Champions Creed

Chapter 50: Chaos in Orlando

Chris Webber regrets that when he signed the contract, he agreed to put the player option after the second year of the contract.

Because he no longer wants to waste even a second in Orlando. This is not where he belongs.

The fans here love the shark, and the shark loves Roger.

Webber was fed up with O'Neal repeatedly praising Roger and belittling him in front of the media. He was fed up with the fat guy bossing him around and yelling at him.

There was not a single second that he didn't want to leave Orlando, but the contract he signed meant that he had to stay there for at least three years.

Originally, Webber wanted to set a player option after the first year of the contract. In this way, he only needed one year to prove himself and could sign a big contract in the second year.

In the original history, Webber screwed the Warriors over like this. The Warriors traded three draft picks and Hardaway for Webber, almost emptying their family's coffers to make up the gift. As a result, Webber was not on good terms with old Nelson just after the first year, so he threatened to opt out of the contract and let the Warriors send him to the Bullets.

Restricted free agents? Matching contracts? There was no such thing in this era. Once a rookie opted out of his contract, he could sign with any team freely, and the parent team had no constraints on this. Therefore, in order to stop the loss, the Warriors had no choice but to comply.

The Warriors were the biggest loser in the 93 draft, as they emptied their savings to get the No. pick and then gave it away after just one year.

In order to avoid this from happening, the Magic did not agree to Webber's request to add a player option after the first year.

Therefore, Webber will have to stay in Orlando for at least three years unless a trade occurs.

But the trade is hard to happen. Although Webber and the Sharks are not getting along well, the Magic can't just let go of a No. 1 pick. If they want to take Webber away, the price is huge.

This means that even if there are teams that want Webber, they would rather wait three years and sign him directly after Webber opts out of his contract, rather than spending a high price to trade him.

So, Weber was in despair.

He doesn't like this place, doesn't like Shaq, but he can't escape, like a beast trapped in a cage.

The first ray of sunlight in the early morning shone into Weber's room. Weber stretched, then sat on the bed in a daze, with his head lowered, not looking at all like a young man with vigor and vitality.

A new day, a new death.

Weber felt desperate when he thought about going to the training base to face the always chattering bighead carp.

On the way to the training base, Webber was also depressed by the content of the car radio:

"Merry Christmas Orlando, as we are about to welcome the Christmas season, the Magic did not disappoint us, as they beat the New Jersey Nets at home last night.

Although Nets forward Derrick Coleman became the first person I remember dunking over Shaq last night, Shaq still successfully defended his home court with a crazy stats of 34 points, 15 rebounds and 3 blocks.

However, compared to Shaq, the performance of another big guy, Chris Webber, was not so perfect.

他昨晚拿下了13分7个篮板6次助攻的数据，但出现了6次失误。2次运球被断，4次传球失手。

There was not a single two-for-two free throw attempt in the entire game.

The Orlando Sentinel launched a poll yesterday, asking Orlando fans whether Chris deserves to be the No. 45 pick, and % of the fans think he doesn't deserve it.

Hearing this, Webber was quite relieved. He didn't expect that 55% of the fans were optimistic about him.

Apparently, my performance wasn't that bad.

But then another sentence came out on the radio: "50% of fans still think that he is not even worthy of the third pick. Only 5% of fans think that Chris just needs some time to adapt."

Webber: Fuck!

Can someone give me a reason to stay in Orlando! ?

While Webber was in mourning, Roger was competing in three-point shooting with his teammates on the practice field at the Beto Center.

Each contestant contributes $200 to form a prize pool. The competition adopts the rules of the All-Star Three-Point Contest, and the final winner can take away all the money in the prize pool.

In the end, Roger's results were not ideal. He ranked first among the five contestants.

But he only scored one more goal than second place Steve Cole.

Oh, what a bad performance.

After Roger received the money, the Zen Master urged everyone to go to the video screening room to explain some key points of the Christmas game against the Magic.

After entering the film room, each player received a simplified scouting report that recorded the Magic players' recent data and some notes.

When Roger saw Chris Webber's data, he suddenly knew why he was disliked in Orlando.

Webber's average statistics have shrunk significantly compared to the original history.

In the original history, Roger remembered that Webber had 17+9+4 statistics in his rookie season with the Warriors and became the best rookie.

At this time, the Magic version of Webber only averaged 13 points, 6 rebounds and 5 assists per game, and averaged 3.8 turnovers per game, the second most in the league.

The most outrageous thing is that Webber, a power forward who is recognized for his shooting, only made 53% of his free throws. In comparison, his inside partner Shark made 55% of his free throws this season.
When you are not as good as the Shark in free throws, you will understand the full meaning of the word "embarrassing".

Webber is such a good teammate. Since he joined the Magic, no one has criticized O'Neal's free throws. This time he really stuck out to his brother.

So, what exactly happened to Magic Webber?
In Roger's imagination, Webber's passing is gorgeous, his attack range is wide, and he and Shark work together to form a perfect double tower combination. Roger even thinks that this combination will be stronger than Penny + O'Neal.

Webber should be playing like a fish in water.

But after watching the Magic's game videos under the guidance of the Zen Master, Roger realized that he had mistakenly brought the peak Webber into the current Webber.

The current Webber is not compatible with the Sharks at all. If it is the more mature King Webber, he would be a good match with O'Neal.

But now the rookie Webber can shoot, but it is not stable, and his high-post threat is not as high as Nowitzki's. Therefore, the effect of opening up space is not as great as people think.

