After finishing the three-game road trip in California, Cooper returned to the team, and Porter temporarily stepped down from the coaching position.
But right after that, the team ran into some trouble. Back in Las Vegas, Danny Ainge reported to Gan Guoyang, saying, "The League has launched an investigation, saying we let a player double as a coach. That doesn’t comply with League rules and we might get punished."
"What? How did they even find out Porter filled in as coach? He wasn’t even in a suit."
"Because Porter stood on the sideline with a clipboard calling plays for three straight games, boss. There’s video. The League office isn’t stupid."
"So what? There’s no rule that says a player can’t run the team on the floor."
"The problem is how they define it. Players can call plays, but they can’t actually be serving as coach in fact."
Gan Guoyang cursed to himself. He knew Americans just loved this kind of crap, using investigations to establish "facts."
And these investigations usually drag on forever, constantly dragging people in for questioning, never-ending, just like when Gan Guoyang got tangled up in that spy case.
When the investigation team stations itself in Las Vegas, there’s no way they won’t try to eat, take, and extort. You have to arrange casino "entertainment," right? Baths and saunas, right? Luxury suites for sure, and maybe even stuff some cash to Commissioner Smith so he’ll say something nice.
The key is, after you do all that, if they want to investigate you, they’ll still investigate you. It’s almost the end of the season, the last thing he needed was the team’s atmosphere and morale getting wrecked.
"What did the boss say?" Gan Guoyang asked Ainge.
"The boss said it’s up to you."
"Fuck!" Gan Guoyang swore inwardly. As soon as there’s a mess, it’s "up to you" again!
Then he thought about it—wasn’t the mess at home cleaned up by Boss Wang? Handing the Stern side over to himself actually made sense.
So, in the middle of the night, Gan Guoyang called David Stern and yanked him out of his sleep.
"Do you even know what time it is, Sonny? Do you not sleep?"
"A Boeing plane crashed into a building again, this time in Los Angeles."
"What!" David Stern snapped awake instantly.
Five seconds later, he realized he’d been played. That son of a bitch was using 9/11 like medicated oil, just to wake him up.
"Don’t joke about that, Sonny. It’s not funny at all!"
"I’m not trying to make you laugh, I’m trying to wake you up. This is about the player-coach thing."
"Oh~ I’ll send someone to look into it. Next week."
"What do you mean ’send someone to look into it’? Porter just filled in temporarily. It’s nothing, it doesn’t violate the rule that players can’t double as coaches, and it didn’t hurt anyone or any team. David, are you trying to screw me and my team?"
"Rules are rules. Someone filed a complaint, we can’t just sit on it. Send some people over, run the process, and it’s done."
"Who complained?"
"Of course I can’t tell you that. Anyway, we still have to investigate, or..."
Gan Guoyang heard the subtext in Stern’s words and asked, "Or what?"
"Nothing. Get some rest, Sonny."
Gan Guoyang knew David Stern was worried about being wiretapped. Gan Guoyang had indeed been under long-term FBI surveillance. It had supposedly been lifted after the spy case ended.
But after 9/11, they quietly started it up again, on and off, so both Gan Guoyang and Stern were pretty cautious.
On April 11, the Glory Team hosted the Phoenix Suns. Near the end of the regular season, this was a Rookie of the Year showdown between Yao Ming and Stoudemire.
Their projected Rookie of the Year scores were almost identical. Yao Ming had a slight edge, with Stoudemire right behind him.
Stat-wise, Yao Ming scored a little more, while Stoudemire had better rebounding numbers.
In terms of on-court feel, Yao Ming started off so-so, then quickly exploded with some dazzling stretches, and around the All-Star break, he was up and down.
Stoudemire, on the other hand, stayed relatively steady the whole time, without the huge swings Yao had.
As for impact on their teams, both teams were very strong, with Glory being self-explanatory.
