The Biggest Difference Between Wang Chong and Durant

Guys there is already content on patreon, if anyone wants to become a jonnin, hogake or God Shinobi.

patreon.com/Chuga320 (Have than 50 additional chapters)

—————————————————————————————————————————————

From late June to mid-September, for two and a half months, Wang Chong basically did nothing. He only took care of his baby and accompanied his wife home every day.

However, happy times always pass quickly. More than two months flew by, and soon it was mid-September, with the new season about to begin. Although a little reluctant, Wang Chong left Los Angeles and returned to Chicago, where preparations for war began.

Jessica and Xiao Kexin did not return to Chicago with Wang Chong.

After two months of rest, Wang Chong needed to focus on intensive training to regain his competitive status. At the same time, he had to invest all the points he earned last season into the training module to continue enhancing his skills.

Wang Chong was now a complete statistical monster. Not only had his overall skill rating reached 99 early on, but all of his specific skill values were ridiculously high.

Even so, Wang Chong still had many skill values below 90, and theoretically, there was still plenty of room for improvement.

Not only in terms of skill values, but also in terms of badges, Wang Chong had made rapid progress.

Although Wang Chong had stopped redeeming badges in the last two seasons, the badges he already owned had been continuously updated through his play in the NBA.

Among the 30 badges Wang Chong currently possessed, except for the "Chase Master," "Post Defense Master," and "Dunker Master" (which were used less frequently on the court and had stricter upgrade conditions than other badges), they had only reached the Silver level. The rest of his badges had been upgraded to Gold level.

Looking around, there was a dazzling golden light on the badge wall.

The only regret was that Wang Chong had not yet found a way to upgrade his golden badges to the highest level: the Purple Hall of Fame. Currently, only one shooting badge was at the Purple Hall of Fame level.

Wang Chong also realized that even a lower-level gold badge provided enough bonuses to dominate the league. Although the system concept was based on the 2K game, it ultimately differed from the 2K game. Most players had different badges. At least, his badge bonuses wouldn't be reflected in other league players. Otherwise, his overall rating would be at least 98 by now, with forty or fifty badges, including purple Hall of Fame level badges. With six or seven of those, he should be able to turn around and defeat Wang Chong.

So, even if there was no way to upgrade the badge to the highest Hall of Fame purple level for now, Wang Chong didn't particularly mind.

With this intensive training, he planned to elevate several of his defensive skill values to over 90 at once, turning himself into a true defensive wall.

Although he was successfully selected as the best defensive player this season and received countless praises, it must be admitted that Wang Chong's defensive abilities mainly relied on his strong help defense. His individual defense was still slightly weaker due to his skill value. The reason he could win DPOY was because of his help defense.

Blocks, steals, defensive awareness, and both interior and perimeter defense ranged between 85 and 88. With the blessing of badges, these skills could turn him into a super expert in help defense, but he wasn't as strong in one-on-one defense.

The most intuitive manifestation of this was during the playoffs when the Bulls played against the Heat. Although Wang Chong's performance completely suppressed James, over the course of the series, James averaged nearly 30 + 10 + 8 numbers, nearly a triple-double per game. Absolutely not bad, and this was also why James' fans could still be tough even after James was defeated countless times by Wang Chong.

They always believed that the reason James lost to Wang Chong wasn't because James was weaker than Wang Chong, but because the gap in strength between the two teams was huge. Even if James chose to team up with the Heat to form the Big Three, his teammates were still not as good as Wang Chong's.

One thing to mention: with James' ability and playing style, it's very easy for him to put up good stats whenever he has the ball in hand. With Wang Chong's current defensive ability, there's really nothing he can do against James, who is fully armed. He can try, but the only way to beat the opponent is to score more points than James.

But if his defensive ability can surpass that and directly limit James' performance on the court, then what excuse will James have?

Therefore, Wang Chong planned to continue strengthening his defense this time.

From mid-September to early October, for half a month, Wang Chong practiced behind closed doors and spent all the reward points he received from the previous season. The benefits were significant.

