Champions Creed

Chapter 409 Chapter 408: Tracy is not weak (ask for monthly ticket!)
The next day, when Roger saw Gary Payton again on the training ground, he was a little surprised.

Shouldn't that bastard have been kicked out yesterday?

Gary Payton still didn't communicate with everyone, he just started training on his own.

But Roger took the initiative to find him.

"You are still here, which means you want to stay. If you want to stay, don't forget your responsibilities. You are not the sixth man. We don't have a sixth man role this season. You can't get any data, and you don't have any tactical position to speak of."

"Okay," Gary Payton glanced at Roger viciously, "Shut up, I've played basketball all my life, I certainly know what I should do!"

Roger nodded and left without saying anything more to Glove. He didn't know if his words yesterday had helped Payton stay, and he didn't care, because he didn't say those words to keep him.

Roger still has the same mentality: if the old guy is willing to try again, then give it a try, and if it doesn't work, then fire him.

Even if they can only sign Sarunas Jasikevicius in the end, what does it matter? Although the Warriors need defense the most, being able to attack is at least better than Gary Payton who can do nothing.

Excluding the unstable factor of Gary Payton, the Golden State Warriors are obviously closer after the game with the Cavaliers.

Now that the team is fully assembled, everyone is eager to have a big go in the next game.

Although we won the past two games, they were too difficult to win.

Whether facing the Jazz or the Supersonics, the Warriors were nervous throughout the game and the outcome was not decided until the last moment.

They were hungry for a big win, a real victory.

The Warriors' next opponent is another rising Eastern Conference upstart besides the Cavaliers, Roger's former team, the Orlando Magic.

The Orlando Magic's momentum is not as strong as the Cavaliers, but their current record of third in the Eastern Conference is still excellent.

You know, this is a team that was only better than the Cleveland Cavaliers last season and barely made it into the playoffs.

When people describe a team as "only better than the Cavaliers last season," the implication is that they are actually very bad and not qualified to play in the playoffs at all.

The Magic's transformation this season is mainly due to two reasons.

The first is the progress of Atlanta's chief soul-savior, Dwight Howard.

Dwight Howard is one of the few players whose draft reports and actual performance are far apart, but he is still an excellent player.

Most of the time, if a player's performance is far different from what the draft report says, he is definitely a waste.

For example, the famous Kwame Brown and Sugar Man.

But Dwight Howard is different. Before the draft, people thought he was a combination of Tim Duncan and Kevin Garnett, with inhuman physical fitness and excellent basic skills.

Among them, a very tempting sentence in the draft report made the Magic give up Emeka Okafor, who had a more brilliant college career, and choose Dwight Howard, who had more uncertainty: "He has excellent ball control, mid-range and long-range shooting, passing, breakthrough, rebounding and blocking skills. His agile footwork and good ball control skills make up for his lack of physical strength. He may be the strongest high school player after Roger."

As it turned out, the draft report was completely wrong. His strengths were not reflected at all, and his basic skills were so poor that Patrick Ewing gave up the high salary and ran away. The latter served as the Magic's center coach last season. He thought that coaching Dwight Howard was like a scam because it was impossible to work.

Hakeem Olajuwon, whose training camp was in full swing, publicly mocked his old rival: "Listen, there is no player who cannot be taught. The key is to find the right teacher."

Of course, Dream couldn't be so arrogant for just a few years. He became well behaved once LBJ went to his training camp.

However, even so, even though Howard's performance is far from the draft report, the Magic are still determined to vigorously develop Dwight Howard, because he does have inhuman qualities, which supports his lower limit and makes him worthy of the title of No. 1 pick.

He has a dynamic talent that is not inferior to Ben Wallace, but he has a static talent that Wallace does not have, which does not need to be supported by an afro. A Ben Wallace with a fully upgraded height and arm length is already very tempting.

This season, second-year player Dwight Howard has made significant progress.

The right amount of weight gain makes him stronger in confrontation, and more high-level game experience gives him better defensive options.

