I looked up, knowing that Cartwright wasn't there, but Armstrong couldn't see it, and he plugged the high position as he did every time. In fact, it was Cartwright who pit Armstrong, and I drove straight in, and Cartwright was too late to defend: I was waiting for the whole game, and I knew that throughout the game, there would always be a flaw in their defense. I jumped at the chance
So I jumped: it was like slow motion from a gunfight movie, and I had a second to think about my next step when I rushed to the bottom line, and they left me a lot of space, and I felt full of energy. So I jumped.
I've never been afraid to face the big guys on the inside who are part of the game. I've spent my whole life fighting people who are taller than me—from when I was a kid. I've buckled on the heads of countless guys taller than Grant, so I'm fearless and I know I have to be tougher to be hopeful against my opponents.
So I switched the ball to my left hand, took off, and smashed the ball into the basket. Half of their team rushed toward me, but it was too late. I didn't realize what I had done, I just wanted to hurry back to defense. But everyone had a "God what did this guy do?" Everyone seemed to be crazy, but I just wanted to hurry up and defend myself. Every time you hit a bull with such a slash they will immediately throw themselves at you and get it back in a more brutal way. But this time I guessed what Phil Jackson was thinking, "Oh my God, we have to pause." ”
It was a shot from the 1993 Eastern Conference Finals Knicks' second game against the Bulls, a personal description of John Stax in his autobiography, which was bland, but anyone who watched the game knew it was an earth-shattering dunk, a dunk that made Jordan, who was used to flying on other people's heads, look up, but it was just a small flashpoint in Stax's professional basketball career.
Starks was born on August 10, 1965, in a small town called Tulsa, Oklahoma. When he was three years old, his father suddenly disappeared, which disrupted the family's otherwise peaceful life and caused the responsibility of caring for the six Starks brothers to fall on their grandmother and mother. Stax's biggest childhood impression was moving, and they moved at least 10 times. But moving around, they never left Tulsa. Starks remembers that in the three houses shared with the other family, he and his brothers slept on bunk beds, which were so high that they were "almost on top of the ceiling." Although she grew up without the discipline of her father, Stax's maternal grandmother played this role completely, and she taught the children by her own words and deeds to keep the children from going astray. My grandmother always said to me, "No matter how tired you are, you must finish the work you should do, and you can't be lazy and slippery!" She also told us a lot about being human. "When it comes to grandmother, Starks is always grateful.
Childhood life is really boring, at this time, basketball into the life of Starks, there is a basketball court in Cheyenne Park in northern Tulsa, Starks often practices with his friends there, they weave the NBA dream together, in the fall of 1983, Starks, who played only one year in high school, entered Oklahoma State University, but only played one season and then dropped out of school. In the spring of 1984, he decided to join the University of Northern Oklahoma, but also stayed there for one season at Starks because the college did not award him a scholarship. In order to make up for his tuition, he used the summer vacation to work odd jobs at a supermarket, earning $3.35 an hour, but he still had only basketball in his head, and when there was not much work in the store at night, or when he was alone in the aisle, Starx always had to do a few flying baskets. In 1986, Starks entered Oklahoma Youth College, and after spending a season, his talent was discovered by coach Renard Hamilton, and Starks was recruited to Oklahoma State University, where Hamilton taught. Here, Starks' basketball talent was unleashed, and under Hamilton's tutelage, Starks improved rapidly, contributing 15.4 points per game in the 1987-88 season, and he decided to attack his childhood dream, the NBA.
