720: 247: Bastard, Roger doesn’t need custom data at all!
(Vote for monthly ticket!)_2 720: 247: Bastard, Roger doesn’t need custom data at all!
(Vote for monthly ticket!)_2 If the Bulls had won the championship that year, it would have become the most legendary season of Michael Jordan’s career.
It would have allowed Nike to wrest back the conversation rights in the basketball market.
And no matter how many times Roger might beat Jordan afterward, he could never shake the significance of a 72-win season + revenge + championship.
If the end of that season had seen Jordan victorious, the entire history would have changed.
It was Jordan’s regret, and also the fans’, as they never witnessed a player pulling off such a mythic season.
And now, the chance to be adorned with this glory had fallen to Roger, along with fans’ expectations.
70 wins + revenge + championship, this meant Roger’s career would reach new heights, leaving Shaq and Jordan far behind.
Roger glanced at Pierce and shrugged, “Of course I want it, honestly it’s not hard, we’re just one step away from 70 wins.”
“Get lost Roger, go find your Victoria’s Secret supermodel.
If I talk to you again, I’m a dog!
And last night, you actually said Shaq was your favorite second option?
I thought you were only this way with women, but it turns out you’re the same with men!”
“Don’t be angry, Paul, you’re my favorite third option.
If anyone should be upset about what I said yesterday, it should be Scottie Pippen.”
“You’ve spoken to me, so from now on our duo will be called ‘God and Dog’.”
Pierce shut his mouth.
If one day he were to write an autobiography of a million words, he would use 990,000 of them to denounce the Gaoler’s atrocities.
And so, the ‘estranged’ God and Angel Envoy continued on their path of conquest.
The Hawks’ passion wasn’t interrupted by the All-Star weekend, as they continued to slaughter the competition in the regular season.
In that period, Eric Snow suffered an ankle injury, and Pete Babcock considered signing Isaiah Rider, who was waived by the Trail Blazers, as a substitution.
He didn’t want to lose the opportunity for 70 wins just because of an injured role player.
Isaiah Rider was still averaging 19.3 points per game that season and played excellent defense when he was serious.
If they could claim him, it would definitely be a major boost to their strength.
But Roger put a stop to the signing: “That idiot can never set foot in my locker room!”
Roger didn’t want to ruin the perfect locker room atmosphere the team had right now.
After an altercation with Pierce in a game, the atmosphere in the Hawks’ locker room seemed to improve rapidly.
After one victory after another, the harmony in the locker room had reached the level of the Hawks’ 1998 championship season.
Back then, Pippen successfully pivoted towards Roger, and Stevie Smith, shackled by Andy, had only one thought – to win.
The Hawks surged to the championship.
The current atmosphere was like back then, or even better.
Everyone had recovered from last season’s loss, with Pierce focusing solely on the games.
But Isaiah Rider, the jerk who got tripped by Bowen for offending Roger, was definitely a troublemaker for locker room order.
Have you ever seen anyone cut a player averaging 19 points per game?
The Trail Blazers would not have done it if they could have endured it any longer.
Isaiah Rider had too much trouble off the court.
He quarreled with the head coach on the spot for being late to a game.
He directly entered the stands to argue with the fans over their booing.
He was arrested for overloading, and the police took seven women in bikinis out of his five-seater car.
He fought with teammates over a minor gambling debt from playing cards.
He also took leave for his grandfather’s funeral and missed practice – normally an acceptable reason, except the Trail Blazers heard about his grandfather’s death for the second time from him!
Moreover, Isaiah Rider had a severe drug problem.
Like those swimmers with asthma who need medication to maintain their performance, he took marijuana to combat his depression.
Rider may not know what the swimmers used, but he liked to use “the big M” to fight his depression.
You never knew when he would be banned from playing because of a failed drug test.
Such a person, even if averaging 29 points, Roger wouldn’t need.
After so many years of playing, Roger had realized a key to winning championships that’s easy to overlook as a fan—the locker room atmosphere is far more important than the team roster on paper.
This is almost the only common denominator among most championship teams.
Roger would rather wait for Snow to recover than allow an irredeemable rat like Isaiah Rider to stink up his team.
With Snow injured, the ones most affected were Roger and Pierce, since Snow mainly served as their backup.
Roger’s solution was: “Increase my playing time a bit.”
So the Hawks’ medical team got busy.
They conducted a full-body assessment on Roger every day, monitoring his condition, ensuring there would be no issues with his increased playing time.
But Roger wasn’t worried about getting injured because George Gervin’s Talent included an extreme level of durability.
George Gervin, so slim in frame, played in a league where it was common to step on brains on the court, yet he only had three seasons with less than 75 games attended during his entire professional career.
The only season with low attendance was his rookie year when he only played 30 games, but that was because he joined the team mid-season.