Chapter Eighty-Seven: The Youngest Triple-Double King

The game on the court was still going on.

After the first quarter, the Clippers already led by nine, 29 to 20.

If the two teams were evenly matched, that kind of margin was not really much at all. A quick burst from one side, or a sudden dry spell from the other, and the score could be closed again.

But if there was a big gap in strength, then those nine points became a gulf.

In the second quarter, the Clippers sent all their starters to the bench and let Mobley run wild on the floor with four reserves.

The ball was concentrated entirely in Mobley’s hands, and he went into one scoring burst after another.

Within half a quarter, he had already scored six points.

During this stretch of coming off the bench, he was averaging 14.2 points a game.

If he kept that up until the end of the season, a Sixth Man award was practically in the bag.

That was also why Mobley had no complaints for the moment. There were so many starters in the league, but only one Sixth Man award.

For him, winning it would bring plenty of benefits.

In the latter half of the quarter, the starters returned, and Mobley stayed on the floor as well, while Xinghui He shifted over to small forward.

At small forward, Xinghui He was at a disadvantage in size and weight, but that hardly mattered.

His barrage of trash talk was more than enough to make up the difference.

“Damien, it must be painful to have such an unbelievably excellent uncle,” Xinghui He said in friendly conversation.

Damien’s uncle was none other than the famed Human Highlight Film, Dominique Wilkins.

Damien said nothing, so Xinghui He kept going. “If you’d been born into an ordinary family, making it to the NBA would already be enough to make your relatives proud. But with such an outstanding uncle to compare you to, your family would use him as the standard. Against your uncle’s achievements, your life looks far too much like a failure.”

“Fuck you. You don’t know me at all. I don’t give a damn about your trash talk,” Damien said.

But when those words reached Xinghui He’s ears, a hint of a wicked smile appeared on his face.

Just then, the system had notified him that Damien had contributed rage points.

Clearly, Damien was not as calm on the inside as he sounded.

The angered Damien demanded the ball, then shoved past Xinghui He and rose for a midrange jumper after the drive. He missed.

“Damien, Damien, Damien. I told you to finish with a dunk like your uncle. If you keep shooting jumpers like that, you’ll never become the Human Highlight Film. You’re really disappointing me,” Xinghui He scolded in the tone of a parent lecturing a child.

He was certain that Damien’s father had said such things during Damien’s upbringing.

And Damien, who had never managed to reach Dominique’s level of achievement, must have hated those memories with a passion.

Clutching his fists, Damien retreated on defense as the Clippers came down on offense.

Cassell missed a long shot, and Kaman grabbed the offensive rebound.

He passed the ball to Brand, then snarled at Petro: “The hell you call yourself a center?”

Brand shoved Lewis aside and scored.

Then he said to Lewis, “Baby, with a figure that slim, you should be walking the Victoria’s Secret runway.”

On the SuperSonics’ possession, Ridnour brought the ball up.

Cassell said, “Your best option right now is to burn the full twenty-four seconds. That way you can help your team lose by a little less.”

When a person persistently does one thing for a long time, it often rubs off on the people around him, especially when there are benefits to doing it.

Xinghui He had kept at his trash talk so relentlessly that the Clippers were now practically becoming the Los Angeles Bigmouths.

Every player on the team could toss out a line or two.

In the end, Ridnour still did not take Cassell’s advice and passed the ball to Lewis.

Lewis looked at his teammates, all of whom were moving with little enthusiasm, and had no choice but to shoot himself.

It was all far too easy; the SuperSonics players seemed to have lost their fighting spirit.

The shot missed, but Xinghui He had already slipped under the rim long before.

Kaman boxed out, but he did not reach for the ball. Xinghui He snatched the rebound with fury.

“What the fuck.”

Seeing this, Kobe was shocked.

So that was possible? That could actually be done?

“This despicable bastard.”

Kobe burst out cursing. He knew Xinghui He was trying to pad an all-around line in order to humiliate him.

But there was nothing he could do.

He could not take the court and help the SuperSonics punish the Clippers; all he could do was watch Xinghui He’s assists and rebounds keep climbing.

He could even imagine how the media would describe it after the game.

“He displayed complete all-around brilliance and elevated his teammates.”

To hell with elevating his teammates. It was clearly the teammates elevating him.

After cursing, Kobe switched off the television.

He was going to train.

There was no need to watch this game anymore. The SuperSonics were certain to lose, and Xinghui He would certainly pad a complete all-around line.

But Kobe would not therefore think there was anything wrong with his own style of play.

As long as he was strong enough and scored enough, enough to outscore the entire opposing team by himself, what was he going to need assists for?

Right now he only wanted to do two things: keep improving himself, and pressure management into trading for some reliable help.

Then he would wait patiently for another game against the Clippers.

Best of all would be to meet them in the playoffs; then they could play many games in a row, and that would be very interesting indeed.

“Kobe, where are you going at this hour?” Vanessa asked.

“I’m going to see what Los Angeles looks like at midnight,” Kobe said, grabbing a basketball.

“But didn’t you say you wanted a son? I can’t have one by myself,” Vanessa said with a sigh.

She could understand Kobe’s eagerness to train and get stronger, but that should not come at the cost of neglecting his husbandly duties.

“A son can wait any time. But my career is getting shorter by the day.”

With that, Kobe left without looking back.

Just as Kobe had expected, there really was not much worth watching in this Clippers-SuperSonics game.

Even if Ray Allen had not been absent, they still were not a match for the Clippers, let alone with their star player out.

The SuperSonics players had long since given up; all they wanted now was for the game to end faster. Their heads were already buzzing from the nonstop trash talk.

If they had not worried about the punishment of a fight-related suspension, they would have already thrown punches.

At last, the game ended.

Xinghui He played 30 minutes, shot 7 for 10 from the field, including 3 for 5 from three-point range, and added 4 points from the free-throw line for an efficient 21 points.

Fans would not be surprised by that scoring total.

But his assists and rebounds in this game came as a complete shock to everyone.

11 assists, 10 rebounds.

At 19 years and 44 days old, he surpassed James, who had done it at 20 years and 20 days, becoming the youngest player ever to record a triple-double.

And with high-school players now barred from entering the draft directly, that record would be very hard to break in the future.

Although many experts could tell that Xinghui He had padded those numbers, very few were willing to expose it, since doing so would harm others without benefiting themselves.

More importantly, a triple-double was not something you could simply decide to pad and then get.

Ricky Davis had even once tried to throw the ball at his own basket, so strong was his desire for a triple-double, and yet to this day he still had never recorded one.