Boom!!
Everyone at the draft was stunned.
Kevin Johnson was a very low-key point guard, but anyone who followed basketball knew his name.
Since joining the Suns in 1987, he had played six full seasons for them. In five of those seasons, he averaged at least 20 points and 10 assists.
Last season, he had averaged 20 points, 9.5 assists, and 1.9 steals, earning a spot on the All-NBA Second Team.
Among point guards, Kevin Johnson ranked just behind John Stockton.
Some fans even believed that, purely as a scorer, Kevin Johnson was every bit as good as Stockton. After all, his average points per game were higher than Stockton's in both the regular season and the playoffs.
As for why Stockton had made the All-NBA First Team so many times while Kevin Johnson hadn't, the main reason was Stockton's superior defense.
Last season, Kevin Johnson and Charles Barkley had fallen in the second round of the playoffs. But they had lost a seven-game series to the eventual champions, the Houston Rockets. It wasn't as if they'd been blown out.
And in that series, Kevin Johnson had been more consistent than Barkley, averaging 26.6 points and 9.7 assists per game. He led the series in assists per game and ranked second in scoring, behind only Olajuwon.
Nobody had thought Kevin Johnson would be on the trading block.
And yet he'd been traded straight up for Li Fei!
Could a rookie like Li Fei really be worth an All-Star who averaged 20 points and 10 assists?
That was hard to believe.
But no matter what, this was a blockbuster trade!
"I can't believe our Li Fei has been traded to the Phoenix Suns."
Back in China, Sun Zhengping and Xu Jicheng hurried to regain control of the broadcast.
"Everyone, trades during