As expected, those defensive skill values that were hovering around 87 had been improved to over 90 after this intensive training.

91 blocks, 90 steals, 90 perimeter defense, 89 interior defense, and 92 defensive awareness. The interior defense was at 89, just one step away from exceeding 90.

The reason interior defense couldn't be improved above 90 was mainly because Wang Chong spent some of the points on redeeming badges.

Previously, due to the total number of badges reaching 30, the cost of redeeming each badge increased from the original 500 points to 1000 points. Wang Chong hadn't redeemed badges for a long time.

But to take his defensive ability to the next level, Wang Chong decided to spend a large amount of points to redeem a badge.

It was a defensive badge called "Swift Reaction."

The effect of this badge is to improve the defensive player's reaction speed in one-on-one marking and predict the opponent's offensive options and directions in advance, allowing the badge holder to react more quickly when facing offensive moves.

Although this badge was just a low-level bronze badge after redemption, Wang Chong could gradually upgrade it to silver or even gold as future games progressed. By then, the effect of this badge wouldn't be underestimated.

As a result, Wang Chong's defensive badges were basically quite complete, especially those that enhanced his individual defense ability, including "Deadly Coil," "Defensive Clash," "Ball-Holding Defensive Master," "Perpetual Motion Defensive Machine," and the "Quick Reaction" he had just redeemed. These badges had greatly improved Wang Chong's defensive skills to over 90. At this point, he definitely deserved the DPOY award, rather than it being more about the Bulls' overall defensive system as in previous seasons.

The result was that the Bulls now probably had the strongest defense in the league, with Gasol and Wang Chong forming a tight interior defense and Jimmy Butler, Danny Green, and Drummond on the perimeter. Though the latter still needed time to grow, the defense of this lineup still felt almost abnormal. The interior and perimeter defense were impeccable, and with Wang Chong, whose help defense was as good as peak interior defense, could other teams compete?

What was even more embarrassing was that the Bulls weren't just strong defensively; their offense wasn't bad either. Without counting other players, the partnership between Wang Chong and Curry alone could rival most of the league in terms of offensive firepower. All the starters added up.

At least Wang Chong couldn't imagine anything that could stop the Bulls from defending the championship, even if the Spurs got Gobert in the summer and Leonard grew even more, not to mention that, in Wang Chong's view, there were significant issues with the Heat's Big Three 2.0 tactical system.

But this time, it was rare for the outside world to unanimously be optimistic that the Bulls could defend their title.

In recent years, most U.S. local media had repeatedly underestimated Wang Chong and the Bulls' championship prospects. Although there were selfish considerations behind this, their analysis was also reasonable. This was because the Bulls' lineup had changed: Garnett left the team, the team suffered injuries, and the Heat and Lakers formed their Super Big Three. In these situations, it was completely understandable that they underestimated the Bulls without the perspective of hindsight at the time.

But this time was different. Although the Bulls hadn't made any moves compared to other teams that had been strengthening their lineups all summer, the Bulls had kept the same lineup from the previous season.

The current Bulls lineup was complete and very young. At the start of the new season, between the three main players, Wang Chong was 29, Curry was 25, and Gasol was 28. They were in the best period of their careers, and unless they suffered injuries, there was no chance their status would decline. They could only improve as they played.

At the same time, players like Jimmy Butler, Danny Green, Isaiah Thomas, and others would continue to grow stronger as they aged, and they didn't even need to replace Della, who was as transparent as the Bulls. Including Mond Green, the Bulls lineup still looked terribly strong.

After some comparisons and strength assessments, everyone realized desperately that even if the Heat improved their lineup and swapped Bosh for Howard, they still didn't have an advantage over the Bulls.

In fact, Howard's presence compensated for the Heat's greatest deficiency: their interior strength. The Bulls could no longer use Gasol to intimidate the Heat's interior, but now the league had some understanding of Howard's skills. Despite his superb athletic ability and complete defensive capability, offensively, Howard was no different from a blue-collar player. He lacked the ability to attack independently and couldn't beat opponents in the paint. While he could compete with O'Neal on free throws, his deficiencies were also obvious.

