再見了 NBA夏日的推特大戰

If "Hollywood is high school with money," in the famous assertion of actor Martin Mull, then the NBA is even-higher school: high school with height (and, of course, money).

如果像演員馬丁-馬爾所說的那樣，“好萊塢是個有錢的高中”，那麼NBA就是個更“高”的高中，嗯，學生個頭很高的高中（當然也很有錢）。

Everyone's too tall to be stuffed in a locker, the couture backpacks are too tiny to hold books, and the hair buns aren't just for the lunch ladies. But the league is still unmistakably high school, with its cliques, feuds and frenemies, all of it amplified on Instagram.

誠然，中學對NBA球員來說，個大衣櫃窄，包小課本多，另外他們的冼剪吹髮型給食堂阿姨來欣賞也太大材小用了。然而NBA依然是個高中，各種各樣的拉幫結夥，恩恩怨怨和亦敵亦友，這一切在Instagram等社交媒體上一覽無餘。

And so the student body returns this month to what we might call, with apologies to the Ramones, Pick-and-Roll High School. The kids can look back on a long Summer of Subtweeting, of public passive-aggression on social media, of epic breakups and intensifying BFFs.

回到這個月，不好意思了雷蒙斯，我們就叫它“擋拆高中”吧。回顧這個漫長的暑假裏，熊孩子們在社交媒體上發佈的那些背地暗諷、公開撕X，關於各種各樣的爆炸新聞、基友情深等等。

The NBA offseason is now nearly as entertaining as the NBA onseason. Anyone in the halls asking "How was your summer?" is in for an earful.

NBA的休賽期現在幾乎已經和賽季一樣精彩了，在這所學校的大廳裏，返校的孩子們都在那喋喋不休地問“你今年暑假做了什麼啊？”

Did you hear, for instance, that just after All-Star forward Gordon Hayward left the Jazz to sign with the Celtics, one of his jilted teammates in Utah, Rudy Gobert, posted video of himself on Instagram nodding along to "Loyal" by Chris Brown (of all people)? The song laments the lack of, shall we say, fidelity in a relationship.

你有沒有聽說過，比如全明星前鋒戈登-海沃德離開爵士前往凱爾特人的時候，被他拋棄在猶他的隊友魯迪-戈貝爾在Instagram上發了一段自己的視頻，並且附上了克里斯-布朗的《忠誠》，這首歌哀嘆了忠誠在人際關係中的遺落。

Gobert never mentioned Hayward by name, but he didn't have to. At 7'1", with a 7'9" wingspan, Gobert can throw shade simply by standing in the sun—though in this case he was sitting in a car, presumably while doing donuts in the student parking lot.

戈貝爾沒有提到海沃德的名字，也用不着。考慮到戈貝爾7尺1的身高和7尺9的臂展，他只需要自己站在陽光下就可以表明立場了，儘管他實際上沒有站在陽光下而是坐在車裏，就像是在學校停車場裏吃着甜甜圈一樣。

Meanwhile, the homecoming King, LeBron James, was down in the weight room, posting his own workout video, getting swole and dancing to a Meek Mill track.

當然，還有“思鄉成疾”勒布朗，在健身房裏發佈自己的訓練視頻，舉鐵練塊兒，還有聽着米克-梅爾的音樂尬舞。

Shortly after Stephen Curry appeared in another viral video, this one shot in the waning hours of the wedding reception for former teammate Harrison Barnes. Toasts completed, ties abandoned, dance floor teeming, Curry impersonated and gently mocked LeBron's moves。

就在這段視頻發佈之前，史蒂芬-庫裏的一段視頻正在熱播，那是在他前隊友哈里森-巴恩斯婚禮宴席的最後階段，酒過三巡，領帶鬆垮地掛在脖子上，舞池裏擠滿了賓客，庫裏在衆人的圍觀下沒有惡意地嘲弄了勒布朗的動作。

While other wedding guests looked on in delight. Curry's Warriors had just defeated LeBron's Cavs in the Finals, and so the wedding was also a kind of NBA senior prom, whose theme—given the presence of Kyrie Irving, James's soon-to-be-ex-teammate in -Cleveland—might have been: Disenchantment Under the Sea.

大家都很開心，就像高年級的舞會一樣。這場舞會意味着什麼——考慮到同樣出席了婚禮的凱里-歐文不久之後就變成了勒布朗的前隊友，這就像是未來的預演。

Except that Irving is now happily ensconced in Boston, a Flat-Earther plying his trade in what Oliver Wendell Holmes called "the hub of the solar system." (The science teacher would like to see both men after class.) Intriguingly, Irving is now paired in the Hub with Gobert's ex, the wayward Gordon Hayward.

現在歐文已經開心滴在波士頓安居樂業了，法學家奧利佛-溫德爾-福爾摩斯認爲波士頓是“太陽系的中心”，而通過交易，某個鼓吹“地平說”的天文學家也終於成爲“太陽系中心“的一部分了（這倆貨讓科學老師忍無可忍了！）有意思的是，歐文現在的搭檔正是戈貝爾的前任，“自我的”海沃德。

We should say, in light of our school's social media and bullying policies, that almost all of this is in good fun. On important matters, players are publicly supportive of one another for the most part, as when LeBron tweeted his solidarity with Steph after Donald Trump withdrew a White House invitation that the Dubs were disinclined to accept in the first place.

鑑於咱們這所學校的社交媒體性質和欺負人的政策，這些大多數還算好玩。而在大政方針上球員們還是比較抱團的，比如唐納德-川普撤銷了邀請勇士參觀白宮的計劃，勒布朗馬上發表推特聲援庫裏：人家原來就沒打算去！

As in other high schools, everyone has returned in the fall with new kicks. Kevin Durant comes back in the latest iteration of his signature shoe, the KD X, which feature a "red velvet" color scheme on the uppers and cream-frosting soles.

