NBA: Basketball Legend.

Chapter 368: Chapter 368: The Championship Parade, A Speech That Set Phoenix On Fire [Bonus Chapter]

TL: 200PS

Chapter 368: The Championship Parade, A Speech That Set Phoenix On Fire

Late at night, the Suns’ private plane touched down at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Chen Yan had assumed the hour would thin the crowd. Instead, the moment the team stepped into view, the noise hit like a wall.

”Champions!”

”We are the champions!”

”Steve, you did it!”

”Chen, I love you!”

”You’re our hero!”

The decibel level spiked so hard it felt like the airport itself was vibrating. Flags waved. Jerseys bounced in the air. People screamed until their voices cracked, and nobody cared.

Stoudemire looked out at the sea of fans and elbowed Chen Yan with a grin. ”So, Chen. Is this as many fans as in your dream?”

Chen Yan watched the faces, the tears, the shaking hands reaching out for anything, a photo, a signature, a second of eye contact. He exhaled, then nodded.

”No,” he said honestly. ”But this feels more real.”

Stoudemire burst out laughing. ”Man, the real world is real. I promise.”

Chen Yan spent the next stretch of time signing and taking photos, one by one. He was exhausted, but the joy carried him. He had never wanted to win alone. Sharing it with the people who lived and died with this team was part of the point.

It was 3:30 AM when he finally got back to his villa.

As he drifted toward sleep, the world was already moving. The Suns’ title and Chen Yan’s Finals MVP were swallowing sports media at home and abroad.

”The Birth of a Genius, The Youngest Finals MVP in History!”

”A Sweep, An Absolute Display of Power!”

”The Suns Were One Piece Away, Chen Yan!”

”Phoenix Reborn, The Suns Join the Championship Club!”

”Whispers, What Did Chen Yan Say to LeBron After the Game?”

”Phenomenal Performance, A First Banner in Franchise History!”

”Chen Yan’s First Title, Stepping Over The Little Emperor!”

”The Biggest Hoax Ever, The Future Was Not LeBron’s After All!”

”Swept 2 Years in a Row, Pressure Mounts on Cavaliers Management!”

Online, the reactions were even wilder.

”Finals MVP, this is unreal!”

”Chen Yan, you are my god!”

”I’m still in college trying not to fail, and he’s already Finals MVP!”

”Championship plus Finals MVP at 20, everybody calls LeBron the chosen one, but I’m picking Chen.”

”If someone told me a year ago an Asian guard would win Finals MVP, I would’ve suggested a brain scan.”

”I can’t wait to see what he does for the national team in the Olympics.”

Chen Yan’s success detonated across China. Basketball was not just popular, it was part of the culture. The moment someone from home stood on top of the NBA, it felt like the whole country stood with him.

Even football media couldn’t help sounding jealous. If Chinese football could produce a figure like this, they said, maybe a new dawn would finally arrive.

That line got mocked immediately. People were simply too disappointed to pretend anymore.

Fans had very different feelings about football and basketball. Basketball had already reached the Olympic top 8 and dominated Asia for years. Football struggled even within Asia, and on the world stage it felt like a distant dream. People joked about how they finally reached the World Cup once, then got beaten 9 to 0 across 3 games. A narrow loss to Brazil, a draw with Turkey, and a big win against Costa Rica became recycled punchlines that never stopped making the rounds.

...

The next day, Chen Yan woke up at noon.

His parents had already prepared lunch. For a moment, he just sat there, staring at the table like he had to prove it was real. No cameras, no confetti, no noise, just home cooked food and the same two people who had been behind him the entire way.

He felt his chest tighten. This was what it all meant.

While eating, he scrolled through his phone. 99 plus messages. Dozens of missed calls. Congratulations stacked on congratulations, some from old friends, some from people he had not spoken to in years.

Then the doorbell rang.

Bill Duffy arrived with a smile and a folder full of chaos.

”Good news,” he said. ”Everyone wants you now.”

After the championship and Finals MVP, brands came rushing in. Domestic brands especially were aggressive, eager to lock him up as an ambassador before the Olympics pushed his value even higher.

Bill was not wrong. Those owners were sharks with calculators. If Chen Yan exploded on the Olympic stage, the price of his face and name would jump again.

Chen Yan scanned the list, made a quick cut, and pushed the rest back toward Bill.

”Handle it,” Chen Yan said.

His schedule was packed. In 1 day, he would be in the championship parade with the entire team. After that, he had to fly back to China for the men’s national team warm up games.

The most brutal part was simple.

He had not practiced with the national team even once.

Time was tight enough to snap.

...

On the morning of June 16, Phoenix looked like it had been rewritten.

Millions of fans flooded the streets, not in panic, but in celebration. This was the Suns’ first championship in franchise history, and the city treated it like a holiday carved into stone.

Phoenix might not have the global glamour of Los Angeles or New York, but its population had long ranked among the top 5 in the United States. When a city like that finally got its moment, the crowd was going to be massive. There was no mystery.

The parade was scheduled for 10:00 AM.

By 7:00 or 8:00 AM, the streets were already packed shoulder to shoulder.

Some diehard fans had camped overnight just to claim the best viewing spots. In Phoenix summer, that was not a small commitment. The temperature could sit between 30 and 40 degrees Celsius, and as the sun climbed, the crowd grew restless.

The floats were late.

Cell service collapsed under the weight of too many people in one place. Phones turned into dead bricks. People shouted questions, laughed, complained, then shouted again.

