Basketball Emperor

Basketball Emperor is the second novel in the Basketball Trilogy by the web novelist Jingwu JW. It was serialized on Qidian and completed in the 2010s, running to about 2.16 million Chinese characters and 438 chapters. The three novels have independent plots and are linked only by character lineage. This book follows The Strongest Center in History, with the protagonist’s position shifting from center to point guard. The story begins in the autumn of 2008. The protagonist, Wu Huang (Hugo), is a young man of Chinese descent raised in Los Angeles. He was originally an ordinary player with mediocre feel for the game, but he begins to have strange dreams repeatedly: in them, two twins are always playing basketball, the scenes absurd and even somewhat unsuitable for minors. Stranger still, each time he wakes from such a dream, one of his basketball talents—court vision, shooting, ball handling, physical confrontation—is quietly strengthened, while his personality also splits in different directions: a calm on-court commander, a calculating schemer, and an aggressive competitor take turns surfacing in his consciousness. With these changes, Wu Huang quickly secures the starting point guard spot for the USC Trojans, makes a name for himself in NCAA March Madness, and then enters the NBA as the first overall pick, joining the New York Knicks. Under coaches such as Mike D’Antoni and Phil Jackson, he gradually becomes the team’s core and advances toward a dynasty of his own. The novel’s appeal lies in two parallel lines: one is realistic games and tactics—the author advances game by game in a match-report style, with attention to physical stats, tactical setups, and league ecology; the other is the protagonist’s inner struggle among multiple personalities and his off-court business and entertainment life, giving the work a somewhat gloomy, cold personal style beyond its passionate competition.