The Boeing 757 charter plane flew smoothly at an altitude of 30,000 feet.
The back half of the cabin was noisy; you could hear Garnett, Gary Payton, and Rasheed Wallace shouting and cursing as they played cards together across the aisle.
The private business class seats in the front row were fitted with dark gray soundproof curtains.
Lin Qi sat alone in a large leather chair, with three documents spread out on the small table in front of him: on top was the 24-man roster of the Los Angeles All-Stars, in the middle was a stack of sports clippings from major newspapers over the past two weeks, and at the bottom was a map of the outdoor advertising locations for Converse and Monster Energy drinks in downtown Los Angeles.
Lin Qi picked up the vote tally sheet and scanned it from beginning to end.
In this year's All-Star fan voting, Toronto Raptors ' Vince Carter remained the most popular among teenagers across the United States, receiving 2,127,183 votes and retaining his position as the league's leading vote-getter. Celtics' star Kevin Garnett closely followed with 2,122,908 votes, just over 4,000 votes behind Vince Carter, and the two firmly secured the two starting forward positions in the Eastern Conference.
The starting backcourt for the Eastern Conference consists of Allen Iverson and LeBron James, with Chris Paul Pierce ranked third in the fan vote.
What truly caused a stir among American sports radio stations over the past two weeks was the selection of the starting center for the Eastern Conference, and the ensuing controversy surrounding the bench.
Yao Ming, center for the New Jersey Nets, garnered a whopping 2.05 million votes. This number surpassed Shaquille O'Neal O'Neal (1.82 million votes) who moved to the Chicago Bulls and Ben Wallace (1.65 million votes) of Boston, securing him the starting center position in the Eastern Conference.
On the day the results came out, O'Neal erupted in the locker room of the United Center in Chicago.
He left Los Angeles to become the leader of the Chicago Bulls, averaging 24 points and 11.5 rebounds per game this season. He originally thought that in the Eastern Conference, which lacked heavyweight centers, he could easily secure a starting position. However, his votes were surpassed by Yao Ming from neighboring New Jersey by more than 200,000. He was so angry that he lashed out on a local Chicago radio station, sourly saying that the current All-Star voting doesn't care who is more dominant under the basket, and might as well be renamed a census. He was implying that Yao Ming's votes were all inflated by overseas fans.
This caused a huge uproar in the American media, but David Stern, sitting in his Fifth Avenue office in New York, paid no attention. The league had been racking its brains to tap into the Far East and Asia markets for the past two years, and Yao Ming starting meant that it could leverage hundreds of millions of dollars in broadcast contracts and sponsorship checks across the Pacific Ocean. O'Neal's few complaints could not shake Stern's money-making plan.
But O'Neal's fall into the reserve pool directly disrupted the Eastern Conference head coaches' plans to vote for reserves.
According to league rules, each team's head coach must select seven reserves, including two guards, two forwards, one center, and two wild cards regardless of position.
Since O'Neal wasn't in the starting lineup, even if the Eastern Conference coaches liked Ben Wallace's defense, they wouldn't dare leave O'Neal out of the All-Star game. The only backup center spot went directly to O'Neal. On the frontcourt bench, the positions were shared by Magic's Jermaine O'Neal, Nets ' Elton Brand, and Pacers ' forward Al Harrington, who averaged 21 points and 8 rebounds this year. The backcourt and wild card spots went to the Celtics ' Chris Paul Pierce, the Magic's Michael Redd, and the New Orleans Hornets ' Baron Davis.
Ben Wallace, who had been an All-Star for the past two years and led the league in blocks and defensive efficiency this season, was squeezed out of the 12-man roster by Yao Ming and O'Neal.
Lin Qi opened the clippings from the Boston Globe and the New York Post that were at hand.
This past week, Boston local reporters have written article after article defending Ben Wallace. Veteran columnist Bob Ryan went so far as to rant on the front page, saying that the defensive stalwart of the league's best team couldn't even make the All-Star bench, while the Chicago Bulls' big guy with a winning percentage of less than 40% was relegated to the bench. He suggested that the All-Star team should just be renamed the Circus.
Dwyane Wade, in his second year, also failed to make the regular season bench. Many knowledgeable commentators spoke out on the radio, feeling that the stats Michael Redd put up on a weaker team couldn't compare to Wade's value in the Celtics' system, where he could dominate and score.
However, in Lin Qi's view, the fact that Big Ben and Wade didn't make the regular season is actually a good thing for Boston in the second half of the season.
After practice yesterday, Rick Carlisle specifically called Big Ben into his office and talked to him behind closed doors for half an hour. Then, he cut out the New York Post article mocking Big Ben for not being able to score and only being able to do the dirty work, and taped it to Big Ben's locker door. Big Ben may seem reserved, but he's more arrogant than anyone else. With that pent-up anger, anyone who runs into him in the paint in the second half of the season will be in for a world of hurt.
Looking at the list for the Western Conference, it's just as exciting.
The Western Conference starting frontcourt consists of Tim Duncan of the Spurs and Amar'e Stoudamire of the Seattle SuperSonics. At center is Brad Miller of the Sacramento Kings. The Western Conference starting backcourt pairs Steve Francis of the Houston Rockets with Kobe Brian of the host Lakers. The bench includes Chauncey Billups Billups and Ray Allen of the Seattle SuperSonics, Jason Kidd and Carl Malone of the Spurs, Nowitzki and Steve Nash of the Mavericks, and Chris Webber of the Sacramento Kings.
A sense of impending storm permeated the entire Los Angeles.
The North America sports world was thrown into turmoil at the beginning of 2004 by several major events. Two weeks earlier, the incident during the Super Bowl halftime show involving Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake (whose shirts were ripped off) caused a huge uproar.
The Federal Communications Commission's investigation orders rained down on major broadcasters. David Stern was on edge at his New York headquarters, ordering a strict five-second delay for all broadcasts of the Los Angeles All-Star Weekend and prohibiting sideline cameras from capturing any inappropriate behavior.
Nike and Adidas are locked in a fierce battle on the streets of Los Angeles.
To promote LeBron James, who had just signed a record-breaking $90 million contract, Nike plastered skyscrapers around Staples Center with giant posters, touting that the 2003 draft class would crush the second-year rookies in tomorrow night's Rising Stars Challenge. Adidas, meanwhile, booked an entire floor of a Beverly Hills hotel to promote Tracy McGrady's mismatched T-Mac 3s. The major sneaker giants packed Hollywood's glamorous scene to capacity, with luxury cars, nightclubs, parties, and underground casinos lining Wilshire Boulevard.
In this restless and tense atmosphere, twenty-four people, each with their own agendas, gathered in Los Angeles.