling's tone didn't betray much. “Watching at home is the same thing.” “You're all alone over there, be careful with everything! Eat well, sleep well! Don't put pressure on yourself—we're all so proud of you.” Listening to the endless admonitions on the other end, a strange emotion, part guilt and part distance, spread through Xu Ling's chest. In the end he only answered softly, “I know, Ma.” After he hung up, silence settled over the room again. Outside the window, New York was waking up. This was the biggest day of his life, and he had to face it at his best. So the faint sense of loss in his heart was quickly pressed down and replaced by a clearer sense of purpose. That afternoon, Xu Ling arrived at Madison Square Garden with his agent and the rest of his team. This was the cathedral countless basketball kids dreamed of, and one of the league's grandest stages each year. Outside the arena the crowd was packed shoulder to shoulder, fans in every team's jersey hoisting banners, reporters leveling long lenses and short ones alike at every black town car that rolled slowly up. “Is that him? Eli Xu?” “That's Eli Xu!” The moment Xu Ling stepped out of the car, flashbulbs went off in a chain of bursts, and the shouting drowned out the noise of Manhattan traffic. Someone yelled “Final Four MOP,” someone else called out his Chinese name, and a few simply heckled: “Hey, Eli, you ready to play for the Memphis Grizzlies?” Guided by staff, Xu Ling and his agent passed through the security area and into the prospects' lounge everyone tacitly called the green room. The furnishings weren't exactly lavish: dark carpet, long rows of leather chairs, a table covered with water and energy bars, and an LCD screen running ESPN's live broadcast on a loop. The players wore all kinds of suits, some resting with their eyes closed, others chatting quietly with the family and friends who had come along. When Xu Ling appeared, the green room fell quiet. As this year's NCAA national champion, Xu Ling had beaten most of the prospects in that room. Brandan Wright, whose stock had been a solid top-six projection before it collapsed to the edge of the lottery, took one look at Xu Ling, gave an angry snort, and turned his head away. “Hey, Eli!” Acie Law waved. “Come over here!” Xu Ling walked over to say hello, then noticed Kevin Durant was sitting right beside them. “Is this the Big 12's home base or something?” Xu Ling joked. Durant had faced Xu Ling twice in Big 12 regular-season play and lost both, one of them to a long-range buzzer-beating three—the shot that had pushed Xu Ling's draft stock from the lottery fringe into the top ten. Speaking of long-range buzzer-beaters. The guys from the University of Florida couldn't quite sit still. Xu Ling had single-handedly shattered their dynasty dream, and now that they saw the bastard in person, Joakim Noah was just as furious. Then there was Oden. He'd spotted Xu Ling too, but only nodded with a smile. Xu Ling nodded back. “Looks like a lot of people really don't like you,” Durant said. “Would you want everybody to like you?” Xu Ling looked at Durant oddly. As a former Durant hater, he truly struggled to connect the naive, wide-eyed little Durant in front of him with the future internet colossus—the one who would surf the web at high intensity, fire up burner accounts to spray abuse at former teammates, join the 73-win team because he couldn't beat it and then call that the hardest road, hitch a ride on a championship and leave, copy Mr. James by loudly assembling a superteam that promptly collapsed over bad personnel fits, demand a trade the instant anything went wrong, turn the new team into a total mess and then demand another trade, and finally transform on social media into a top-tier troll, going head-to-head with every doubter alive. Innocent little Durant nodded. “Wouldn't you?” “No. If everybody liked you,” Xu Ling said, watching him with amusement, “it would only mean you're no threat. Only a moron like Forrest Gump gets liked by everyone.” Afterward, Xu Ling spotted Yi Jianlian from China in the green room. He was utterly silent, completely sealed off. Xu Ling went over and said hello, and all he got back was a flat reply. So Xu Ling returned to his seat and waited quietly for the draft to begin. At seven sharp, the lights over the stage at the center of Madison Square Garden cut out abruptly, then a spotlight snapped on and fell on the podium set up on the main platform. Amid cheers and applause, David Stern, in a dark suit, strode onto the stage. The commissioner swept his eyes over the arena, produced his signature smile with practiced ease, and his steady voice rolled out through the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the 2007 NBA Draft, here in New York City, at the historic Madison Square Garden.” “Tonight, dreams will come true. Tonight, the next generation of stars begins its journey. For some of these young men, it is the result of years of hard work and sacrifice. For all thirty teams, it is a chance to shape the future.” The arena erupted with the loudest booing Xu Ling had ever heard. Stern had long since grown used to scenes