If his shooting was really solid, his free throw percentage wouldn't be lower than that of the Sharks, and he wouldn't be so shabby in the playoffs.

And now the arrogant Webber really needs the ball, he is not willing to be a tool man who waits for the sharks to give him a few open shots in every game. Once he can't touch the ball for a long time, Webber will be very frustrated, which will affect his game state.

In terms of passing and controlling the ball, Webber's passing is gorgeous, but his ability to read the game is not as good as when he was in the Kings, so he makes a lot of mistakes. Moreover, Webber is not a real point forward. No one really thinks that Webber's passing and controlling the ball can be better than Hardaway, right?

There is another very fatal problem, that is, Chris Webber has never been a competent defender. Not in his prime, and even less so now.

As we all know, the Shark only likes to hide under the basket on the defensive end, so pairing him with a power forward who is not good at defense would be a disaster.

If you want O'Neal to play comfortably, your partner at the power forward position should either be someone who doesn't take up the ball and can just wait for shots, like Horry.

Or get someone who is willing to defend diligently, such as Grant or Haslem.

Weber has neither.

From this perspective, the Magic's trade of Webber for Hardaway in the original history was one of the few things this stupid management did right.

Now, Roger can understand why the Orlando people and the Sharks dislike Webber so much. Webber is now having a hard time playing for himself and the team.

So, at the end of the tactical meeting, the Zen Master made the following summary: "The only trouble in the next game is Shaq. If we can deal with him, we can have a happy Christmas. Chris? Don't worry about him. He will destroy himself."

On Christmas Eve, just as the Zen Master had expected, the Magic were easily strangled by the Bulls.

Cartwright, Wennington and other inside players took turns to fight with the Sharks, and with the help of Pippen, AC Green and others' tight defense, O'Neal "only" scored 20 points today.

Webber had 13 points and 5 assists, but he had one more turnover than assists.

In one of the rounds, Roger rotated to fill in in front of Webber. Webber did not choose to play back, but dribbled between his legs like a guard, preparing to break through the basket.

He really wanted to defeat Roger in his own way.

As a result, the moment he started, the ball was taken away by Roger.

Roger is not good at defense, but he can still catch the ball from a power forward.

The NBC commentator said with a smile: "Chris has backed up the media's claims with his actions. Roger is indeed more likely to be the top pick than him."

Weber didn't get the Christmas gift he wanted, but instead he became Roger's gift.

O'Neal was so angry that he immediately yelled at head coach Brian Hill: "When are you going to replace this idiot?"

Because Pippen focused on the defense today, he was forced to hand over most of the offensive tasks to Roger. This was the first game after his comeback in which he took fewer shots than Roger. Roger lived up to expectations and scored 27 points to help the Bulls win 95-84 on Christmas Eve.

After the game, O'Neal took the initiative to hug Roger and invited him to his Christmas party: "Truth, I've invited a lot of girls to the party later, you won't want to miss it."

Roger agreed, since he was just sitting around in the hotel anyway.

The shark was so friendly towards Roger.

But when he turned around and saw Weber, the shark immediately put on a sour face.

His dislike for Weber was completely exposed.

After returning to the locker room, O'Neal kept saying sarcastically: "Nick, I think I was the rookie with the most points, rebounds and blocks last season, right? This is the performance that a No. 1 pick should show."

Webber was also a thorn in this period. He would have a falling out with his good brother Juwan Howard in the future on the Bullets, so he naturally would not be polite to the Shark: "You fucking took up all the ball possession, so of course you can play beautiful statistics. If I hadn't sacrificed myself to open up the defense for you, would you have been able to receive the ball comfortably in the low post again and again?"

"Pull open the defense? Today AC Green didn't even defend your shots, and you still got 13 points! By the way, Chris, let me remind you, you actually made a mistake when you played one-on-one against Roger! Damn, Roger is a guard! You can't imagine what would happen if a guard defended me!"

"How else could it end? You'll be sent to the free throw line to perform the shot put for everyone. I really want to see what your grandmother looks like, to have inherited your brain-shrunken silverback gorilla."

The young and energetic Webber didn't want to lose in the argument, but he didn't expect that after he said this, O'Neal rushed directly to him and slapped him hard.

"Snapped!"

The locker room was so quiet that it seemed as if time had stopped. Weber felt dizzy and could not hear anything due to the tinnitus.

When his vision became clear again, he saw several teammates holding down the almost crazy shark.

In the English context, grandma and grandmother are the same word. Since Shark had no biological father since he was a child, until his stepfather appeared, his most difficult days were spent relying on his grandmother and mother.

In his heart, his kind grandmother is an inviolable existence.

Weber's words crossed the Sharks' red line.

Half an hour later, the whole of Orlando was in chaos.

I've had enough, trade me! Every day in Orlando is a torment for me! You will soon find out that this is not my problem, Shaquille O'Neal is a huge locker room cancer! - Webber talks about being slapped by O'Neal at a press conference

I've said over and over again that it was a damn mistake not to pick Roger with the No. 1 pick! The media did some bullshit poll at the time, and they all said Chris was better. The funny thing is, they did another poll a few days ago, and the fans thought Chris was not the No. 1 pick again. So you see, fuck the bullshit poll! When are we going to do something right? When are we going to get the right people? - Shaquille O'Neal said confidently at a press conference.

This Christmas Eve is destined to be a chaotic one for Orlando.

(End of this chapter)