Chapter 425: There Is a Kind of Loneliness Called Your Teammates Thinking You Are Lonely
On November 20, the moment Chen Yan returned, the Suns snapped out of their slump.
They walked into Portland and handled the Trail Blazers 109 to 90, a clean road win that never truly felt in doubt. It was already the second time Portland had lost to Phoenix this season, and with the Suns fully healthy, the gap between the two teams was obvious. The Blazers were fighting for a playoff spot. Phoenix was defending a title.
Nate McMillan had a bad feeling before tipoff.
Chen Yan had been held back for days. Players like that did not come back calm, they came back hungry.
McMillan's instincts were painfully accurate.
Chen Yan missed his first shot, then caught fire so quickly it felt like someone flipped a switch. He went 6 for 7 in the first quarter after that early miss, pouring in 18 points with free throws included. The Rose Garden crowd had barely settled into their seats before the game turned into a one man showcase.
As Chen kept scoring, Portland fans started doing what fans always do when the problem feels bigger than effort. They aimed their frustration upward, holding up signs that mocked the front office. Not the players. Not the coach. The people who built the roster.
Early in the second quarter, Chen Yan stayed on the floor and led the bench unit.
That was when he decided to cash in all the energy he had stored during the suspension.
Fast break 3s. Contested pull ups. Snake like drives off the pick and roll. Mid range pull ups after sharp changes of direction. Chen stopped running sets and started running through his bag, turning the game into a demonstration of what he could do in every zone of the court.
McMillan finally had no choice.
"Double team him. Double team him."
On the next possession, Chen attacked anyway.
Portland sent Rudy Fernandez and Sergio Rodriguez to trap him. Chen did not hesitate. He pulled back, dropped his speed just enough to change the timing, then exploded along the baseline. In one clean burst, he split the pressure and left both Spanish guards behind him like they had stepped onto the wrong escalator.
He got to the rim, and Joel Przybilla rotated over.
At 216 centimeters, Przybilla was a wall with arms, the kind of center who made guards think twice.
Chen still finished.
He extended into a gliding reverse layup, hanging just long enough to let the help defender drift past the play, then flipped it in with soft touch. When Przybilla landed, Chen was somehow still in the air.
Przybilla threw his hands up as if to ask the basketball gods what he was supposed to do. Fernandez and Rodriguez could only shake their heads. They had seen Chen Yan in the Olympics. Seeing him again in the NBA only made the memory worse.
Fernandez, especially, had built a reputation on athletic pop and a confident 3. Those strengths did not matter against Chen. In fact, they almost betrayed him. The harder he tried to match pace, the more Chen used that aggression against him.
Over the summer, Fernandez trained like a man chasing a rival, tightening his handle, refining his shot, telling himself the gap could be closed.
Then they met again, and he realized something uncomfortable.
The distance between them had not shrunk.
It had grown.
Many young players who faced Chen quietly marked him as a lifelong benchmark, the rival they would spend years trying to catch.
Chen Yan himself did not even realize he had become that person.
…
McMillan called timeout.
After the break, both teams sent their starters back out, and Chen Yan stayed on the court. Portland wanted to slow the game down and play steady. Phoenix did not allow it. The Suns went the other way, unapologetic, almost reckless.
They abandoned defense and turned the night into a relentless scoring race.
Portland got dragged into Phoenix's pace like a swimmer caught in a rip current. They fought it for a while, then started taking bad shots, then started missing, and by the middle of the fourth quarter, the resistance collapsed completely.
Chen's scoring cooled slightly in the third, but the damage was already done. He finished with a game high 52 points, and the Suns flew out with an easy win.
…
After the game, the entire team got a day off.
November 23 was Thanksgiving, the American holiday that, in spirit, was supposed to feel like a family reunion, something like the Spring Festival back home.
Chen Yan did not feel much about it.
