New Opponent Appears

The Grizzlies defeated the Kings, successfully avoiding a losing streak and safely making it through October and November.

And just as December began, Link gave the entire world a surprise.

More precisely, even he himself had been "surprised."

Early in the morning on the first day of December, Link checked the league news and discovered that he had actually been named Player of the Month!

As a veteran beginning his fifth NBA season, Link knew a few of the league's unwritten rules.

For instance, you couldn't pad your stats after the other side had already given up on the game; that would be considered disrespectful.

And rookies generally had to run errands for the team's "elders." Even if you were already thirty, as long as it was your first time playing in the NBA, there was no escaping it.

Likewise, Player of the Month was not easily awarded to players on the injury list, another of the NBA's many unwritten rules.

Thinking about it, that rule was not unreasonable.

If a player averaged 30+10+10 and led his team to an undefeated record, but got injured after playing only two games, then Player of the Month naturally could not go to him.

So after being sidelined by injury, Link had not thought about Player of the Month at all.

Yet unexpectedly, the honor really had fallen into his lap.

Link immediately looked through the reports from various media outlets and found that they were quite surprised as well.

But after some analysis, it made perfect sense for Link to win Player of the Month.

As one ESPN article put it, "Although Link was injured, you could search the entire Western Conference and still not find another player who could be mentioned in the same breath as him. In fact, there isn't