After that crushing showdown on the first day of training camp, Xu Ling had completely replaced Rudy Gay, becoming the Grizzlies' de facto new core.
Gay was not only isolated by most of his teammates—he had chosen to shut himself off as well, deliberately cutting off all communication with the team. In the entire locker room, aside from veterans Eddie Jones and Mike Miller, who still occasionally said a few words to him, nearly everyone else treated him as a stranger.
And Kyle Lowry, who had so recently called him a brother, quickly and openly drew a line between them, frequently currying favor with Xu Ling during practice—to the point where his eagerness bordered on fawning.
Just as the team's power structure was undergoing a dramatic shift, head coach Marc Iavaroni officially introduced the whole squad to his offensive system: the "Seven Seconds or Less" (sometimes abbreviated SSOL) scheme he had brought from the Suns, which had torn through the regular season in recent years.
And so the first fatal problem surfaced: where was the Grizzlies' Steve Nash?
Without an offensive mind of Nash's historical caliber, trying to run a flashy run-and-gun offense was like the Warriors forcing a pass-and-cut game without Stephen Curry, or the Zen Master's assistants dreaming of running the triangle offense without Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, or Shaquille O'Neal—doomed to be a clumsy imitation, all for nothing.
And reality quickly delivered a heavy blow. Jarrius Jackson and Kyle Lowry looked utterly out of place in a system that relied so heavily on a point guard's vision and command.
Jarrius Jackson was, at his core, a two-guard scorer trapped in a point guard's body. Instinctively he craved finishing plays rather than organizing them, attacking the rim rather than orchestrating the offense. Under the enormous pressure of a system that demanded split-second decisions and pinpoint passing, he looked hesitant and lost, repeatedly missing the perfect moment to pass—like an infantry captain who led the charge, shoved onto a command post and completely unable to find his rhythm.
Kyle Lowry's problem was more fundamental. At this stage, whether in skill or basketball IQ, he was nowhere near capable of running such a complex system. SSOL demanded that the point guard read the defense in a flash, direct his teammates' movement, and feed the ball with scalpel-like precision, but Lowry's passing and ball-handling were still crude, and his decisions often came a beat too late. His strengths lay in hustle and defense, not in crafting artful offense at high speed. Putting him in the "Nash" role could only end in lost form and total chaos.
On the practice floor, the offense repeatedly bogged down. Quick passing turned into frequent turnovers; fluid running turned into messy isolation. Without that true engine, this flashy SSOL system became, in Memphis, a machine of rusted parts that kept jamming.
Five days passed, and Marc Iavaroni finally gave up the fantasy that Jarrius Jackson and Kyle Lowry could ever master the SSOL system.
He went straight to Jerry West and urgently made his demand: "Jerry, we have to make a trade and bring in a point guard who can actually drive this system. Otherwise, this so-called run-and-gun isn't even worth talking about!"
The problem was that, across the entire league, point guards who could genuinely power a run-and-gun system were few and far between.
Steve Nash? Untouchable, naturally—don't even think about it. Jason Kidd? Theoretically possible, but the New Jersey Nets had no intention whatsoever of tearing their team apart right now. Chris Paul and Deron Williams? Ideal choices too, of course, but equally out of reach.
Among all the star point guards in their prime, the only one who seemed remotely attainable through a trade was Andre Miller of the Philadelphia 76ers.
Yet reason told West that now was absolutely not the right time to make a trade. They had to first put together some sample games with the current roster, and, more importantly, they needed to take this chance to test Xu Ling's true measure.
"Marc," West's voice was steady, yet carried a tone that brooked no doubt, "the trade window never really closes, but the chance to see a man clearly can slip away in an instant."
The Logo Man gazed across the practice court with far-reaching eyes and went on, "Why not think about it differently? Since we don't have a ready-made Steve Nash, why not try having Eli fill in at point guard more often, and see what he brings? I need to know just how much he can shoulder under real pressure."
"Eli?" Iavaroni's tone was full of surprise. "Have him play point guard?"
West's answer was somewhat vague: "He played the position in college."
In fact, no one doubted whether Xu Ling's ball-handling and dribbling met the standard of a point guard. The real question was: for a player whose draft comparison was Kobe and who was renowned for his formidable scoring ability, if he truly converted to point guard, would he find the joy of playmaking and passing like Akira Sendoh in Slam Dunk, or would he—like Michael Jordan in the days of single-handedly carrying his team—become addicted to racking up triple-doubles?
Either outcome seemed worth a try.
The last thing the Grizzlies needed to worry about right now was making mistakes.
A team mired in a slump in every respect could only go up no matter what it did—so what mistake was there to speak of? At worst it took the wrong path upward, but upward it was nonetheless.
This bold suggestion left Iavaroni uneasy, but in the end he accepted it—after all, the regular season hadn't even begun, so who could say for certain that their Mr. Sixty Million wouldn't become, like the Logo Man Jerry West of old, a one-in-a-million prodigy of a combo guard who could both score and pass?
