Chapter 850: Enemy of 183 (6K)_4

Chapter 850: Chapter 264: Enemy of 183 (6K)_4

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Originally, in a normal situation, seeing Anfernee Hardaway not being selected as an All-Star starter, O’Neal should have written a rap, giving Anfernee Hardaway a sing-dance double hit, and next time they face off, a basketball headshot for a triple attack.

But after seeing the All-Star voting results, he could only squat in the corner drawing circles…

The other two 50 Great Stars on the team are showing off, and the guy scoring 51st in votes among the 50 Great Stars is also showing off, but he, yet again, is overshadowed by Olajuwon!

Missing 16 games in the first three months of the season really had too much of an impact.

And Olajuwon’s state warming up, just happened to be during the voting period in December and January, relying on his accumulated popularity over the years, once again selected as an All-Star starter.

Zhang Hao on this side, didn’t win the title of vote king continuously, feeling a tad bit lost.

But with Jordan just having won the championship, he has been the vote king for 8 All-Stars, so taking the All-Star vote king again is no surprise.

But Iverson being selected as an All-Star starter, Zhang Hao was shocked!

After naming 58 after Iverson, he didn’t have the time to pay attention to Iverson, focusing on improving himself and dealing with matches.

Checking the news about Iverson from the past period, Iverson played 15 games in January, averaging 22.4 points and 8 assists, successfully pulling the average score in December that was below 20 back up!

And here’s a rather dramatic set of data: Allen Iverson averaged 17.6 shots in 15 games this month, with an average of 22.4 points, while Jerry Stackhouse averaged 17.8 shots with an average of 20.4 points.

This performance was indeed excellent, and Iverson basically booked his second consecutive “Rookie of the Month”.

But that alone shouldn’t have surged Iverson’s popularity so much, the key was Iverson signing with Starbucks, becoming the spokesperson for community coffee, along with 58 Technology buying various advertisements for him…

Iverson was already a hot new star signing an astronomical 10-year, 50-million-dollar endorsement before the rookie season even started, naturally Starbucks and 58 Technology would use him extensively for advertising, thus Iverson’s exposure naturally increased.

And then there’s Anfernee Hardaway, who unfortunately got injured during the voting period in January.

Here arose a conspiracy theory, with certain media maliciously speculating that Anfernee Hardaway was faking an injury to force the Magic to trade him, arguing that in the past three seasons, Anfernee Hardaway hadn’t missed a single game due to injury, but right after the Magic refused to give a 7-year, 128-million-dollar extension, he was injured, too much of a coincidence.

Upon seeing the name of the media throwing out this conspiracy theory as “Orlando Sentinel”, Zhang Hao didn’t go further into why such a claim would be made.

Fans are easily influenced, a large portion of Anfernee Hardaway’s All-Star votes came from Orlando fans, with the local media stirring things up, his votes naturally got affected, benefiting Iverson instead.

Thus, this number, 58, in the world of basketball, is now tightly bound to Iverson.

During the commentary time on the American Cable TV Station after the NBA officially announced the All-Star voting results, this matter was being joked about.

It’s true as well, without that 58-point loss, there wouldn’t be Iverson’s almost Grant Hill level exposure later on.

We must note that Grant Hill is a player the league is actively promoting, whereas Iverson, the league didn’t intend to elevate him.

But Iverson found his own way out! Sacrificing one game with 58, traded for an All-Star starting position!