The Best Point Guard

The Portland Trail Blazers have been on a path to redemption for years, but the results haven’t been great.

The answer remained the same; the problem, eternal.

Their current leader was Zach Randolph. When he first joined the team, management was very optimistic. After all, it was truly rare for a player of his size to have such a delicate touch.

When Randolph started his career, he was actually quite diligent and even won the Most Improved Player award. But the team environment on the Trail Blazers was just awful—a whole crew of chain-smokers, gamblers, and hotheads. How could he have learned anything good?

This summer, after Randolph signed a max contract with the Trail Blazers, he started to completely let himself go.

First came the street racing, then came the discovery of weed and a gun in his car. After that, he started skipping practices left and right. His weight management spun out of control, he began smoking up a storm in the locker room, and fell in with the likes of Ruben Patterson and Darius Miles.

It was far too late for the Trail Blazers’ management to have regrets. This was the first year of Randolph’s max contract.

In Randolph’s current state, what team would possibly want him?

The Knicks arrived in Portland, and Su Xi was picked up by Nike executives for a tour of their headquarters. The subtext of their conversation was that they still wanted Su Xi to abandon his current contract. Nike was willing to create a new brand for him, promising an investment no less than that of the Flying Man brand, and they would also give Su Xi a larger share of the profits.

Su Xi, for his part, didn’t budge.

To Su Xi, this contract was a massive cash cow. If he won regular season MVP again this year, he’d get another huge payout. If he won the championship, it would go up even more.

Phil Knight grasped Su Xi’s hand and said with great emotion, "Jack, you know this as well as I do. Even though you’re playing great for the Knicks, your chances of winning a championship are still very slim. And I’ve heard a lot of people think you’ll have a hard time even making an All-NBA Team..."

Su Xi’s eyes shot wide. "Who said that? We have the best record in the league right now! We’re on a direct path to the championship."

"Well..."

Phil Knight was at a loss for words. ’Everyone knows this, so why is he being so stubborn? Being bullheaded won’t win him a championship.’

But he couldn’t be too blunt, either. What if Su Xi actually won the championship again?

So, he kept emphasizing what a tremendous honor it would be to have a separate brand, and also circled back to the topic of profit-sharing.

The problem was, Su Xi already got a cut from his signature shoes.

So, Su Xi was in no hurry at all.

’Establishing a separate brand is definitely part of the plan, just not right now,’ he thought. ’I need to make Nike put up more cash first.’

After all, there were so many startups out there, crying out for angel investments from the Su Xi Foundation.

As he was leaving, Su Xi added, "I used some of my prize money to buy Nike stock back when the price was low. Remember to give me a call for the next shareholders’ meeting. I’m very bullish on Nike’s long-term future."

Phil Knight slapped his forehead.

All he felt now was regret—regret for being so confident back then and giving Su Xi such an incentive-heavy contract.

Besides, who the hell could have guessed that after just two years in the NBA, Su Xi would win back-to-back Finals MVP awards?

That was something you couldn’t have foreseen even with divine clairvoyance.

Now, Nike was shackled by this contract, practically working for Su Xi.

If Su Xi had stayed with the Pacers and continued to win back-to-back championships and Finals MVPs, Nike might have had to release a few more limited-edition retro sneakers just to fleece their customers and cover the costs.

In any case, Phil Knight felt that his entire brand had become a field for Su Xi to harvest at will. With that contract in hand, Su Xi could reap the rewards whenever he wanted.

The worst part was, in five years, he could just dust off his hands and walk away.

That’s why Nike was now willing to spend a fortune to create a separate brand for Su Xi—it was a move to stop the bleeding and take back control.

Nike had taken a huge hit with Jordan before. The only reason they established a separate brand for him and gave him a permanent cut of the profits was because the equity they had initially given him became increasingly valuable, and they couldn’t bear to part with that much money. After that, they swore never to give a player equity again.

Who knew they would end up taking the same tumble with Su Xi.

Now, they’d probably have to swear off signing contracts full of high-stakes performance bonuses with any player ever again.

...

When Su Xi got back to the hotel, he heard that Antonio Davis, Jalen Rose, and Quentin Richardson had gone out drinking with Trail Blazers players Miles and Zach Randolph.

His brow furrowed.

Isaiah Thomas also thought something wasn’t right. "And they didn’t even invite me!"

Su Xi shot the Smiling Assassin a look.

Meanwhile, Antonio Davis was clinking glasses with Miles, Randolph, and Patterson. Their party was surprisingly "refined"—they were just in Randolph’s mansion, drinking, while on a stage, five blonde-haired, blue-eyed women in Chinese cheongsams danced to the strains of Eastern string music.

"I fucking love Chinese culture,"

Randolph said.

"You’re on another level, Randolph. We’re still messing with low-brow stuff, and you’ve already moved on to the high-class entertainment," Jalen Rose praised effusively. "We should call Jack over. This is his cultural heritage, after all."

Randolph waved his hand dismissively. "Anyone can bob their head to electronic music. All you need is a head. But to listen to this elegant Eastern music and still find the rhythm and the flow? Now, that’s what makes you a true connoisseur."

"What does Little Sheep Su Xi know about Chinese culture? He’s just an ABC, a kid who grew up in some backwater in New Jersey, United States. If I started talking to him about this stuff, I’d talk him into tears," Randolph said. "I stumbled upon this cultural treasure by chance myself. I was on YouTube, watching some video of a woman holding an instrument and just making a racket. I was about to click away. Then, the camera casually panned, and I saw a thigh, exposed by a slit all the way up to *here*... so smooth and pale. In that moment, I was enlightened."