Chapter Ninety-Three: Anticipation of the Multitude

On the eighteenth, the Clippers faced the Suns.

For one reason and another, the game drew extraordinary attention.

With a contest so controversial, no other network wanted to let TNT have the whole feast to itself.

Many stations hurriedly added the game to their live schedules, turning it once again into a national broadcast.

And to cement its lead, TNT tried something new.

For this game, they brought in a lip-reading commentator, who would translate He Xinghui’s trash talk for the audience in real time and satisfy everyone’s curiosity.

That move once again made TNT the fans’ first choice.

The people in charge of the other networks could only grind their teeth in resentment.

In truth, they had thought of hiring a lip-reading expert too, and they knew the effect would be good, but they simply lacked the budget.

A top-tier lip reader did not come cheap. Specialists of that sort were usually busy with research work; they had no time to spare.

If TNT had not made a tidy sum from broadcasting earlier Clippers games, they would not have been so generous either.

At the same time, TNT also launched a guessing game, asking viewers to predict how many lines of trash talk He Xinghui would deliver on the court.

Lucky viewers who guessed correctly would receive a chibi-style doll of Barkley in women’s clothing.

A great many viewers said they would deliberately pick an absurdly low number, just in case they guessed right.

“Please welcome Professor Odran. Professor Odran is…”

On TNT, Smith introduced the lip-reading master and all of his impressive credentials.

Then he and Barkley turned to chatting about today’s game.

“I’m picking the Suns to win,” Barkley said.

“Why? Didn’t you already start hyping the Clippers in the last game?” Smith asked.

“No, no, Kenny, you’re the real He fanboy. I’m a rational commentator with no personal feelings involved. In my view, the Suns are stronger than the Clippers.”

The players began entering Staples Center.

When Nash came out, the crowd greeted him with considerable applause.

On one hand, as last season’s MVP, he was already immensely popular.

On the other, there were many Los Angeles fans who could not stand He Xinghui.

These people had now transformed from Kobe loyalists into Nash loyalists, the so-called shape-shifters.

They all hoped Nash would make He Xinghui suffer embarrassment, so they cheered for him.

When He Xinghui appeared, the cheers grew even louder.

A group of die-hard Xing fans had already snapped up every last season ticket for the Clippers’ home court, just to come in person and cheer for him.

In popularity, He Xinghui had already surpassed Brand and become, in the eyes of many Clippers fans, the team’s true leader.

Brand had plenty to say about that, but no place to say it.

Once the introductions were finished, the players began warming up.

He Xinghui then headed to the front row to greet a group of stars.

“He, crush the Suns,” Duhamel, Leonardo, and the others said as they came up to slap hands with him.

When it was Cameron Diaz’s turn, she shot him a flirtatious glance and said with a smile, “He, I’m your fan.”

“Really? Actually, I’m your fan too,” He Xinghui said with a grin.

Diaz was briefly stunned, because what he had said was not “fanatic,” but “ball fan,” which is not a normal phrase in English.

It was a bit like, in a Chinese setting, a man suddenly pulled down his pants and said to a woman, “We can talk about it in bed later.”

Any woman not sufficiently dirty-minded would be left utterly bewildered.

But so long as one was not too stupid, it did not take long to understand the hidden meaning.

Diaz was the same. She first went blank, and then quickly realized that the “balls” He Xinghui meant were the two in front of her chest.

The stars standing nearby caught on in an instant. The men all flashed wicked grins, while the actresses laughed so hard they covered their faces.

Leo’s eyes lit up as though he had found a kindred spirit.

Joking like this might be hard for female stars to accept back in China.

But Diaz was bold and uninhibited; she would not care at all if someone teased her about her generous figure. On the contrary, she would feel proud.

She smiled and lifted her chest a little higher, letting the cameras capture her proud, radiant curves in full.

At TNT, once Odran translated He Xinghui’s words, Barkley and Smith nearly collapsed with laughter.

The game had not even started, and they already knew they had hired the right man.

Without Odran, they would never have been able to catch such entertaining moments on live television.

On the floor, He Xinghui was still chatting amicably with Diaz.

“He, I love your dunks. Can you throw one down later?”

He Xinghui did not dunk often in games, but because he had once produced a very beautiful dunk, fans assumed he played with care for his body.

For that very reason, many Xing fans especially wanted to see him dunk.

As for Diaz, perhaps because He Xinghui had once scored big for Charlize Theron, she wanted him to do something special for her too; that would count as a kind of bragging right.

“Of course. What kind of dunk do you want to see? A poster dunk, a dunk over someone, a reverse dunk, a windmill, a between-the-legs switch…”

He Xinghui rattled off more than a dozen kinds of dunks in one breath, like someone reading from a menu.

“Hee hee, I want to see a domineering poster dunk or dunk over someone,” Diaz said happily.

“Then which Suns player would you like me to dunk over?” He Xinghui asked.

The answer left everyone speechless.

“Damn it, I can’t watch this anymore. Start the game already. I want to see Nash kill him,” Barkley complained on the TNT broadcast.

There was no helping it. He Xinghui’s words were infuriating, and Barkley was a Suns legend to boot.

By He Xinghui’s logic, he could dunk however he wanted, on whomever he wanted. It was arrogance taken a little too far.

Barkley was furious, and so were the Xing-haters in front of their televisions. They simply could not stand He Xinghui’s swaggering face.

Fortunately, the Xing fans absolutely loved that attitude.

“That’s the spirit! That’s exactly why I like him. That’s a real idol.”

The Xing fans were howling in front of their TVs too, eagerly waiting for the game to begin. They wanted to see He Xinghui make good on his bold words; that would be so cool.

At the same time, the Xing-haters were also waiting for the opening tip, eager to see He Xinghui fail to live up to his boasting.

Under the expectations of countless people, the game finally began.

For the Clippers, the starters were Cassell, He Xinghui, Maggette, Brand, and Kaman.

For the Suns, the starting point guard was Nash, an MVP-caliber floor general.

At shooting guard was Raja Bell, a player renowned for his defense and adept at hounding opponents.

But that did not mean his offense was weak. This season, he was averaging 14.7 points per game, hitting 44 percent of his threes and making 2.5 per game on average.

He was the consummate 3-and-D player; if he were thrown ten years into the future, he would be fought over by every contender, the perfect championship piece.

At small forward was Shawn Marion, nicknamed the Matrix, an All-Star-level talent.

At power forward was Kurt Thomas, and at center was the French Magician, Diaw, an extremely versatile player.

At five positions, four were major names.

The only relatively weaker one, Thomas, had originally been only the backup to All-Star Stoudemire.

If Stoudemire had not been sidelined with injury, Thomas would not have been starting at all.

It was fair to say that once Stoudemire returned, this Suns starting five would be the most luxurious in the entire league. Even the Spurs could not compare.