To him, it was just a rare off day on the calendar. He was not American, so the emotional weight did not land the same way. Even the Spring Festival felt less intense year after year, often shrinking into a symbolic dinner and a few obligatory greetings. If his own holidays were fading into routine, how could someone else's hit him deeply?
His plan was simple.
Stay home, play games, watch a few shows, enjoy the silence.
Near noon, his phone rang.
Steve Nash.
"Chen," Nash said, warm and direct. "I heard you're spending the holiday alone. Come to my place for dinner tonight."
"No, no, no," Chen Yan said quickly. "Steve, I'm perfectly fine alone."
He was not being polite. A day off at home was a luxury.
"Chen, my family and I would love to have you," Nash said. "It'll be a good night. You'll remember it."
"Steve, actually I…"
"It's decided," Nash cut in, cheerful as ever. "See you tonight."
Then he hung up.
Chen Yan stared at the phone and listened to the dead line.
There is a kind of loneliness that has nothing to do with how you feel.
It is your teammates deciding you must be lonely.
Still, Nash had called personally. Refusing again would be rude, and it was not like Chen had real plans beyond screens and snacks.
So after a simple lunch, he drove to a downtown mall.
His parents had drilled one rule into him since childhood. You do not show up to someone's home empty handed. That rule did not stop being true just because he was overseas.
A gift for Nash was easy.
Gifts for Nash's wife and daughters were the problem.
After circling for far too long, Chen went with the simplest strategy money could buy. Expensive gifts almost never failed. And Chen Yan had no shortage of money.
He walked out of the mall with bags in both hands, smiling politely at the sales staff who watched him like he was a walking highlight reel.
Then he drove to Nash's house.
…
The moment the door opened, Nash looked like he had been waiting all day.
"Kids," Nash called, grinning as he ushered Chen inside. "Look who's here."
He already knew what would happen next.
Nash's twin daughters were holding Barbie dolls. The instant they recognized Chen Yan, they dropped the dolls and sprinted toward him like it was a fast break.
Chen scooped them up, one on each side, and let them chatter at him while he pretended to be overwhelmed.
A few minutes later, their eyes drifted toward the bags.
They remembered the most important part of visiting a professional athlete.
Gifts.
Chen handed them over, and the girls lit up like Christmas morning.
Nash laughed, satisfied, and led Chen to the living room. Chen settled onto the sofa with Nash, while Nash's wife, Alejandra, moved around the kitchen preparing dinner.
Chen's eyes drifted to the wall, covered with soccer memorabilia.
"Steve," he said, nodding at the collection, "if you didn't play basketball, you probably would've been a soccer star."
Nash smiled and started pointing things out like a proud museum guide. "That's a signed jersey. That ball is signed by Maradona. This one is…"
Then he turned it back on Chen. "What about you? Can you play?"
Chen shook his head. "Not really."
Then he added, deadpan, "But if I trained for 2 years, making the national team wouldn't be a problem."
Nash burst out laughing. "Chen, you're hilarious."
Nash thought it was a joke.
If he truly understood the level of Asian men's soccer, he would have realized Chen was being completely serious.
Chen continued, "I actually like soccer. When I was little, I played downstairs on the grass all the time. Then I started getting taller, and my friends kept making me the goalkeeper every day. After that, I stopped loving it."
Nash laughed harder. "Your country lost a soccer genius."
"Honestly," Chen said, shrugging, "it's a good loss. In men's basketball, I can talk about top 4, maybe even a medal. If I was a men's soccer player, I would never dare say that."
Nash leaned back, still smiling. "Since you're interested, I'm calling you next time I play a charity match. You can come show your skills."
"I have no skills," Chen said. "I only know how to tap in goals."
"Then I'll feed you the ball," Nash replied without missing a beat.
Chen's eyes narrowed with mock seriousness. "That's exactly what I was waiting for you to say."
Nash laughed, and Chen laughed with him, the kind of easy laughter that made the house feel warmer than the weather outside.
.....
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