就如同其他學校一樣，秋天到了，大家穿着新衣新鞋回到學校。凱文-杜蘭特穿着的是他新一代簽名戰靴——KD10，帶有紅色天鵝絨特點的鞋面和奶油霜一樣的鞋底。

As the Nike press kit proclaimed, "At the end of the day, winning is all that matters, and anything else is just icing on the cake." It sounds like the banal quotation on a senior's yearbook page but is in fact a reference—like the shoes themselves—to KD's long-running beef with his former Thunder teammate, Russell Westbrook, who once called Durant a cupcake.

耐克的宣傳文案寫道：“最終，只有勝利纔是最重要的，其他的一切都只是蛋糕上的酥皮罷了。”文案看上去就像高三年刊上的雞湯段，但實際上卻是一個典故：就像球鞋宣傳的那樣，杜蘭特已經和前隊友撕X很久了，拉塞爾-威斯布魯克，將他比作一個紙杯蛋糕。

Or seemed to. Left to their own mobile devices, players never address anyone directly by name. You'll recall that Westbrook, the 2017 MVP, Instagrammed a photo of a three-tiered tower of cupcakes on the Fourth of July in '16, when Durant left Russ for the Warriors—cupcake being Oklahoma City locker room slang for a soft player.

看上去拿着自己的手機時，球員們從不會指名道姓。想想我們的2017年的常規賽MVP大威少，他在16年7月4號這一天在Instagram上po了一張三層紙杯蛋糕的圖片，這一天剛好是杜蘭特拋下隊友投奔勇士的日子——紙杯蛋糕，在俄城的更衣室俚語中就是軟蛋的意思。

Durant won a title in his first season with Golden State, and was even named MVP of the Finals, after which he wore a custom-made cupcake hat to teammate JaVale McGee's celebrity softball game. The cherry on top of the cupcake had been replaced by a golden ring. (Oh no he didn't, you might say, but—O-M-Double-G—in fact he did.)

杜蘭特在投奔金州的第一年就贏下了冠軍，而且加冕了總決賽MVP，不久他就穿着一件定製的紙杯蛋糕T恤參加隊友賈維爾-麥基的壘球（軟球？）活動。不同的是蛋糕頂上的櫻桃被換成了一枚總冠軍戒指（你可以說哦不！他沒有這麼幹！但是天吶天吶，他幹了！）

And that wasn't even the end of the summer's Cupcake Wars. To a Twitter user who asked him why he left OKC, Durant replied in the third person that he didn't like coach Billy Donovan, the Thunder organization or the team's lack of depth. This tweet was sent from Durant's official Twitter account, but evidently was meant to be sent from an anonymous "burner account," one Durant presumably uses to defend himself on social media.

對於夏天的“紙杯戰爭”來說，這件事情遠遠談不上結局。面對某個推特網友的質疑他爲何離開俄城，杜蘭特在三樓怒噴比利-多諾萬教練、雷管和球隊的陣容深度，只不過杜蘭特用的是自己的認證賬號，而他實際上想要用馬甲小號……大概，杜蘭特原來也用過馬甲和人互懟吧。

To his credit, KD quickly and sincerely apologized, saying he felt terrible about the tweets. But that did not stop Joel Embiid, the Sixers' star and joyful Twitter troll, from posting in the third person, as if making a similar mistake: "Joel Embiid is better than MJ ever was.

考慮到自己的聲譽，杜蘭特馬上真誠地道了歉，他對推特上的烏龍鬧劇感到非常糟糕。當然，76人大帝、推特巨星喬爾-恩比德還是對此加以嘲弄，他故意假裝自己也忘了上小號，在某個推特的三樓回覆：“喬爾比邁克爾-喬丹更厲害！

Elsewhere, All-Star shooting guard Jimmy Butler was not referring to a Jason Bourne–like burner phone when he gave his cell number to fans and haters alike in a live press conference to tout his arrival with the Timberwolves from the Bulls.

值得一提的是，全明星分衛吉米-巴特勒似乎還不太熟悉《諜影重重》的套路——他在媒體見面會的直播中將一個類似一次性手機的號碼無差別地發佈給球迷和黑子，用來兜售他即將加盟森林狼的情報。

So hit him up, students, if anything is going on this Friday night, lest Butler suffer the FOMO that is so pervasive at Pick-and-Roll High, where cliques are forming and reforming every day. Ask LeBron, joined now in Cleveland by BFFs old (Dwyane Wade) and new (Isaiah Thomas).

所以同學們把他點贊頂上去！如果週五發生了什麼事的話，恐怕巴特勒也是我們“擋拆中學”常見的一個社交控吧！森林狼大抱團是這所中學裏每天都在重演的拉幫結派現象，你去問問勒布朗-詹姆斯，他剛剛和兩個“一輩子的好基友”走到一起，一個是老相好（德維恩-韋德），一個是新兄弟（以賽亞-托馬斯）。

Will all this drama play out face-to-face now, or fade into the ether? We'll find out as the lunchroom is cleared of the cafeteria tables, revealing—at last—the gym floor, which is once again ready for its primary purpose: basketball.

這出網絡上的年度大戲會不會在開賽之後變成面對面的真人戲碼？又或者會逐漸淡出我們的視線。假期結束，食堂餐桌被挪開，露出了下面的球館地板，隨着比賽的迴歸，這一切又回到了最初的目的：我就是打球。

更多精彩內容請關注微信公衆號、新浪微博：籃球英文堂