like this. He merely smiled faintly and went on. “The Portland Trail Blazers hold the first pick in the first round of the 2007 NBA Draft. They now have five minutes to make their selection.” Meanwhile, in the green room, Greg Oden—who knew perfectly well what was coming—asked offhandedly, “Who could it be? So hard to guess.” “It's definitely not the Final Four MOP.” At last Noah had his opening to run his mouth at Xu Ling. The remark drew a ripple of laughter from the green room. Too cruel. How could anyone say that about the Final Four MOP? Xu Ling glanced at Noah. If the man insisted on pestering him, there was no need to offer him any goodwill. Goodwill should be saved for people who deserved it—like little Durant, as innocent as a white mouse. As for Noah? What gave a Frenchman who'd been stomped flat in the championship game the right to stand here chattering? Xu Ling put on an easy expression, but his reply cut like a blade. “You're right. Some decisions really do take vision. Take a certain someone who should have been the NBA's No. 1 pick last year, but was so in love with the hothouse of college basketball that he chose to play another season. Now he hasn't just failed to repeat as champion—he can't even get into the top five of this draft. Now who could that be?” With that, Xu Ling gave Noah a smile. “So hard to guess.” With Noah's temper, if the occasion weren't so special today, he'd surely have taken Xu Ling on right there in person. For now, all he could do was swallow the bitter fruit after humiliating himself. Then Oden began adjusting his collar. On the main stage, Stern announced, “In the 2007 NBA Draft, the Portland Trail Blazers select Greg Oden, from Ohio State University!” Oden stood, and the other prospects around him offered congratulations. He slapped hands with each of them. The last one to high-five Oden was Xu Ling. “Congratulations,” Xu Ling said. “Take care of yourself.” “Thanks!” Oden answered. “See you in the NBA.” As Oden walked toward Stern to the roar of the crowd, Trail Blazers general manager Kevin Pritchard said solemnly in an on-site interview, “What we're looking for isn't a regular-season MVP, and it isn't a Rookie of the Year. What matters most to us is the player who can lead us to a championship. I don't mean winning one in the next ten months. That's not what I mean. I mean the one who will eventually take us to the top.” He had sketched out a long, winding road to glory. Unfortunately, the man who would actually lead this team to the end of that road turned out to be neither Oden nor Lillard, nor anyone else to this day. The road was very long, and Oden, in the end, was never the one destined to walk it. Right after Portland picked Greg Oden with no suspense whatsoever, David Stern returned to the podium and announced that the Seattle SuperSonics, holding the second pick, had five minutes to decide. Everyone knew the next name read out would belong to Kevin Durant. At the same time, a wordless tension hung over the Grizzlies' draft war room. From Jerry West, who ran the whole operation, to the assistant holding his breath in the corner, every nerve was stretched taut. They held the No. 3 pick, and in theory they had long since settled on Xu Ling as the only target. But draft night could turn on a dime—who could guarantee there'd be no surprises? If the Atlanta Hawks, unwilling to settle for the fourth pick, tried to trade up to somewhere ahead of them, or if some earth-shaking deal went down between Portland and Seattle, how would they respond? Just as West's brows knitted together and he sank into thought, the phone in the war room suddenly rang shrilly. The name on the caller ID froze the air on the spot—it was the Hawks' general manager, Billy Knight. “Jerry, everything going smoothly? Feeling good today?” West drew a deep breath and picked up, keeping his tone as calm as ever. “Billy, draft night isn't a night for small talk.” Knight's laugh came back easy, as though this were just old friends exchanging pleasantries. “Relax, Jerry. It just occurred to me you might be interested in a trade. We'd give you the fourth pick and two future first-rounders for your third.” West's reaction was lightning fast, without a shred of hesitation, his voice hard as iron. “No. Absolutely not. Goodbye, Billy.” With a crisp click, West hung up, and that decisive “no” still echoed around the room like a silent slap across the face of the speechless Knight. Before anyone could recover from the clean rejection, another line rang. The assistant answered, and his expression turned spectacular. Covering the mouthpiece, he said to West, “Sir, it's Isiah Thomas of the New York Knicks.” A flicker of barely perceptible distaste crossed West's face, but he gestured for the call to be put through. “Jerry! My great, my legendary, my Midas-touch ‘Logo Man’!” Isiah Thomas's voice came through like a runaway bullhorn, brimming with manic passion and excessive praise. “Jerry, you are the elder I admire most. I will always be proud of you. I want to talk to you about a trade, and I promise I'll put together pieces that satisfy you!” The Smiling Assassin didn't even