"He (LeBron) didn’t do it on purpose, we didn’t even notice each other at the time, and the team was put under the ’microscope.’"
"We had a one-on-one conversation after the game, discussing his role within the team, and we cleared that up."
Days later, when James found himself in the eye of the storm, it was then that Spoelstra brought up the [Shoulder Bump] incident again.
"That incident had nothing to do with LeBron, it was Nike staff who had confiscated the footage, and LeBron had no knowledge of it."
Nike senior executive Lynn Meritt also stepped forward in a timely manner to "explain" the situation at the time.
"Whether you win or lose a quarter is a matter of chance; luck outweighs skill."
"LeBron is a great team player, some people only care about their self-interest."
"Free agents have the right to choose, LeBron shouldn’t be magnified."
Windhorst also went on ESPN to continuously advocate for James.
While James was at the center of the storm, everyone around him was doing the same thing: cajoling.
After sending Swift off, Hansen had already flown back to Memphis alone.
When he got off the plane and saw the string of news, he suddenly understood why James had become the way he was now.
Isn’t this just like a child spoiled by the whole family?
And a child who has been spoiled is beyond saving.
Because when you’re used to cajoling and suddenly one day you stop, the only possibilities are either flipping the table in anger or a mental breakdown.
Neither of which are what the people around him would want to see.
However, Hansen had an unexpected gain.
His aim this time was only to cover up the heat, to divert external attention, and he hadn’t thought about the issue of blackening his image.
After all, even though Nike was constantly promoting James, and the number of LeBron fans would continue to grow, they couldn’t keep up with the number of fans leaving because of the waves of bad press.
Moreover, the value of haters of die-hard LeBron fans had already reached the limit, so there wasn’t much to scrape from them.
But after the incident continued to ferment, he still harvested nearly 200,000 hater points!
You could say that at this point, every LeBron fan, one and all, must have hated him to death.
This also allowed his hater points to grow to 1.6 million in a short time, only the last 300,000 short of the mid-range talent he wanted.
And there was a chance to max it out in one go.
Because after returning to home court, the Grizzlies were about to face off against the defending champions, the Lakers, for the first time this season.
Since he had been in The East, the chances to face off against the Lakers had been limited, but now that he was in The West, was it not time to harvest the hater points from Kobe fans?
The first day back in Memphis.
Hansen arrived at the stadium around 5:30 am for his first practice of the day, and Grover arrived almost at the same time.
After an entire summer, Hansen had grown accustomed to such a biological clock.
When it was about 7 am, Hansen finished his workout, preparing to take a shower and then have breakfast as usual.
It was then, on his way back to the locker room, that he ran into someone.
"Mike, you’re here so early?" Hansen greeted Conley with a smile.
Because of his special training time, he hadn’t encountered anyone else before this time; he was surprised to see Conley coming in so early today.
Conley looked at the soaking wet Hansen in astonishment.
"You’re not going to tell me you’ve already finished a round of practice, are you?" Disbelief filled Conley’s eyes.
The reason he came so early today was that Hollins called him to the video room to study the footage, after all, the Lakers were the primary foe of the teams in The West.
You could say, if he had walked in on Hansen just starting his practice at this hour, it wouldn’t have been a big deal, but the way Hansen looked now suggested otherwise.
"Just did a little physical training," Hansen replied casually.
Conley let out a wry laugh; he thought that after being around Hansen for so long, he understood him quite well, but it seemed he had been too confident.
He could understand why Hansen had managed to quickly secure his footing on the Grizzlies team, and even make a guy like Guy willingly accept him.
It was at that moment, he remembered the topic that had been cut off before in Cleveland.
"Zack, I had a brief chat with him the other day," Conley said, checking the time and then sitting down next to Hansen.
Hearing Conley bring up Randolph, Hansen stopped reaching for his clothes to shower and sat down.
"Does this have something to do with me?" There were only two reasons Conley would tell him about it: one was that he considered him to be the leader of the Grizzlies, so naturally, he should be consulted about big team matters, and the other was that it had something to do with him.
Unless it was Guy, everyone should realize it was the latter.
"Your rise to prominence in the team after arriving has given Zack a sense of crisis," Conley said, then quickly added, "Of course, I don’t think it’s a bad thing, because you help the team win."
Listening to Conley’s words, it indeed seemed like there was something to it.
As a rookie, he arrived at the team and directly confronted Guy, and up until now, he had actually taken over the position of the core of the perimeter from Guy’s hands. ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝✶𝓯𝓲𝓻𝓮✶𝓷𝓮𝓽
Moreover, his current scoring average was the highest on the Grizzlies team.
Especially previously in Cleveland, the Cavaliers fans were of the mindset that "only Hansen, not Randolph, is known on the Grizzlies."
As the nominal leader of the Grizzlies, it would be strange if Randolph didn’t have some thoughts about this.
Because this was already touching on the topic of the "battle for the top dog."
The reason the OK combination ended up in an uneasy alliance was precisely because of this reason.
"I’ve tried to talk to him, but it’s not working too well, and this may also have to do with his own injuries and poor performance."