The No.1 Anti-Fans in Basketball-Chapter 80: Not as One Wishes

The All-Star voting had begun, and team promotions were rolled out on a large scale.

Then Hansen’s slogan had sparked heated discussions among fans.

This included the factor that Carrell reported the event on ESPN. frёewebnoѵēl.com

But beyond his expectations, TNT’s latest episode of "NBA Entertainment" also used his slogan as material.

This suddenly made the news go viral, not just among fans, but even some music fans started discussing it.

After all, Swift was considered a goddess by many fans, and Hansen truly had no shame.

"Pee and look in the mirror," "You wish," "Have you no shame?"...

History is a cycle, and the words previously used by Kobe fans to criticize James were now being thrown at Hansen by the music fans.

Naturally, Hansen was overjoyed.

Because Swift’s fan base was already large at this time, and even if only a small part of them criticized him, the hate he received was comparable to that from LeBron fans.

So naturally, during an open practice session of the Cavaliers, when reporters interviewed Hansen, they touched on this topic.

"If you’re selected for the All-Star, would you really go on a date with Swift?"

"Of course." Hansen was definite, since it was impossible for him to be selected anyway.

There are 12 players in the NBA All-Star first team, 7 reserves chosen by the league coaches, and 5 starters voted by the fans.

Forget about being a reserve; with his average scores, even if Malone had been straightened out, Malone wouldn’t pick him, that would just be throwing him into the fire.

As for the starters, he shouldn’t even think about it. Despite his backing from the East Market, there were so many star guards in The East right now—like Iverson, Wade, Pierce in their prime, and also Ross, Joe Johnson, Rondo, and Carter, all popular choices.

Moreover, last year Yi Jianlian narrowly missed out on beating Garnett for the starting spot in the All-Star from The East, so the League would definitely make some tweaks to the voting rules.

So, this was a 99% impossibility.

"But that’s Swift," the reporter couldn’t help but sigh.

"How do I look?" Hansen asked the reporter with a smile.

The reporter scrutinized Hansen and finally gave his verdict, "Lives up to his name."

"Hansen" correlates with "handsome" in English, translated as handsome; even during the Summer League, the commentator had teased him about this.

"Do you like Taylor?" Hansen then asked.

The reporter blushed, who didn’t like Swift these days?

"So, if I look fine, and I’m single, why can’t I like Taylor?"

Hansen’s question left the reporter speechless; he felt something was off but couldn’t pinpoint what it was.

Hansen shrugged and didn’t forget to remind the reporter with a smile, "Remember to vote for me."

Hansen’s interview, when reported by the journalist, was like adding fuel to the fire.

More fans and music lovers joined the ranks of those bashing Hansen.

And soon someone pointed out a loophole in Hansen’s words—liking Swift is one thing, but Hansen had talked about dating!

Hansen’s hate index soared rapidly.

At the same time, Hansen had also received an invitation to the League’s three-point contest.

He originally had no interest in participating, but when he heard that both Curry and Pierce were attending this year, he immediately changed his mind.

One was dubbed "Legendary Shooter" back in his NCAA days (self-proclaimed), and the other was the leader of his haters; he couldn’t miss this opportunity.

A week later, the first round of All-Star votes came out.

Hansen was only ranked seventh among the guards in The East.

While this was surprisingly more than Joe Johnson, considering his background from East University, it was reasonable.

With this result, Hansen was quite content.

Too low would have shown he had no influence, and too high—did you really expect him to go on a date with Swift?

Even if he shamelessly went, the rejection would be so awkward he wouldn’t know where to hide his face.

That week, Hansen’s performance on the court had improved.

Firstly, he followed the team doctor’s advice, which notably alleviated his groin issues.

Secondly, after receiving coaching from Wade and targeted training, he occasionally managed to score with thrown shots on the court, deterring his opponents from targeting him completely.

Everything was developing in the direction he had hoped.

Until a week later, when the League announced the second round of voting results, Hansen felt something was amiss.

His votes had skyrocketed, moving directly from seventh to third, trailing only behind Iverson and Wade.

Wait, what was going on?

