The Welcome Ceremony I Wanted

By early evening, Beale Street was already a roar of voices. Barbecue smoke and the malty scent of beer tangled in the air, and a blues band jammed on the corner, lazy and fervent notes flowing without end. Fans lined the sidewalk toward FedExForum, laughing over the tweet Xu Ling had posted that morning. “When the sun rises, forget yesterday.” A young man in a Grizzlies cap deliberately stretched the words out in mockery, and the crowd around him cracked up. So they began to riff, one after another: “When the sun rises, I'll forget my wife is divorcing me!” “When the sun rises, I'll forget I'll never pay off my student loans!” “When the sun rises, I'll forget the paycheck I lost at the card table last night!” The jokes came from every direction, but every one of them knew: all the hope for this season rested on the very figure they were mocking. If Xu Ling could play the way he had at Texas Tech, then maybe the Grizzlies' “Eli era” would truly see the light of day. And if he couldn't? No one wanted to keep thinking down that road. This team was already standing at the edge of a cliff: attendance sagging season after season, the locker room in pieces, an owner who wanted to sell and found no buyers. When a franchise sank this low, the only road left might be to move the team out of the city altogether. Some of the most loyal Grizzlies fans had already put on brand-new No. 1 jerseys, holding homemade signs high overhead, on which were carefully printed the words: “eli our redemption.” Inside FedExForum, dazzling lights swept the stands over and over, the sound system pounded out a live recording of some restless blues band, and the emcee strained to ignite the crowd with his pitch and volume. None of it could dispel the almost frozen air in the players' tunnel. But the moment the Grizzlies walked out, the arena's faintly stifled mood shattered. At the front of the line was, as always, the man who had said publicly that he wanted out: Pau Gasol. His face was calm, and as usual he led the team in setting the home floor alight. The building erupted in cheers and applause. Whatever the future held, at this moment he was still this city's symbol of basketball. Either way, tonight was the first real game of the new season. Would the Grizzlies be terrible all the way down? Maybe. But what if they played brilliantly? The live support Xu Ling received went far beyond anything outsiders imagined. Most of the fans in jerseys had chosen the brand-new No. 1; banners and posters about him were everywhere in the stands. Every time he sank a shot, someone in the front rows blew a whistle, trying to catch his eye. Yet Xu Ling, just as the rumors said, seemed to screen out everything in the stands the moment he stepped on the floor. His eyes stayed fixed on the teammates beside him and the ball in his hands. Some scouts believed that this very indifference to the crowd gave him a shooting consistency unlike anyone else's. But the argument wasn't convincing—Reggie Miller, one of the greatest shooters in NBA history, was a star famous for exactly the opposite, for loving to play to the crowd and for taunting opponents with trash talk. So why was he able to split his attention? In the end, it was just a matter of personality. And the fans of Memphis seemed to be following in the footsteps of the Texas Tech fans. So Eli Xu ignores us, does he? Then let's see how long you can hold out—when a fan streaks naked in front of you, when a beautiful spectator flashes herself at you of her own accord, when ten thousand men and women scream “Marry me!” in unison, will you still be so unmoved? Remember: the lower limit in the professional basketball world sits far below anything in pure college basketball. Watching Xu Ling draw scream after scream from the crowd with only a few baskets, Gay was instantly filled with jealousy. Gay hit an outside three first and drew hardly any attention. Unwilling to accept it, he stepped two paces back beyond the arc and tried a shot from way downtown, and again and again it clanged off the rim. Right then, though, the fans began to notice what he was doing, and low cries and sighs of pity drifted down from the stands. Every clang dragged his expression one shade darker. Meanwhile, at the other end of the floor, Xu Ling was trading a few words with a giant he knew only from television and from the “the future is yours” legend—Tim Duncan. Xu Ling merely offered a polite greeting, showing no