The Suns’ roster was fully loaded this year: Tony Parker, Antoine Walker, Grant Hill, and they traded for Joe Johnson, giving them huge offensive firepower.
Stoudemire started off coming off the bench, then gradually became the team’s starting center. His defense was lacking, but his offense was pretty good.
In a game in December 2002, Suns vs. Timberwolves, he matched up against Kevin Garnett and dropped a career-high 38 points so far, proving his offensive talent and shaking up the League, making people notice this rising high-school star.
So Stoudemire’s Rookie of the Year buzz was also very loud.
At this point, the impression they left when going head-to-head on the court became really important.
Before the game, the media hyped up their matchup, pushing it in the "lifelong rivals" direction.
As a marquee event, David Stern came in person to watch.
Over five hours before tipoff, Stern arrived at the MGM Hotel Arena.
The arena was still empty, with staff installing the floor on site.
Yesterday, the MGM Hotel Arena had just hosted a boxing match. Today it was switching to basketball.
Stern randomly picked a seat in the middle of the stands. No one was around, the lights in the seating area were off, and nobody noticed that the League’s commissioner was sitting there.
After a bit, Gan Guoyang showed up and sat down next to David Stern. They were sure there’d be no listening devices there, so they could talk.
David Stern didn’t waste words and went straight to the point: "I want to put one condition on the table. I need you to help me with something."
"Why can’t you just say what you want directly? Why do we have to turn it into some kind of trade?"
"I told you, someone filed a complaint. I’m not picking on you on purpose. It just happened to land on my desk, so I thought I’d talk to you about it."
Stern continued, "Recently some people from the FBI told me there’s a referee involved in gambling. We don’t know who it is yet. Their main activity center is probably in Las Vegas. I want you to help and drag this person out into the open."
"Fuck... I’m in the basketball business, and you want me to help you do FBI work? Why don’t you just work directly with the FBI?"
"Vegas is your turf. With your help, it’ll be fastest. The FBI doesn’t have enough leads, and their movements in Vegas are restricted. You’ve got this place locked down pretty well."
Gan Guoyang fell silent, thinking it over, because he already knew which ref was fixing games. That whole scandal blew up big a few years later—he remembered it.
So there was no need to send anyone to investigate. Gan Guoyang could give David Stern the answer right now.
"Then you have to agree to one condition of mine too."
"We won’t do anything about Porter. You can relax on that."
"It’s not about Porter. I want Yao Ming to win Rookie of the Year."
"The media votes for awards, not me!"
"Oh come on, David. The official stance matters a lot. I want you to apply some pressure, at least enough to make it a shared award."
"Share it? Like you and Michael did?"
"Exactly. The bottom line is they share it. I know some people aren’t thrilled about Chinese people taking home trophies right now."
This time it was David Stern’s turn to fall silent. Seeing that, Gan Guoyang pushed him: "If you agree, I can drag that guy out into the open tomorrow."
Stern shot Gan Guoyang a sideways glance and said, "So you already fucking know who it is, don’t you?"
"I don’t. I just happen to have some leads, and when you mentioned it, it jogged my memory a bit."
The two of them haggled back and forth for quite a while. Gan Guoyang laid out how much money Glory had made for the League this season.
David Stern, for his part, complained that times were tough for the teams, pressure everywhere, and so on.
Anyway, after all that back-and-forth, they both agreed to each other’s terms: Gan Guoyang would help expose the gambling ref, and Stern would make sure Yao Ming became Rookie of the Year.
Just like that, the deal was done.
"Oh yeah!" Gan Guoyang suddenly remembered something and said, "We can’t just sweep the player-coach thing completely under the rug either. How about this: the League issues a fine, hit Porter with fifteen thousand US Dollars, just to give whoever complained an explanation. What do you think?"
Stern of course had no objection to that. He asked, "Porter won’t have a problem with it, right?"
"No, no. You know Porter, he’s a very reasonable old vet. He’ll understand."