Chapter 795 - 249: I Didn’t Say You’re Short!

December 29th, the Lakers’ last game day of 1996, they faced a challenge from the Sacramento Kings at home.

After a tough offensive battle, the Lakers narrowly defeated the Kings 113-108, securing their third consecutive win.

The Kings’ Mitch Richmond scored 32 points, and Billy Owens scored 29 points, leading the Kings in a very strong offensive performance.

Thanks to the Kings’ lousy defense, Zhang Hao scored 25 points, 9 rebounds, 6 assists, 1 block, and 2 steals, Kenny Anderson scored 22 points and 8 assists, O’Neal had 23 points and 11 rebounds, Byron Scott scored 16 points, and the Magician had 5 points and 7 assists... making the win difficult.

...

"The Celtics and the Kings are useless! Richmond is trash! Huff... cough, cough, cough..." Jordan was so angry that he took a deep puff of his cigar and almost choked himself, quickly throwing the cigar away.

Larry Bird had retired early after injuring his back fixing the road and cutting grass, and Michael Jordan permanently damaged his finger nerves while cutting a cigar, leaving a psychological shadow.

January 1st, 1997, the new year has arrived.

At noon, the NBA officially announced the December ’96 Player of the Month awards.

On December 30th last year, Zhang Hao won his second Player of the Week for December, making it his third Player of the Week award this season.

Crucially, with two Player of the Week awards in December, he clinched the December ’96 Player of the Month award today at noon!

As for the Rookie of the Month, there was a tie, with Sheriff Raheem of the Grizzlies and Corey Kitels of the Brooklyn Nets both winning the December Rookie of the Month.

Sheriff Raheem played 17 games in December, averaging 21.7 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 1.9 blocks, while Corey Kitels played 16 games, averaging 20.3 points, 3.5 rebounds, and 4.7 assists.

The competition among the ’96 rookies is incredibly fierce. Iverson averaged 17.7 points, 4.4 rebounds, 6.2 assists, and 1.6 steals in December, focusing more on improving his organizational play. He did quite well personally, but he still didn’t win the consecutive Rookie of the Month award.

Jordan doesn’t care at all about the Rookie of the Month; he only cares about the Player of the Month!

After the first two months of the season, the Bulls’ record was 27-5, with a 13-3 record last month, performing quite well.

However, the Lakers went 13-1 last month...

After the Christmas game, the Lakers’ performance was so poor that, after their game with the Celtics, Jordan hoped the Kings would cause an upset. Even though the Kings had a 13-17 record then, they were at least eighth in the West. Yet, the Kings failed in the crucial moment. Richmond got intercepted by Zhang Hao after an official timeout in the fourth quarter, directly causing the Kings to miss the chance to tie the score and eventually lose by 5 points.

Originally, if the Lakers had lost one more game in December, Jordan might have had a chance to win consecutive Player of the Month due to more victories...

Having played 10 months of regular season games since his comeback, Jordan has only won the Player of the Month once. Even though the Player of the Month is not separated by conferences these days, making it more challenging, in Jordan’s career, since his rookie season, there hasn’t been a 10-month stretch with just one Player of the Month.

Jordan is truly angry!

In December ’95, he was robbed once, and in ’96, it happened again!

Then think about it, in December ’95, Zhang Hao made a game-winning shot against him at home, and in December ’96, Zhang Hao went even further by breaking his team’s home single-quarter scoring record on his home court...

Jordan feels Zhang Hao is his nemesis in December!

...

When the Lakers secured three consecutive wins to end all their games in 1996, people knew Zhang Hao would win Player of the Month.

However, the Lakers’ performance after the Christmas game was still surprising.

Initially, media and fans thought the Lakers would reach a new level after the Christmas game because Barkley performed exceptionally well against the Bulls, and the Lakers also showed their strongest form of the season when playing against the Bulls.

But, not only did the Lakers not perform better, but they also seemed to regress to the start of the season, hitting a 50-50 game...

However, it’s not just the Lakers whose performance declined; all teams with strong records showed a decline in strength after the Christmas game.

In this phase of the shortened three-point line, teams with good records are usually strong defensive teams. The intense competition, with up to 17 games a month and at least 13 games, exhausted all the strong teams.

Even though the Lakers primarily focus on offense, the impact of competition and exhaustion can’t be small, as they have to face off against strong defensive teams.

At this time, it seemed like teams with poorer records were more active.

Weak teams usually mean no standout stars, and with poor records, they don’t care about wins and losses. Many teams desperately want to keep losing to compete for potential prospects for the ’97 draft like Tim Duncan, Keith Van Horn, Antonio Daniels, Tony Battie, Tim Thomas, and Chauncey Billups, who are currently performing exceptionally well in college.

In such a situation, players from weak teams naturally strive to showcase their abilities. Given their potentially unstable playing time, everyone plays hard, treating themselves like superstars...

This kind of situation certainly doesn’t happen to strong teams. Even when conditions decline, strong teams must maintain their usual playing style, as it’s just a phase.