excess of awe or worship for the man who, together with Shaquille O'Neal, had ruled the league since 1999. Just then Lowry suddenly passed him the ball and motioned for Xu Ling to try a half-court three. “Is that really necessary, Kyle?” Xu Ling asked, a little helpless. “Listen to the building, Eli,” Lowry said with a grin, pointing at the stands. “This is what the people want!” Logo shots had long since become Xu Ling's trademark. At Texas Tech he had hit two long-range buzzer-beating threes: one delivered to Kevin Durant, locking his team into the lottery; the other helping his own team win the national championship, and earning him the nickname “Terminator.” Xu Ling hadn't cared about the crowd's needling at first, but Duncan's expression—interested, as though settled in to watch a show—made him abruptly change his mind. So he retreated to a spot one step in front of the logo and, with almost no adjustment, rose lightly and let it go. “Swish!!!” The ball dropped through the net and the stands went up at once, exploding into deafening gasps and cheers. Only then did Duncan, who had watched it all, speak, unhurried, that classic gossip-loving look still on his face: “Rudy Gay just missed three in a row over there. You suddenly pull this—what are you trying to prove?” Xu Ling looked at him and answered flatly, “I have no interest in him. That shot was a greeting gift for the defending champions.” For days the Grizzlies' internal farce had owned the sports headlines, and even the ever-unbothered Tim Duncan had heard about it. Still, ten years into his career, Duncan believed he had seen too many young teams split apart over runaway egos and swollen selves. The script was hardly rare; you could say it played out somewhere new every year. As far as he was concerned, everything happening in Memphis was just one more rerun of a familiar old act. Was there really anything new under the sun? And yet the calm, the self-assurance Xu Ling let out so naturally, the way he barely seemed to rate Gay at all—that made Duncan faintly sense that the Grizzlies' situation might not be as simple as outsiders thought. Perhaps the whole thing was quietly in the hands of this young No. 3 pick. “It's our honor.” Duncan put away his smile. He had a premonition that tonight might bring a fight no one expected. Not far away, Gay took in every bit of it. A burning sensation rushed up his cheeks, and it was certainly not excitement—it was fury and humiliation he could not hide. That rookie had deliberately picked that spot to publicly humiliate him with a logo three. And that damned Kyle Lowry, that traitor, that son of a bitch... He was the one who most deserved to die!!! Then warmups ended. Both head coaches gathered their starting lineups for the final instructions. Grizzlies head coach Marc Iavaroni could not hide his nerves—hardly surprising, since this was the first official game of his coaching career, against the powerful defending champions. Playing it safe, Iavaroni sent out a starting five of Lowry, Xu Ling, Gay, Warrick, and Gasol. San Antonio countered with Parker, Finley, Bowen, Oberto, and Duncan. Duncan won the opening tip for the Spurs without any suspense. At the broadcast table, Kevin Harlan was setting the scene for viewers: “The Grizzlies may be viewed as a rebuilding team, but they have no intention of tanking—they already traded next year's first-round pick to the Atlanta Hawks. So they'll fight to win every game they possibly can. There's a talent gap, but that doesn't mean they have no chance. The Spurs may be a bit short on energy, too—they played their opener last night, beating Portland 106-97. Tim Duncan was the difference in that one, 24 points and 13 rebounds on the night.” Even as Harlan spoke, Duncan had caught the ball near the free-throw line off a clean pick-and-roll. With Hakim Warrick sagging a step off him, he rose without hurry and buried the mid-range jumper. San Antonio drew first blood. The Grizzlies' turn. Lowry brought the ball up the floor at a steady clip. Xu Ling did not wait on the weak side; he burst into motion, faking a cut to the corner, then a hard stop and a back-cut, using Pau Gasol's screen to knife straight to the rim and force Duncan to help. That one cut pulled Bruce Bowen's and Michael Finley's attention with it and scrambled the Spurs' tightly packed perimeter. In a flash Lowry read the gap, accelerated without hesitation, drove into the lane, and finished with an easy layup. Most eyes