When Hansen saw the results, he was a bit baffled.

After the first round of voting, he had specifically searched online and found that to control the East University fans’ votes, the League had increased the ratio to 1 to 7. Some even said that votes from the East Region were not counted anymore, only those from the United States counted.

There was no definitive news of what was true or false, but one thing was certain: there was definitely suppression since Yi Jianlian barely received any votes this year.

Considering his stats at the Brooklyn Nets this season were much better than last year at the Wizards.

They couldn’t possibly be, just to see him embarrass himself, doing the opposite by voting him into the All-Star game?

Although he thought Americans were boring, they couldn’t possibly be that bored.

Of course, when the results of the second round of voting came out, the most anxious were undoubtedly not Hansen but fans of Pierce, Rondo, and Carter.

Especially Pierce, the leader of the haters, directly blasted the League’s voting system on social media, calling it a disgraceful outcome.

A familiar plotline. Last year when Yi Jianlian was close to surpassing Garnett, fans also criticized the voting system.

Boston fans were once again riled up, and Hansen unwittingly gained a lot of hate value from this move.

His previous plans for remote farming were nothing short of divine.

However, the climax wasn’t then, but a week later when the results of the third round of votes came in—Hansen had surpassed Iverson to become the second guard in the East!

Okay, not just others, even Hansen was confused now.

What in the world happened!

He knew surpassing Iverson was not something that American fans could influence despite Iverson’s declining popularity, as he couldn’t match up to that in the States.

The only possibility could be from his home country.

He logged onto major domestic forums and after numerous searches, he finally got a clue.

This damn thing really was his oversight.

First off, naturally, were the haters—these haters actually rallied fans in the forums to use VPNs to vote for him.

Because after multiple attempts, they discovered that the voting ratio inside the country was larger than anticipated, reaching 1 to 10, but it remains 1 to 1 with a VPN.

They provided VPN tutorials and even went online to answer queries for those who didn’t understand.

This literally confirmed the saying: Extreme hatred turns into fans.

But clearly, these people’s real intention was to watch Hansen make a fool of himself.

Hansen’s performance in the past half-month had improved, bringing his season’s average points to over 12, but having someone with just over 12 points being selected as an All-Star, that’s quite embarrassing.

Not to mention he also had to go on an impossible date with Swift, making it twice as embarrassing.

Next up, the LeBron fans.

Hansen, having always focused on nurturing haters, had basically ignored his actual fans.

Especially since he didn’t participate in the Summer League and had criticized domestic shoe brands, theoretically, he should have had no fans.

But he overlooked one fact—Yao Ming was out for the season due to injury.

Yao Ming couldn’t play, Yi Jianlian’s stats might have been slightly better, but the Brooklyn Nets were at the bottom in the East, while he was well-settled in the Cavaliers.

With such a comparison, his visibility naturally saw a significant boost.

Most fans don’t care about your actions off the court.

Just like actors, as long as you perform well and don’t break the law, they don’t mind a slight lack in personal virtues.

Moreover, Hansen wasn’t about poor morality, just a bit of a big mouth.

So, as long as Hansen played well, he naturally had fans.

And the number of these fans was not small at all; whether they faced a 1 to 10 ratio to vote or used a VPN, together, they had a considerable number of votes.

Hansen found his reasons, but he was still not panicking, as he knew the League would never let him be a starter.

What use is having more votes?

In the League’s backend, isn’t it just a bunch of data?

Is changing some data, a task even a programmer could handle, that difficult?

Especially since he had pushed Iverson down this time, Iverson’s lifetime fans also started aggressively rallying votes.

So, his final voting result would most likely be like last year’s Yi Jianlian, ranked third and unfortunately missing out.

For Hansen, this outcome was undoubtedly the best scenario.

A week later, when it came to early February, the League announced the final All-Star voting results.

LeBron James was voted the All-Star king with 2.7 million votes.

Hansen eventually received 1.42 million votes, significantly lower than Wade’s 2.32 million but higher than Iverson’s 1.32 million.

This meant that he would join Wade as the starting guards for the 2010 All-Star game of the East!