Silent Love

Some exist with pride, others struggle with pride, some compete with pride, and there are those who fail with pride, but very few can walk away with pride. 
Congratulations, for as you read these lines, you have witnessed the whole lives of many great basketball players.
This pronunciation was embodied when Stephen Curry, after facing defeat in 2021, claimed that no one would want to face them the following season; When Tim Duncan was convinced before the start of the 2014 Finals that they would not mess up; When Kobe Bryant promised at Old Buss's memorial to take the Lakers to the playoffs; When Nowitzki, shedding his label as a soft player, retreated to the locker room in tears at night; When Kevin Garnett let out a skyward howl after holding the championship trophy; When the 2004 Detroit Pistons won and the F4 Lakers lost…

Our story begins in an era when pride still mattered.

Basketball Legend: When Pride Still Matters

If one considers that the swan song of an old era was played in late August when Patrick Ewing and Hakeem Olajuwon both announced their retirements, the Dream Team—led by Bucks coach George Karl and filled with NBA All-Stars but lacking a consistently dominant superstar—facing two consecutive defeats at the World Championship held on home soil and finishing in sixth place changed Americans' perception of world basketball completely.


It seemed that the era when a group of American stars could casually outplay the second-best team in the world by a wide margin had ended.


"Reggie was injured, and we had a lot of problems, the players were not united. You should have heard the stories from here. Some wouldn't pass, some wouldn't defend, and some treated the game like an All-Star game. We didn't have Jason Kidd, Tim Duncan, Tracy McGrady—America's top five players weren't on this team!"


Chapter 128: Big Brother Should Take Good Care of His Little Brother