Champion Creed
Chapter 555 - 555 200 What's truly valuable is the journey of dignity and courage Request for monthly tickets!

555: 200: What’s truly valuable is the journey of dignity and courage (Request for monthly tickets!) 555: 200: What’s truly valuable is the journey of dignity and courage (Request for monthly tickets!) Roger proved himself to be the best in the league, the best of his era.

Neither Tim Duncan nor any other “Jordan’s Successor” could change that.

For the next decade, it would be hard for anyone to change that.

— Lenny Wilkens praised Roger’s performance today.

“I told him to watch Roger play in the second half closely.

Feel it with his heart, think about it with his brain, and listen with his ears.” — Lenny Wilkens explained his decision to keep Stevie Smith on the bench in the second half.

“God, 50+10.

Do you know what that means?

Those stats are enough for me for an entire season!” — Big Ben was amazed by Roger’s performance.

“They simply insulted the sport of basketball!

What did I say?

They would definitely attack my player, look, look, isn’t that so!

The Hawks have absolutely no sportsmanship, no sense of honor!

People like Bruce Bowen should be thrown in jail!” — Gregg Popovich furiously criticized Bowen’s rough foul on Duncan in the final moments.

“I am really in jail, you can ask the Gaoler if you don’t believe me.” — Bowen responded with a smile typical of an honest man.

Roger played a great game, of course, I wasn’t bad either.

Don’t forget, I am one of the two best players on this team.” — Pippen, who scored 17 points, tried to compare himself to Roger who scored 52 points.

“God, how ironic!

If you see what Avery Johnson did to Roger, you’d be shocked by Coach Gregg Popovich’s character.

A man who holds up the banner of justice, yet does the most nefarious deeds, that’s Gregg.” — Kurt Thomas rebutted Popovich’s act of blaming others first.

“Yes, after the game, Gregg told me to roll back into the sea and swim.

If possible, drag Roger down with me.

Then the entire NBA would thank me, and it’d be a straight shot to the Hall of Fame.” — Tim Duncan seriously shared his cold joke.

At the post-game press conference, you could tell Popovich was genuinely anxious.

Because he knew that the biggest obstacle to the Spurs’ championship path was Roger.

Therefore, he valued the outcome of this game very heavily.

In the end, he and Duncan became just another backdrop for Roger.

With a powerful performance, Roger maintained his position amid the Spurs and Duncan’s frenzied workplace reforms.

52 points, 11 assists, 4 rebounds, 3 steals, and 2 blocks, without a doubt, were the most terrifying individual stats of the season to date.

This game set Roger apart from other star players.

While everyone else was getting beaten black and blue by Duncan, a rookie who had just burst onto the NBA scene last year, Roger was the only one who kept his dignity intact.

Well, Kevin Garnett counts too.

But Garnett’s personal performance wasn’t as explosive as Roger’s.

The entire Hawks team was happy to win this highlighted battle, except for Stevie Smith, who was feeling down.

After two consecutive losses, Lenny Wilkens used a controlled variable method and figured him out…

The team managed to come back and win the game in the second half without him, stopping their losing streak.

This was so embarrassing.

Stevie Smith sat alone in the locker room for a long time, reflecting on how he got to where he was today.

In the game, moments of courage and determination that were present in Roger had never appeared in him.

Stevie Smith wanted to change, but he backed down.

Wanting to change one’s own timidity isn’t easy.

How many people spend their entire lives swallowing their pride, even too scared to speak up to a store clerk while shopping?

Don’t they want to change?

They can’t change.

Stevie Smith couldn’t imagine how he could muster the courage to play well in a team that sidelined him.

Just thinking about how no one passed him the ball at the end of the second quarter filled him with deep sorrow.

He couldn’t face all this.

If you say before, Stevie Smith wanted to leave because of his personal animosity with Roger.

This time, he couldn’t face his own predicament.

The next day, when the whole world was praising Roger’s exaggerated stats, and incidentally making fun of Shaq as a unique pile of crap.

Roger and Stevie Smith attended a community event organized by the Hawks together.

This community event was very special, where Roger and Stevie Smith would hide in the bedroom of a young boy suffering from bone cancer, waiting for him to return home from the hospital.

The boy’s family were all Hawks fans, starting from his grandfather’s generation.

Since the team moved to Atlanta in 1968, they have been watching Hawks games.

Even though the Hawks had never won a championship, it was still their hometown team, so they never gave up supporting the team.

While waiting for the young boy to arrive, his father, a bearded chubby man, talked a lot with Roger about Hawks-related matters.

“In ’80 we had a 50-win season and took the Central Division title, that was Atlanta’s second professional sports championship.

Back then my father told me, sooner or later we would see the Hawks truly on top, I firmly believe that.

Then, 18 years just passed.

I often tell my son the same thing, he believes, just like me, that sooner or later we will see the Hawks on top, it’s just…”

At that point, the man sighed.

“You will see it, he has returned cured, right?

You can take him to see it live.” Roger patted the chubby man’s shoulder.