His skills are still rough, and he is not good at passing, dribbling or shooting, but he has shown the potential to become a historical defensive beast.

The second change that led to the Magic's rise was that they acquired Baron Davis from the New Orleans Hornets through a trade on the third day of the season.

This was an unexpected deal, because the Hornets did not intend to trade Baron Davis at the beginning. They fantasized that Baron Davis and Chris Paul could coexist. After all, Baron Davis, who entered the industry in 99, was not very old and was at his peak.

But this fantasy was completely shattered after just playing the preseason.

Both Byron Davis and CP3 need to control the ball to exert their power. Putting them together will only have the effect of 1+1<2, so the Hornets decisively chose a younger body.

The key to the Magic's ability to complete the deal is that they did not have Grant Hill's junk contract in history.

The fact that Tracy McGrady failed to get past the first round during his prime was actually more because he had really bad luck.

It's hard to ask Tracy McGrady to do more when the team has a top-paid player who doesn't play.

But the Magic in this timeline did not have this problem because they had enough salary space and did not need to follow the salary matching rules. The Magic used three future draft picks to trade for Baron Davis, a two-time All-Star guard, and found another helper for McGrady.

In addition, Baron Davis is 26 years old, Tracy McGrady is 26 years old, and Dwight Howard is 20 years old. The Orlando Magic has ushered in the most competitive lineup since the era of the strongest duo in history.

This gave Tracy McGrady hope of escaping the shadow.

This No. 1 has been working hard on this matter all along.

Tracy McGrady began his career living in Roger's shadow.

He became famous in Roger's training camp, and before that, people didn't even know who Tracy McGrady was.

He was later selected by the Magic as a replacement for Roger, and came up with the marketing of the Son of Orlando earlier than Cleveland.

There wasn't a day that went by for the rest of his career when he wasn't compared to Roger.

It wasn't until he became famous that he discovered a sad fact - no matter how hard he tried, he could not replace Roger's place in the hearts of Orlando fans.

Whenever Roger visits Orlando for a game, there are always more fans wearing Roger's No. 14 jersey than those wearing No. 1, and after the game, there are always more fans looking for Roger's autograph than those looking for McGrady.

Roger didn't care much about this in the first few years of his career, but in recent years, when he became successful, he was really tired of being Roger's puppet.

It feels like being a bootlicker. No matter how hard you work and how much you give, the fans' hearts belong to someone else.

He once wanted to leave Orlando and get rid of the shadow completely.

But the team's current operations have made Tracy McGrady decide to break the shadow completely instead of getting rid of it.

As long as he can also achieve respectable results in Orlando, he can become the true master of Orlando, he has always believed so.

And this season is undoubtedly the best time to break the shadow.

First of all, he needed a complete victory, a complete victory over Roger.

The Magic's locker room interview the day before the game was still the same old story. Dwight Howard was still laughing and joking: "Yes, I took a few girls from the nightclub. Everyone thought I was a prostitute, but you were wrong. I'm not James Worthy. I went to save their souls."

Baron Davis remained serious: "Our goal? Championship!"

The reporters in front of Tracy McGrady were still asking the same old clichés.

"Tracy, if you and Roger fell into the water at the same time, who do you think the Orlando fans would save?"

"When will you lead the team to truly rise in the post-Roger era?"

"People say there's a Kobe Bryant between you and Roger. What do you think?"

In previous years, Tracy McGrady would have gotten angry about these issues.

But now he is accustomed to these questions.

He looked at the reporter calmly and said, "If I had Shaquille O'Neal by my side, I could have won the championship in Orlando."

This is McGrady's unique way of speaking. He always likes to say things like "I could have" and "If this or that, I would do this or that."

A reporter replied with a mocking tone: "Kobe Bryant thinks so too, but for him, there are no ifs."

"You can see the results of tomorrow's game!" Tracy McGrady was obviously unhappy.

He is ambitious.

Tracy McGrady in the original timeline was deeply misunderstood.

