Characters | Aaron Brooks: The counterattack of a small defender was ruined by injuries

In the late autumn of 2010, the red light of the timer will be turned off.

Aaron Brooks jumped out of the three-point line and shot. The moment the basketball left his hand, his left foot fell into a trap in the shadow - Manu Ginobili's shoe tip was on his landing place. When the pain exploded, he heard the brittle sound of the broken ligament of his ankle, like the string of fate suddenly broke. The father in the audience suddenly stood up and watched the team doctor carry his son away from the stadium. This moment solidified into the Rift of Brooks's life: it was the Rockets' new star before, and then it was the League Wanderer. On the asphalt court in the slums of Seattle, the thin Brooks held a skinless basketball like a seed that broke into a crane. Brother Alvetis's partners looked down at the "little black bean" that was only as tall as their chests, and slapped his head playfully. One evening, when he tried to join his peers' competition, the leading strong boy smashed the ball hard into his face: "Get out! Don't affect us!" The brother wiped the blood for him in tears, telling the story of Canadian Prime Minister Kretien: "The eagle never competes with the young swallows, you have to fly to the higher sky."

Since then, Brooks has disappeared from the street field, and flipped into the community college training hall at dawn every day to fight with college students. Those opponents who were thirty centimeters taller than him were like moving forests, but he was like bullets piercing through the gaps. When he fell, he licked the blood stain and got up with a smile.

The father's backyard becomes an arena. As a football coach, his father built a simple ball frame and injected two sports genes into his son's blood. In junior high school, Brooks served as the quarterback of his father's team, and the father and son jointly achieved a record of winning. The impact of rugby forged his steel-like core strength, while basketball gives him an accurate sense of space. In the eighth grade, when he announced at the dining table that he had given up rugby and focused on basketball, his father stared at the flames in his eyes and silently put away his rugby helmet that he had treasured for many years.

2003 Washington State 4A Championship final, Franklin High School vs. Gonzaga High School. The focus of attention across the United States is the white forward Adam Morrison, who is 2.03 meters tall. The telephoto lens of the reporters follows every warm-up of this future NBA lottery show. At the start of the game, Brooks, who was 1.83 meters tall, turned into black lightning, pierced through the Nets like a three-point arrow, and broke through like a scalpel to cut the defense line. When Morrison was so tired that he was breathing with his knees in the fourth quarter, Brooks was launching his tenth fast break. When the final whistle sounded, the scoreboard was frozen 38 points - one more point than Morrison, and the championship belonged to Franklin.

However, an absurd drama was staged at the award ceremony. The organizing committee handed the MVP trophy to the loser Morrison. Old Brooks in the stands clenched his fists: "They took away his stars!" The boy silently stroked the base of the championship trophy, and there was a paranoid figure in the summer training hall. In his senior year, he averaged 24.3 points and 7 assists per game, winning all top honors such as McDonald's All-Star and Gatorade Player of the Year. His jersey was permanently hung by his alma mater.

In the locker room at the University of Oregon, political science textbooks are stalled next to the tactical board. Junior Brooks was just suspended for elbowing his opponent, and news of his girlfriend's pregnancy followed one after another. The coach found that he was sitting alone in the court late at night, and the ones rolling under his feet were not basketballs but empty bottles.

"I want to drop out of school and work." His voice shattered in the empty arena. The father drove three hundred miles overnight and took the baby's ultrasonic photo on the dining table: "The men in our family never turn around for the storm!"

When his daughter McCa was born during graduation season, Brooks held the newborn in his left hand and received the political science degree certificate with his right hand. However, the scout report was full of doubts: "A shooting guard of 1.83 meters? The NBA has no living space for this creature."

In the 2007 draft, when Stern read out that "the Rockets chose Aaron Brooks at the 26th pick", the camera captured the baby in his arms suddenly grabbed the microphone - fate completed the handover in the dark.