Just as every team was intensely preparing for the new season, the Portland Trail Blazers, who appeared to have completed their rebuild, suddenly received grim news: the No. 1 pick Greg Oden had been injured in practice and needed to undergo minimally invasive surgery, ruling him out for his entire rookie season.
The NBA draft was sometimes like a wild gamble. A tiny handful of teams saw their dreams come true, while the vast majority were merely optimistic terminal patients—some understood the outcome from the very start and simply waited calmly for their hopes to be dashed; but the most despairing of all were those who firmly believed they had drafted a chosen prodigy who would rewrite the team's fate, only to discover in the end that it was all just one of God's malicious jokes: just messing with you, don't take it too seriously.
"So now only one question remained: between KD and Eli, who would be named Rookie of the Year?"
In the poll ESPN promptly launched, the two were dead even—Xu Ling and Kevin Durant were neck and neck in popularity.
When Iavaroni announced during a team practice that Xu Ling would become the team's point guard, the reactions around the room were nothing short of varied.
Jackson and Lowry were secretly delighted—they could finally be temporarily freed from that suffocating SSOL system, no longer burdened with the playmaking responsibility they were utterly incapable of handling; Pau Gasol responded with a cold sneer, for to him this only further confirmed the team's determination to push the run-and-gun, and that he, a traditional frontcourt player, was clearly not part of the long-term plan; the most intense reaction, naturally, came from Rudy Gay, whose first thought upon hearing the arrangement was: Will I ever touch the ball again? Do I even have a future on this team?
Over the next few days of practice, whenever Xu Ling had the ball, Gay would actively reach out for it. It wasn't that Xu Ling deliberately refused to pass to him—he was simply reading the defense and running the plays, not passing to whoever called for the ball. But Gay, who had long since prejudged that he was being squeezed out, became fully convinced of one thing: this Mr. Sixty Million was targeting him, and the coaching staff was tacitly permitting it all.
So Gay brought the matter to his agent, Arn Tellem. Tellem promptly phoned Jerry West, forcefully demanding that the front office "handle it properly," and warning that his client was "extremely unstable emotionally"—if he wasn't taken seriously, the Gay camp would be forced to take "decisive measures."
After hanging up, West's expression in his office turned dark and uncertain.
The team's overall plan would never be changed by such incidents, and he was ready to make an aggressive trade if necessary to keep the locker room stable—but not now.
As a Nike player who wasn't highly valued, Gay's latest unrest likewise drew the brand's attention.
From the moment Xu Ling had rejected Nike and, in negotiations, defiantly named an astronomical contract figure, he had been regarded as an enemy by Nike—all the more so since he ultimately went over to the Adidas camp.
As far as Nike was concerned, they could easily deploy their vast media resources to give things a push and make the Grizzlies' internal situation livelier.
As soon as the word got out, Nike moved quickly, leaking to ESPN senior NBA reporter Chris Sheridan that infighting had broken out during the Grizzlies' training camp and that Xu Ling and Gay had possibly even come to blows.
For a time, the Memphis Grizzlies—who, despite acquiring their Adidas Mr. Sixty Million, hadn't attracted much attention—suddenly became the focus of public opinion.
Xu Ling reposted the news on Twitter and wrote: "Since everyone's so interested in our locker room, let me tell you what's really going on."
"You know, Rudy's a guy who can't stand other people being stupid. During a break in the team scrimmage, Rudy was playing frustrated, so back in the locker room he hurled a water bottle and lit into Kyle. And guess what? At least three teammates swarmed over on the spot! Darko was even standing off to the side, clapping and yelling, 'Beat him! Beat him to death!'"
"Ever since then, there's been an extra iron rod in Rudy's locker—supposedly for self-defense. Then after the next practice, Kyle mocked him, saying 'brainless things can only play isolation,' and Rudy grabbed the iron rod and went bang-bang-bang on him, beating Kyle until he was rolling on the floor begging for mercy."
"At this point our boss Paul (Gasol) got into it too, pulling out a stun baton and saying 'how could I miss out on a good beating,' and with one strike Kyle went straight into shock. Rudy bellowed furiously, 'Don't fucking start something!' and Paul shot back, 'Say that again, I dare you!'"
"If Paul hadn't been holding that stun baton, those two probably would've gone at each other right then and there. I remember our head coach, Mr. Marc Iavaroni, was stunned speechless at the time, muttering over and over, 'Insane, insane, they've all gone insane.'"
"That's my version. Any resemblance is purely coincidental."
Xu Ling may have just tossed out a joke offhandedly, but in an unexpected way, he cleverly defused the vicious PR attack Nike had launched. This tweet not only went viral quickly but also sparked heated discussion among the media, fans, and even TV programs: Was Eli being serious, or was he joking? How would Rudy Gay respond? What would Pau Gasol have to say?
They all chose silence.
Instead, the "victim" of the story, Kyle Lowry, went out of his way to register a Twitter account and reported himself safe to those netizens who were "concerned"—were they really concerned?—for his safety: "Thanks for all the well-wishes. I'm still alive."
Chapter 62