With Howard, the Heat could take the initiative in interior defense and rebounding when facing the Bulls, but these alone couldn't win the game.

The only issue was that the Heat couldn't find a way to limit Wang Chong's scoring and couldn't find anyone to match his scoring. Therefore, it was destined to be hard for them to win the game.

James was very strong and could perform well whenever he faced Wang Chong, but versatility wasn't all his advantages in the NBA.

The two teams had faced off many times, and Wang Chong had scored countless times at critical moments to help his team gain an advantage and win the game. In this regard, James was clearly behind, especially in many critical moments. Compared to his ball-handling offense, James was more prone to attracting defenders and then passing the ball to an open teammate, commonly known as passing the blame.

Theoretically, this choice was correct. In any sport, the focus is on winning in the simplest and most efficient way. An open player should have a higher chance of scoring than a player surrounded by multiple defenders.

But the problem was that a great player has the ability to make the impossible possible.

The reason Jordan was firmly ranked as the number one player in the history of the league is that six championships, five MVPs, six FMVPs, and ten scoring titles were of course crucial. But what was more memorable were the various critical moments of Jordan: a deadly shot that no matter how many people tried to protect him, he could still make.

Why, after Jordan, Kobe Bryant is obviously much inferior to Jordan, and his honors are even fewer than many players in the top ten in history, yet his popularity and status in the minds of many fans and players are second only to Jordan? The reason lies here.

Compared to the history of the iron king who made countless crazy shots and ruined his team's victories, what fans remember more clearly is the image of Kobe decisively taking the shot and making it in front of multiple defenders. This far surpasses the feeling of a teammate making a mediocre shot in open space after James decided to pass the ball, and that's the difference.

In 2018, without a reliable teammate around him, James performed in the playoffs like this. That's why 18-year-old Thanos James was so popular, even though he was swept 4:0 in the finals without suspense. The Warriors steamrolled them, but who could have imagined that a team like the Cavaliers could make it all the way to the Eastern Conference Finals and to the Finals? In the three rounds of the playoffs, James scored key points and even rang the bell several times, which was pretty impressive.

But unfortunately, this wasn't the case for most of his career, especially in the later stages of his career, when he defended with arms crossed and scored two points in critical moments, making passersby feel even worse about him.

So the question is, what kind of player is Wang Chong?

The answer is indisputable. The closer it gets to the critical moment, the less likely Wang Chong is to pass the ball to others, not even to Curry. He only trusts his own ability, and Wang Chong's ability has saved the ball in critical moments countless times for his team.

His classic moments of scoring in critical moments are no less than those of Jordan and Kobe. And in terms of shooting percentage when scoring in critical moments, Wang Chong is even slightly superior to both Kobe and Jordan.

There's no way that Wang Chong, who follows Durant's growth template and is nicknamed the God of Death, doesn't have talent in scoring.

It's said that death only comes in Golden State due to lack of physical strength. When the game reaches the final moments, Durant often suffers a significant drop in efficiency due to physical fatigue. Thanks to Curry, Thompson, and even Draymond Green sharing the pressure, Durant can save his energy for a final explosion. This is the script where Durant exploded multiple times in the final quarter of the two consecutive championships and led the Warriors to defeat the Cavaliers.

The biggest difference between Wang Chong and Durant is physical ability. Wang Chong, whose physical ability rating was trained to a total value of 99 from the start, can turn into the God of Death at any moment and deal fatal blows to his opponents.

Therefore, it's no surprise that the outside world is more optimistic about the Bulls defending their title.

End of this chapter

Note: Hi if you really like NBA novels, you can support me either in this pg with stones, reviews etc, or in patreon since the niche of sports and specially NBA is very small is Webnovel since people prefer to read Naruto, Pokemon, comics etc.