were on Lowry. But Duncan couldn't help giving Xu Ling another look. On the sideline, Gregg Popovich was already roaring at Bruce Bowen: “Bruce! Did you fucking leave your brain at the hotel?!” For all that Popovich looked furious and utterly intolerant of a lapse on defense, the truth was that the whole Spurs roster—Duncan perhaps excepted—had not really taken the Grizzlies seriously. From their movement and reactions, most of them were plainly playing loose, as if this were just a regular-season game they could pick up whenever they liked. The Spurs went back to a set play, and Michael Finley's jump shot, contested in time by Xu Ling, clanged out. Xu Ling reacted instantly, grabbed the rebound himself and, without a beat's pause, fired a full-court pass that found Hakim Warrick running the floor in stride, feeding him for a thunderous one-handed power dunk! Coming back the other way, the Spurs tried to let Tony Parker break the defense down off the dribble, but his layup drifted off under the long arms of Pau Gasol; Warrick secured the defensive rebound and quickly pushed it to Xu Ling to start the transition. The Spurs couldn't get back in time and had to foul Xu Ling to stop the Grizzlies from turning it up again. Once the play settled into the half court, though, Xu Ling showed no panic at all. He read the defense calmly, cut off a simple screen to draw the help defender, then bounced a pass to Gasol, who had quietly relocated to the weak side. The Spaniard caught it and let the mid-range jumper go, and the ball dropped through. Five minutes into the game, Xu Ling had not taken a single shot, yet he was everywhere. The Grizzlies actually led the defending champions 13-5! San Antonio was forced to call timeout. At the broadcast table, Doug Collins was free with his praise: “Look at Eli! I've never seen a rookie affect a game this way! He hasn't scored, and yet he seems to seep into every single possession—defense, rebounds, pushing the ball, dealing it out. Really, he's everywhere! Memphis is running Phoenix Suns-style high-speed offense, with their youngest player right at the heart of it!” Marc Iavaroni was overjoyed. He hadn't expected the start to go this smoothly, and Xu Ling seemed to be growing more and more comfortable with the role he played in the system. Iavaroni called his starters over and shouted, fired up: “You see that?! They can't keep up with our rhythm! Keep pushing the pace, take every transition chance you get! Stay locked in on defense—trap decisively, rotate fast! We're younger and hungrier than they are! Show them what we've got!” When play resumed, San Antonio adjusted as well, swapping Manu Ginobili in for Michael Finley. The Argentine had barely stepped on the floor before he shook free using a solid screen from Tim Duncan. Xu Ling fought over the pick-and-roll to chase him down, but Ginobili didn't hesitate, pulling up from a step behind the arc. “Swish!” After hitting the three, Ginobili thought of all the legends of NBA history and couldn't resist firing at Xu Ling the trash talk every man in the league has heard: “Welcome to the NBA.” Xu Ling didn't need to say a word. Kyle Lowry brought the ball up front, simply abandoned the play call, and passed straight to Xu Ling beyond the arc on the left wing. This time the Xu Ling who caught it was no longer the system's floor general threading everyone together. He raised a hand and made a gesture the home crowd knew better than any other: iso. Ginobili lit up. He had succeeded in provoking the rookie who had been as composed as a veteran since the opening tip. That excitement didn't last long. Xu Ling attacked hard to the left, his first step explosive, his body slamming into the Argentine hard enough to nearly knock him aside; Ginobili instinctively tried to draw the offensive foul, tipping backward, and in the instant the two bodies touched, Xu Ling stopped dead, spun quickly, and stepped back hard to the right. Ginobili, wholly committed to selling the foul, lost his balance completely and went down sprawling, as if the ground had been yanked out from under him. “Xu Ling puts the Argentine on the floor with his signature step-back!” Before Kevin Harlan's cry had faded, Xu Ling was already rising calmly from behind the arc. “Swish!!!” “He hits it! Eli's answer leaves Manu Ginobili looking a mess!” Xu Ling looked down at Ginobili, still sitting on the floor, and a faint, satisfied smile crossed his face. “This is the welcome ceremony I wanted.”