wait for West to respond before continuing his aria like a wandering bard. “Trust me, for this! The New York Knicks are willing to give everything! Listen to me, Jerry—everything! Jamal Crawford! Nate Robinson! David Lee! And Channing Frye! Plus our first-rounder next year! The right to swap first-rounders the year after! A first-rounder in 2010! All of it! Jerry! Everything! All we want in return is the third pick in your hands! We want Eli Xu! Do you know, Jerry? Have you seen the divinity locked inside that body? That's not just basketball, that's art! That's the mysterious key to the East! That's the savior Madison Square Garden has been waiting thirty years for!” Honestly, that kind of performance from Thomas made it very hard not to suspect he was higher than a kite. But West could more or less understand Thomas's state of mind. He might well have been the first general manager in the NBA to grasp what Xu Ling was worth. Months ago he'd already been working on a trade, but nobody would deal with him, because the Knicks genuinely did not own a single piece that could buy a top-five pick this year. Until draft day, when Thomas had finally gone completely mad. “Isiah,” West's voice held not the slightest ripple, “not one of the players you mentioned is someone I want. The third pick you're talking about is Memphis's untouchable, the one thing we will never move. Goodbye.” Without waiting for the fever on the other end to cool, West hung up again, as if merely brushing off a speck of dust. He looked around. The war room was dead silent, everyone watching him, relief and even a trace of smiles on their faces—as far as they were concerned, the Logo Man had just brushed aside two absurd offers, turned down two “clowns,” and confirmed the path to selecting Xu Ling. Thomas's deranged praise, elevating Xu Ling to a god, still rang in West's ears like a curse. “The mysterious key to the East. The savior. The descent of the king.” Those extravagant words didn't make West feel proud. Instead they struck him like a blinding spotlight, illuminating the deepest darkness inside him. If Thomas was right—if Xu Ling truly carried such enormous, nearly sacred potential and market value—then Memphis, that battered little city the fates had mocked again and again, really didn't deserve him. Years ago, it was exactly this line of thinking that had led West to refuse a chance to change Grizzlies history forever. That was the summer of 2004. The F4 Lakers had gone down to the Pistons in the NBA Finals, the O'Neal–Kobe feud had become irreconcilable, and Kobe was determined to leave. His first choice was the Memphis Grizzlies. That season the Grizzlies had won 50 games in the regular season, then collapsed completely in the playoffs, and Kobe believed he could push this team straight into title contention, and that West could build a great team around him. At that point, Kobe joining the Grizzlies came down to a single promise from West.1 Instead, as the Grizzlies' president, West told Kobe, “This isn't a place to play basketball. The Grizzlies don't deserve you. You will always belong to Los Angeles.” With his own hands, West pushed away a superstar who was his for the taking, simply because he firmly believed a small city like this didn't deserve a player like Kobe. A year earlier, before the 2003 draft lottery, all of Memphis's hope had rested on a minuscule probability. They had to land the No. 1 pick, because of the leftover conditions from a trade that dated back to the nineties: if they didn't get the first pick, then even drawing the No. 2 pick meant handing it straight to the Detroit Pistons. And the result? They drew the No. 2 pick. One step short, and they lost LeBron James, and gave away the second pick for nothing. The helplessness and absurdity of that moment, like a blow to the head from fate, still sent a chill down West's spine today. Now the shadow of history had fallen over West again. Between them and Xu Ling, there were no obstacles. He firmly believed the Chinese kid had every quality greatness required, and yet he doubted, more deeply than ever, whether this soil called Memphis truly had the nutrients to grow a great athlete—just as he doubted whether a man as mediocre as himself truly deserved a life so much more absurd and more glorious than anything he'd dreamed of as a boy. At the same time, on the draft floor, Kevin Durant was being interviewed by sideline reporter Craig Sager. His smile was green, but it couldn't hide the shine. David Stern walked to the main podium once more, tore open the envelope in his hand—already a different one—and declared, “In the 2007 NBA Draft, the Memphis Grizzlies select, with the third pick in the first round—Xu Ling, from Texas Tech University!” In the green room, Xu Ling rose. He slapped hands and hugged Roderick Craig beside him, then hugged Leon Rose tightly, then nodded to the other prospects around him, and walked with steady steps toward the main podium, to meet the moment that belonged to him alone. The rest was just noise. 1 West shared this story on a podcast in 2022, and it cost him every ounce of respect he had from Grizzlies fans.