Champion Creed
Chapter 67 - 67 050 Chaotic Orlando

67: 050: Chaotic Orlando 67: 050: Chaotic Orlando Chris Webber regretted that when he signed the contract, he had agreed to put the player option at the end of the second year.

Because he already didn’t want to waste even a second of his time in Orlando anymore—this wasn’t where he belonged.

The fans here loved Shaq, and Shaq loved Roger.

Webber had had enough of O’Neal repeatedly praising Roger in front of the media and belittling himself.

He was fed up with that fatso bossily pointing fingers and yelling at him.

There wasn’t a second he didn’t want to leave Orlando, but the contract he had signed meant he had to honestly stay for at least three years.

Initially, Webber had wanted to set a player option at the end of the first year.

That way, he only needed one year to prove himself, and then he could sign a big contract in the second year.

Historically, Webber had done exactly this and screwed over the Warriors; the Warriors had traded three draft picks and Hardaway for Webber, nearly emptying their coffers to assemble the dowry.

As a result, just after finishing his first year, because of his poor relationship with Old Neil, he used the threat of opting out of his contract to force the Warriors to send him to the Bullets.

Restricted free agent?

Matching contracts?

That system didn’t exist yet in this era; once a rookie opted out of his contract, he could freely sign with any team, and his mother team had no hold over him.

Thus, to cut their losses, the Warriors had no choice but to comply.

The top pick that cost the team its entire wealth was transferred after just one year; the Warriors were simply the biggest sucker in the ’93 draft.

And it was to avoid such a situation that the Magic had disagreed to Webber’s request to add a player option after the first year.

Thus, Webber had to stay at least three years in Orlando, unless a trade occurred.

But a trade was hard to come by; although Webber and Shaq weren’t getting along well now, it was unlikely that the Magic would just casually let go of a top pick.

The cost to take Webber away was going to be huge.

This led to even if there were teams that wanted Webber, they would rather wait three years to sign him directly after he opted out of his contract instead of paying a high price to trade for him.

So, Webber stayed in utter despair.

He didn’t like it here, didn’t like Shaq, but couldn’t escape, feeling like a trapped beast.

The first ray of morning sunlight entered Webber’s room; he stretched lazily and then sat on the bed, his head hanging down, completely lacking the vigor of a young man.

A new day, a new low.

Just thinking about going to the training base to face that ever-blabbering fat fish made Webber feel hopeless.

As he drove to the training base, the broadcast on the car radio also depressed Webber:

“Merry Christmas, Orlando.

As we approach Christmas, the Magic have not disappointed us, having taken down the New Jersey Nets strongly last night at home.

Although Nets forward Derrick Coleman became the first person in my memory to dunk over Shaq last night, Shaq still defended the home court with a fierce stat line of 34 points, 15 rebounds, and 3 blocks.”

However, compared to Shaq, the other big man, Chris Webber’s performance was not so perfect.

Last night, he got 13 points, 7 rebounds, and 6 assists but made 6 turnovers; 2 dribbles were broken, and 4 passes went wrong.

In the whole game, not once did he make both free throws.

“The Orlando Sentinel yesterday launched a poll asking Orlando fans ‘Does Chris deserve the title of the top pick?’; 45% of fans thought he did not deserve it.”

Upon hearing this, Webber was somewhat relieved; he hadn’t expected that 55% of the fans still looked favorably on him.

It seems my performance wasn’t that bad.

But then the radio added, “However, 50% of fans think he doesn’t even deserve to be the third pick, only 5% of fans think Chris just needs some time to adjust.”

Webber: Fuck!

Who can give me a reason to keep staying in Orlando!?

When Webber was feeling low, Roger was at the Berto Center practicing three-point shots with his teammates.

Each contestant put up $200 to form a prize pool following the All-Star three-point contest rules, and the winner could take all the prize money.

In the end, Roger’s performance was not ideal; he ranked first among the five contestants,

but he only made one more shot than the second-place Steve Kerr.

Ah, the performance was too weak.

After Roger collected the money, Zen Master urged everyone to go to the video room and discussed some key points for the Christmas battle against the Magic.

Upon entering the room, each player received a simplified scout report, which listed recent data on the Magic players and some notes.

Seeing Chris Webber’s data, Roger suddenly understood why he was disliked in Orlando.

Webber’s stats, compared to the original history, have decreased quite severely.

In his rookie season with the Warriors, Roger remembered Webber should have posted stats like 17+9+4, and became the Rookie of the Year.

The current Magic version of Webber averaged only 13 points, 6 rebounds, and 5 assists, with an average of 3.8 turnovers per game, the second highest in the entire league.

The most outrageous thing was, as a power forward known for his shooting, Webber’s free throw shooting percentage was only 53%.

For comparison, his teammate Shaq’s free throw shooting percentage this season was 55%…

When you even can’t outshoot Shaq at free throws, you really understand what “embarrassing” means.

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