In the summer of 1988, Stax entered the NBA draft, but after two rounds, none of the teams mentioned his name, and just as he was about to return, Don Nelson, then head coach of the Golden State Warriors, stopped him. Stax signed to the Warriors as a free agent, but his debut season was so unsuccessful that he was able to play just eight minutes in each of his 36 games and scored 4.1 points. At the end of the season, the reluctant Stax asked Nelson to either increase playing time or leave. Of course, Nelson, who also had a strong personality, could not tolerate such an attitude from his subordinates, and Starks, who had only been playing for a year, was fired. The unemployed Stax had to go to the next level of CBA, where his skills were fully developed, his salary grew from the initial $500 to $5,000, and he was selected for the CBA All-Star team. So, NBA teams began to pay attention to this desperate boy, then Knicks general manager Bianca listened to the scouts to Memphis to watch a game with Starks, and then he immediately signed a contract with Starks. "When I first met him, his skills were still very rough, but he had endless energy in him, and he was a fighter." Bianca later recalled. In the star-studded Knicks, Starks' situation was also very bad, and in the fall of 1990, the injured Starks was very likely to become the target of the team's purge, and The sensed Starks decided to make a final attempt. The one-on-one object he chose in training was Ewing, and when team management saw a small man dunk on Ewing's head, Stax saved his job. Shortly after the start of the 1990–91 season, defender Trent Tucker was injured and Stax was reused. This season, he scored second on the team: 13.9 points per game, and played only 25.8 minutes, that is, from this season, he began to play against a man named Jordan.
In the seven seasons since then in the Knicks, Stax has become the team's main scorer, and in seven seasons, his score has not fallen below 12.6 points, and his performance on and off the court has made fans love and hate. New York fans like him because every game is a fight, he and Pippen staged on-court boxing, hit Miller with their heads, and one of his fouls gave Kenny Anderson a two-season break, and his trash talk and confrontation with Jordan and Miller was the biggest attraction. He also has a hated side, he can miss 10 shots in the game, but as long as he has the opportunity, he still has to shoot, completely ignoring the coach's admonitions off the field. He and his teammates haunt pornography en masse and affect the next day's game. Because Starks never wanted to be a hero, he didn't want to be a city symbol, he just wanted to be a solipsistic Starks, but the loss of the 1994 finals made him regret it for the rest of his life. In 1994, the Knicks had their first chance to storm the championship since 1973, and they fought the Rockets to a decisive seventh game, and head coach Riley gave Stax full trust and did not let substitute veteran Blackman play for a minute. But the previous brave Stax was seriously out of whack in this game, shooting only 2 of 18 shots, and the three-point shot that had been accurate before was 11 shots, and the Knicks lost the championship. In 1996, Alan Houston came to New York, And Starks' position was affected, and he only started one game in the whole season, but Stax's morale was aroused, and in the case of playing less than last season, the score rose to 13.8 points, and the role played in the team did not diminish in the slightest, and for the first time in his life, he won the title of the best sixth man. The Knicks also played a 57-25 record, but in the peak of the Bulls Dynasty, any team can only compete for the second place, the Knicks lost 3-4 in the Eastern Conference semifinals due to a group fight with the Heat, Starks of course can not help but participate in it, the result is that the 3-1 lead is wasted, And Stax's impulse once again missed the team. The following season, although Stax was very stable, the Knicks traded him to the Golden State Warriors, the team he originally joined, on the grounds of his age, in exchange for Spreeville.
After a half-depressing season with the Warriors, Stax was traded to the Bulls in the middle of the 1999-00 season, which is a great irony. Stax had to work for his nemesis. On March 4, 2000, the Bulls played the Philadelphia 76ers at home, with Stax sitting on the bench. Dressed in civilian clothes, his eyes glazed over the ceiling at the big-screen TELEVISION that was playing a song called "My Hero," which Chicago fans were singing en masse, but apparently the song wasn't for Stax. After that, Stax refused to play, and he sat on the bench for 23 games on injury grounds.
Stax's last team was the Jazz, who traveled to Salt Lake City to meet the older Malone and Stockton for the championship, but still to no avail, and at the end of the 2001-02 season, the disheartened Stax ended his basketball career and quietly left the NBA. After retiring, Starks, who could have chosen to stay in the NBA, did not accept any team invitations, but came to the wildfire team of the minor league USBL as a head coach.
Even after leaving the NBA, Starks still does not want to be the focus of attention, perhaps, he only wants to be his own hero.