Then a voice cut through the noise.

”Chen is here!”

The crowd surged like a wave.

An Asian fan appeared in the middle of it all wearing a Suns No. 0 jersey, sunglasses, and holding a Finals MVP trophy.

At first glance, he looked a little like Chen Yan.

At second glance, it was obvious he was a counterfeit.

The trophy in his hand was cardboard, painted gold, held together by pure confidence and tape.

The funniest part was that everyone played along anyway. Fans asked for autographs. People lined up for photos. It was a parody, but it was affectionate, a city entertaining itself while waiting for the real thing.

A TV reporter squeezed through and shoved a microphone forward.

”Wow,” the reporter said, laughing. ”You’re a great impersonator. If I didn’t have eyes, I might’ve thought you were Chen.”

He held up a hand. ”Just kidding. Seriously though, you clearly studied him. Tell us how this started.”

The fan grinned. ”Probably at the beginning of this year. People kept telling me there was an Asian guy in the NBA who looked like me. I thought they were messing with me. Then I started watching his games and realized they weren’t lying.”

He lifted the cardboard trophy like it weighed 10 pounds of history. ”The more I watched, the more I liked him. He’s not just good, he’s got charisma. That’s when I started doing this.”

The reporter nodded. ”Are you going to keep doing it?”

”Of course,” the fan said without hesitation. ”He’s my hero.”

Halfway through the interview, the crowd volume jumped again, this time with a different kind of electricity.

The real Chen Yan had arrived.

The parade procession was huge.

4 floats, 10 convertibles, 12 trucks.

Management. Coaches. Staff. Players. Families. The entire organization moved together through the city like a rolling celebration.

Phoenix sent a large police presence to keep order. Yellow cordon lines stretched along both sides of the route.

At the very front, owner Robert Sarver and his wife waved and smiled.

Sarver had a reputation for being cheap. The trade that brought Chen Yan in had more than one motivation, part of it was the Chinese market, part of it was avoiding the luxury tax. Nobody believed he expected it to become a championship move.

And yet, here he was, leading a parade for the first title in franchise history.

Sometimes basketball wrote jokes better than comedians.

Chen Yan rode on a middle float with his parents.

He also brought Taylor Swift.

Taylor had already met his parents at a game earlier in the season. Chen Yan’s parents were open minded. They did not care about race or background. They cared about one thing.

Their son was happy.

As the float rolled forward, the cheers on both sides were deafening.

”We are the champions!”

”We are the champions!”

”Keep it in Phoenix!”

The city went feral in the best way. The parade felt like the perfect closing scene to the season, the kind you replay in your head when you are old.

At the end of the route, around 10,000 season ticket holders were waiting. A small privilege for the people who had carried the team through the lean years.

About 1 hour and 30 minutes later, the parade reached its destination.

Music blasted. Confetti floated. The Suns players lined up on stage and spoke one by one.

Barea and Azubuike talked about their climb from being overlooked to becoming real rotation pieces on a championship team.

Grant Hill spoke about injuries, about stubbornness, about staying alive in the league when the body keeps trying to quit on you.

Then Nash stepped up.

He pointed directly at Chen Yan.

”Early in the season,” Nash said, voice steady, ”I told this kid he could become the best guard, an MVP level player, a legend in this league. He thought I was just trying to encourage him. But I’m not someone who exaggerates. I meant every word.”

Nash smiled, then lifted a hand toward the crowd like he was presenting proof.

”Everybody knows what happened next. He became the youngest Finals MVP. He really did it.”

Chen Yan tapped his chest in respect.

The crowd answered with a chant that shook the stage.

”MVP! MVP! MVP!”

Chen Yan walked up with a smile. The host raised both hands and begged the crowd to calm down, otherwise nobody would hear a word.

Little by little, the noise lowered.

Chen Yan began.

”Thank you, Phoenix. No matter where I go, the people here recognize me. You treat me like family. Ball boys, video guys, community workers, security guards, everyone. Thank you.”

He looked out at the sea of faces.

”This trophy doesn’t belong to 1 person. It belongs to a whole city. It belongs to everyone who put something into this season.”

Then his tone shifted, quieter, more personal.

”A year ago, I was just a small player in the NCAA. I didn’t even know if I’d make the March Madness roster. People told me an Asian guard wasn’t built for this. People wanted to see me fail.”

He paused, letting it land.

”But I didn’t get knocked down by any of it. Protect your dreams. People who mock your dream, they don’t want you to succeed. They want you to become like them. I believed that if I kept a dream in my heart and worked for it, I could be different.”

He pointed into the crowd.

”And so can you.”

The applause came like thunder.

Chen Yan waited, smiling, then continued.

”I love this atmosphere. I love your applause, your screams, all of it. So I hope we meet right here again next year, and the year after that, and the year after that.”

The crowd started buzzing again, sensing where he was going.

”My goal isn’t to bring 1 championship to Phoenix. Not 2. Not 3. Not 4. I want 5. 6. 7...”

Every number made the screams louder.

By the time he hit the higher ones, the crowd was pure madness.

On the side, teammates shook their heads, half amazed, half amused. Chen Yan did not just play like a superstar, he spoke like someone running a rally.

Diaw leaned toward Barea, grinning. ”If he were American, he could run for president the day he retires.”

Barea laughed. ”I’d vote for him.”

Stoudemire rolled his eyes so hard it looked like they might get stuck.

”A Puerto Rican and a Frenchman talking about voting in an American election,” he muttered. ”Man, please.”

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