People thought he was as weak as his girlish name, without the competitive spirit and winning temperament to make it past the first round.

But if you look at the playoff data, you will find that Tracy McGrady has never been weak.

A weak person would not be leading 3-1 against the No. team in the Eastern Conference - if the rules had not been changed that year, McGrady would have become another star who performed the black eight miracle, and his reputation would have changed drastically.

A weak person would not risk his career by playing with a closed eye and leaving behind a peak performance of 40+10+5.

He has been trying to break his fate and is willing to work hard for it.

But his and Yao Ming's attendance rates as well as the Rockets' configuration determine that his ceiling is only the first round.

But now, McGrady's situation has changed.

The Magic have a good roster and his injury risk isn't that great.

He wanted to beat the Warriors, never thought about it that way.

The next day, the Warriors ran into trouble at the Amway Center.

Since Eric Spoelstra adopted the pressure defense strategy, the Warriors have played 3 wins and 1 loss even when they were suspended, and the facts prove that this strategy is correct.

What is amazing about the past three games is that the Warriors have maintained a good three-point shooting touch in every game.

But this is not the small ball era after all, and the three-point ability of role players is far less strong than in the future. No team can guarantee that their three-pointers can be so accurate in every game.

Unfortunately, on a night when everyone was eager to win big, the Warriors' three-point shooting was very cold.

Jason Richardson and Tayshaun Prince tried to get to the rim, but Dwight Howard showed his defensive value and why he is worth developing despite what the draft report says.

The Beast uses his terrifying athletic ability to block his opponents even when he is out of position.

The most classic scene occurred in the middle of the first quarter, when Jason Richardson finally got a chance for a fast break. He glanced back and found that the pursuers were still far away from him, so he rushed into the penalty area and prepared to perform a 360-degree turn and dunk.

As a result, just as he completed the turn in the air, a big hand grabbed the basketball, and the ball was blown away, causing Jason Richardson to lose his balance and fall down.

It was Dwight Howard. He chased with incredible speed, flew into the air with a speed that was no less than that of Ben Wallace at his peak, and completed the block.

Jason Richardson experienced the most embarrassing moment in his career. If he had chosen a normal dunk, he might have been able to score steadily, but he chose the dunk method with the most traffic.

Howard's strong rim protection made it difficult for the Warriors role players to move, and his cold long-range shooting touch also made it difficult for role players to score.

Fortunately, the Warriors stabilized the situation with excellent defense.

It's hard to explain why the Warriors' enthusiasm is still burning brightly as it continues into late November.

Logically speaking, the excitement of the new season has passed.

This season, everyone's unanimous determination and good team atmosphere have indeed greatly enhanced the team's combat effectiveness.

But the game is still difficult, and the Warriors' defense must maintain its intensity for 48 minutes.

If they had relaxed for a minute, the Magic would have been able to overtake.

It is not an easy task to pressure McGrady and Baron Davis at the same time.

In the ninth minute of the first quarter, McGrady scored a quick stop jump shot after Howard's screen, and the Magic were only one point behind.

McGrady was on full fire today, trying hard to defeat the Warriors and get rid of the shadow.

After scoring the goal, the ambitious McGrady shouted to the sky: "If Dwight hadn't missed a few free throws, you would have been finished long ago!"

"Put away your ifs!" Roger replied impatiently.

Eric Spoelstra called a timeout and the Warriors' defense seemed to be on the verge of collapse.

The one who needs rest the most is Roger. He has to press the defense and attack at the same time, so it is impossible for him to play for more than 40 minutes like before.

He must rest, and the person who replaces him must ensure defensive intensity.

Eric Spoelstra can only activate Gary Payton again.

He still didn't say hello to anyone or high-five anyone.

He just took off his training clothes and walked onto the court.

As soon as he stepped into the field, he turned around and looked at Roger who was panting.

"Just relax and take a few minutes. You look like a fucking drowned dog."

For some reason, this is Roger's favorite of all the trash talk Gary Payton has ever said.

(End of this chapter)