Yao Ming and McGrady's injury list became Brooks' epic prelude. In the 2009 Western Conference Semi-Finals G4, in the tsunami of Staples Center, this No. 0 defender felt like he was in a no-man's position. Kobe Bryant's blocking fingertips were only a slight difference from the ball he threw. The 34-point flames burned through the Lakers' defense and tied the series 2-2. In the locker room, the old cat Mobley brigades with him: "Boy, you inherited the soul of No. 0!"

The real legend bloomed in the 2009-10 season. When he fought in the cold night of Minnesota, his playing time of 59 minutes and 25 seconds tied the team's record; he made 7 three-pointers against the Grizzlies, making 7 three-pointers like a rainbow; he scored 209 three-pointers in a single season to top the league. When the player who made the fastest progressive trophy entered his arms, he held his twin daughters and kissed him. No one noticed under the spotlight that his swollen ankles were wrapped around his muscle patch. At dusk on November 6, 2010, Brooks danced in the Toyota Center arc. He pulled out his long shot before halftime, but when he landed on the ground, his left foot fell into the trap of Ginobili's shoes. The diagnosis of a third-degree sprain declared a 28-game quit. In the dark blue cold light of the locker room therapy instrument, he watched the news of Kyle Lowry leading the team's winning streak, and the basketball tattoo in the palm of his palm was soaked in cold sweat.

's first comeback game, Brooks' dribbling and staggering appearance made the sports headlines. On the eve of the trading deadline, the Rockets sent their former heroes to the Suns in exchange for Dragic and the first round pick. When the plane passed through the Rockies, he opened the family portrait drawn by his daughter, with a tender handwriting on the back: "Dad fly high!" After seven years, he traveled to the Six Nations and Ninth Team. When he returned to the Rockets in 2012, the locker room was covered with Jeremy Lin's posters. He stroked his former wardrobe and sighed, "I used to be the master here."

Miracle Night on the Denver Plateau in 2014, wearing a Nuggets, he sent 17 assists to activate the entire team. His 27-point personal show seemed like Houston went back in time.. In the spotlight of the Chicago United Center Arena, he fanned out three hot pots at 1.83 meters. The commentator exclaimed: "This is the dive of the eagle!" However, the wandering trajectory finally faded. When the Timberwolves cut it back in 2018, there were only 2 dazzling points left in the data column and 0.6 assists.

The last sound of the breakage exploded at the Nirvana Stadium in Australia. In October 2019, 34-year-old Brooks suddenly fell to his knees without confrontation. The pain of the torn Achilles tendon was more bone-than-thirteen years ago. When the medical car drove away from the stadium, he slapped the car window and stared at the basket, like the "little black bean" that was turned away when he was young.

In late autumn of 2020, two figures appeared on the floor of the Knicks Training Hall in New York. Player Development Liaison Brooks is guiding players with two-way contracts to dribble, and the hands that once scored 34 points are now gently adjusting the young man's posture. "Coach, can a small man really survive?" the newcomer threw out the question he had encountered in half his life. He lifted his trouser legs to reveal a scar on his ankle: "The eagle never minds the height of the sky, only cares whether the wings are open." The neon lights in Manhattan light up the office window, and a photo of his third daughter stood next to the trophy of the player. The annual report of the AB Fund is on the table – the youth team he created just won the national championship. In the reflection of the window glass, the Toyota Center's 59-minute Iron Man, the creator of 209 three-pointers in a single season, and the basketball philosopher of Wandering Nine Teams gradually overlapped. Brooks wrote in his retirement statement: "The destination of basketball is not in the Nets, but in the moment he breaks away from gravity every time he takes off."

Brooks' story will eventually settle into basketball philosophy: when the 1.83-meter-83-meter-long body draws lightning in the jungle of giants, and when the wandering trajectory connects the baskets of four continents, fate takes away his peak, but never breaks the wings that are a pair of habits that are comparable to the eagle.