The Budding of a Deal

The ball hadn't flown far from Korver's hands when Westbrook shot out from the side, swiped it clean, and raced toward the frontcourt.

The entire Hawks squad scrambled back on defense, but clearly, no one could catch up to that absurdly fast Ninja Turtle.

Boom!!!

Westbrook finished with a signature C-shaped Tomahawk Slam Dunk.

The Thunder's rhythm had begun.

Schroder dribbled up the court again, hesitating for a moment. The ball moved back and forth between several players without yielding a good Shooting opportunity, and in the end, they had to feed it to Millsap for a low-post backdown against Little Sabonis, which clanked off the rim.

Westbrook grabbed the Defensive Rebound, pushed it quickly up the court, and seeing no good Fast Break chance, settled into the half-court. He ran a pick-and-roll with Chen Xi again, shook off his defender with a straight drive, then faced Sefolosha, used a Sam Good to create space, and followed up with a delicate floater for two more easy points.

When Westbrook activated Scoring Mode, stopping him was incredibly difficult, especially without an elite interior Help defender.

Budenholzer reluctantly called a timeout, hoping to break the Thunder's momentum, since he had no better way to contain Westbrook.

100 seconds passed in a flash, and the game resumed.

The Hawks' stagnant offense still couldn't find a proper breakthrough. After cycling through options, they ended with Schroder forcing a shot from the top of the arc.

With a crisp clang, Chen Xi caught the rebound that fell in front of him, immediately handed it off to Westbrook, and sprinted toward the frontcourt.

To Budenholzer's dismay, Westbrook's hot hand hadn't cooled—if anything, he looked even sharper. A simple burst of speed blew past Bazemore, and a pull-up Mid-range shot splashed through the net.

Couldn't score, couldn't defend.

When a team falls into that situation, they usually need their Leader to Step out and show star quality. Unfortunately, the Hawks had none.

At that moment, Budenholzer found himself missing Howard. Sure, Howard didn't have the skills to tough out a bucket in crunch time and salvage the team's momentum, but his excellent Rim Protection and wide Help defense range would surely have limited Westbrook significantly. It might not have turned the game around, but at least it would have given them something to work with.

Too bad Howard wasn't even on the bench—he hadn't traveled with the team to Oklahoma at all.

The helpless Hawks could only watch as Westbrook carved them up, basket by basket.

49 Points, 11 Rebounds, 13 Assists!

Another monstrous triple-double.

Over the past two months, Westbrook's performance across the entire league had no equal—except for James Harden on the other side.

As of December 20th.

Westbrook averaged 32.4 Points, 9.7 Rebounds, and 11.4 Assists, leading the team to a 21-8 record and Second in the West. He had left most of his MVP rivals far behind, with only James Harden—his childhood friend—trailing close behind at 29.9 Points, 8.1 Rebounds, and 11.2 Assists, while his team's 20-8 record sat just half a game behind the Thunder at third in the West.

For a moment, it left people dazed.

Add in the Warriors at first in the Western Conference.

The Thunder's Big Three of old had truly scattered like stars—each leading their team to the top three spots in the West, a tale that became legendary.

It also made fans feel both love and frustration toward the Thunder Management: brilliant scouting, terrible execution.

As time passed, December gradually wound down.

The Thunder Team stormed through their final games of the month, beating the Celtics and Timberwolves in succession for a 5-game win streak, keeping pace with the Warriors and trading the second spot in the West with the Spurs.

Meanwhile, the league's criticism of Durant grew louder than ever.

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The night they beat the Timberwolves was December 25th—America's Christmas. One of the less hyped Christmas Day battles, the game was already a blowout early, easily handled by the Thunder.

After the game ended, Chen stayed behind alone in the arena, choosing to keep training.

His teammates and his girlfriend had all gone home to spend time with family, and Chen, of course, didn't celebrate Christmas. With nothing else to do, he figured he might as well train.

Slap, slap, slap, swoosh~

The sounds of dribbling and shooting filled the empty arena. Chen Xi mechanically repeated various moves: catch-and-shoot, crossover into pull-up jumper, aerial layup with a hang-time finish, explosive step-back fadeaway...

He savored the arena with only himself, the basketball all to himself, the thrill of growing stronger alone.

At the end of the day, only passion was the eternal driving force.

Under the brightly lit Christmas night, Chen Xi trained alone until nearly midnight before driving home.

When he opened the door, he was surprised to find a beautiful woman lying asleep on the old, drably colored sofa in the cramped room.

"Nika?" Chen Xi stepped forward and gently shook her.

"Mmm~ Chris, you're back?"

"Didn't you say you were going home to see your parents today?"

"Hehe, I had dinner with them, then snuck out. I wanted to surprise you. Where did you go? Why are you so late? I fell asleep waiting."

Chen Xi looked speechlessly at his drowsy girlfriend.

"I don't celebrate Christmas, so I had nothing to do and just practiced at the gym. If you didn't see me, why didn't you just call? Aren't you silly?"

"If I called you, it wouldn't be a surprise anymore."

The woman smiled and stuck out her tongue.

"Come on, before the night's over, how about a drink? I brought a bottle of red wine my dad bought." She pointed at the glasses on the table.

Giving a fond look at Nika, who was acting like a child, Chen Xi poured the wine into a decanter.

"Go wash your face first. Look at you, you can barely keep your eyes open."

"Hehe, carry me there."

"Fine, fine, fine." Chen Xi picked up Veronica and headed to the bathroom.

"You're so good to me, Chris." The woman in his arms began to look at him with growing intensity.

After Christmas slowly passed, people returned to work.

No one knew that beneath their soaring success, the Thunder management had secretly started contacting the Bulls and the Pacers.

Presti was trying to trade for the leading forwards of two teams with disappointing records—Paul George or Jimmy Butler.

The Bulls, with Wade and Butler, had a lackluster season this year, sitting at just 15 wins and 17 losses, barely holding onto ninth place in the East. It was undeniably disappointing.

After trading away the injury-plagued Derrick Rose and Paul Gasol last season, then signing Dwyane Wade to a big contract and promoting Butler to the forefront, the Bulls had been expected to make a big impact. But as things stood now, they were worse off than last season.