"I've never seen such a gloomy and bright day," ------ Macbeth, Act I, Chapter III.
This seems to be the best portrayal of Glenn Rice's career.
As a player whose physical fitness is by no means top-notch, Rice played 15 seasons in the league, played 1,000 games, scored more than 18,000 points, left the NBA at the age of 37, and is a member of the championship and the winner of the All-Star Game MVP... It seems that his career is perfect, but the truth is just the opposite, Andreay's career has always been bittersweet.
After scoring 31 points in the 1989 NCAA Finals and leading the University of Michigan to a near-Cinderella fairytale victory over Holden University in overtime with teammate Rumile Robinson, Rice became a hit at the 1989 NBA Draft. In fourth place in the first round, Rice was drafted by the Heat, with players such as Mooky Blalock, Tim Hardaway, Sean Kemp, Vlad Divac and Cliff Robinson all behind him.
The Heat were only a year old and had a record of 15 wins and 67 losses in their first season, and they had a lot of problems, and Rice was considered capable of solving those problems — with his shots.
Since college, Rice has been known for his shooting, shooting 56.9 percent from the field and 48 percent from three-point range in his four years at Michigan. Rice's shooting moves are simple and standard: the basket is big and close to him, the ball flies straight into the basket after the shot, the net spins, shakes, opens, and finally the textbook shot follows the gesture.
This excellent shooting skill was honed by Rice when he was a child on the outdoor court, and he often plays in the park at night, which makes him feel super strong. "Glenn Rice can simply close his eyes and shoot three-pointers." This is the consensus of the vast majority of Les' teammates.
In miami's six seasons, Although Rice only had two seasons to help the team make it to the playoffs, this was already a pretty good result for a new team, after all, they only used four games to taste the playoffs, and it took them eight years to enter the playoffs for the first time. In those six years, Rice's personal performance was almost perfect: he improved his point average to 22.3 points per game in his third season, and maintained this level for four consecutive years.
It seems that "the first star player in heat history" Les has a good chance of getting a big contract and then ending his career here, but the arrival of one person changes his fate.
In 1995, Pat Riley came to Miami to "start a second business", and the first thing he did after becoming the general manager and head coach in New York was to cultivate his own strength, so the veterans of the team became the object of his elimination, and Rice bore the brunt.
After receiving riley's "don't pay attention to the deal message", Rice began to prepare for the new season, and it was at this time that the general manager, whose hair was always shiny, called to tell him that he had been traded to Charlotte. "When I got the call, I couldn't believe my ears. He lied to me. Les said, "I came home and sat down in the living room, crying bitterly."
Les felt he had been treated unfairly, contributing 9,248 points to the Heat, a record that was not broken by Areenzo Morning until April 1, 2007 — a record that took nearly a decade and is now held by Dwyane Wade.
But soon, Rice's distress was replaced by excitement, as he reached the pinnacle of his career at Charlotte. In the Hornets' first season, Rice's shooting was still accurate, averaging 21.6 points per game and 42.4 percent three-point shooting, making him a all-Star Game for the first time in his career. This season, Rice also showed his all-round ability, and he began to step up his contributions on the defensive end at the cost of an increase in the number of fouls.
The Hornets in the 1996–97 season, thanks to the addition of Divac and Anthony Mason, became a "crowd of excluded players", and these players who were eager to prove themselves and had extraordinary skills together, the outbreak can be expected. Aided by Mason, who became a "possession striker" and Divac, "performance artist" Divac, Rice averaged 26.8 points per game, and together they led the Hornets to the best record in team history , 54 wins and 28 losses , a record that was only broken by Chris Paul 11 years later, but the team has moved to New Orleans.
This season, Rice became the league's three-pointer king with 47 percent three-point shooting, and in the All-Star Game, he made a shooting show at the NBA's Fifty Years Celebration with a record single quarter 20 points and halftime 24 points, and eventually won the MVP trophy.
After spending his third All-Star season, Rice and Charlotte's honeymoon came to an end. With Divac and Mason both leaving, Rice has publicly stated that he wants to be traded, and he learned his lesson from the Miami transfer: Since leaving is sooner or later, it is better to offer it. Because the elbow injury could not heal, Les's trade was delayed again and again. Finally, on March 3, 1999, Rice went to the Lakers, where he exchanged Eddie Jones and Eldon Campbell, Charlotte's best players in the NBA.
After coming to Los Angeles, Les, who had been plagued by injuries for the first half of the season, was miraculously cured. In the second half of the shrinking season, Rice's average points per game dropped to 17.5 points, nearly five points less than the previous season, but this result was achieved around O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, so it was full of gold.
In the 1999 playoffs, Rice's playing time was the highest on the team, reaching 43.9 minutes, far exceeding O'Neal and Bryant, who averaged 39.4 minutes per game, but the contribution of their three All-Star players averaged 64.7 points per game (O'Neal 26.6 points, Bryant 19.8 points, And Rice 18.3 points) did not help the Lakers go further, and in the second round of the playoffs, they were swept out by the Spurs.
Les, who had just passed the age, was full of ambition, which was the common feeling of any player who played with O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, but soon he was hit again. This time, he was embarrassed by Phil Jackson, who was on a par with Riley.
After joining the Lakers in 1999, Jackson's first thought was to get Scott Pippen, and the chip for the deal was Rice. Another rumor at the time was that Rice and Spurier swap owners. With the successful mediation of ace agent David Falke, Les was able to stay in Los Angeles, which allowed him to retire without a dozen fingers.
In the 1999-00 season, Rice played 80 games as the Lakers' starting small forward, but under Phil Jackson, he was depressed. After three seasons at Charlotte, Rice has become a Reggie Miller-esque shooter who has to rely on the help of his teammates to get his full energy. But in Los Angeles, the "triangle offense" wants to make Rice a fixed-point pitcher, and on the road to the Lakers' pursuit of the championship, as the opponent becomes stronger, Rice's shortcomings in defense are more obvious.
"Phil Jackson never wanted a player like Glenn, what he needed was Scott Pippen. But the team didn't want to make a trade, so he was going to use this way (refrigerated Rice) to regain management... How many players can play in one place for as long and honestly as Glenn Rice? After Les obeyed the team's tactical arrangement, his wife, a white-skinned woman who stepped on a wooden box to look at Les at a level but was very beautiful, said indignantly, "If I were him, I might become the second Sprenville." ”
Rice is still averaging 15.9 points per game this season, and for a 32-year-old you should be able to imagine the effort he put in, but he didn't win the manager's favor for it. In the playoffs, his playing time was further deprived and his scoring dropped to 12.4 points. In the first game of the Finals, Rice shot 1 of 8 in 24 minutes, which was quite bad, so Phil Jackson naturally let his favorite Rick Fox play longer on the court. In the second game, Rice's state rebounded and scored 21 points, but in the third game of Kobe Bryant's absence, he only scored seven points, and the ups and downs became the most significant feature of his late career.
In the six finals, the Lakers finally won the championship as they wished, and Les, the team's third-point point, was completely out of the team's tactics, and the situation was precarious, but he still believed in owner Jerry Bath's promise that the team would renew his contract with him. But Phil Jackson ended up laughing, Andreath was sent to New York, and Fox became the team's starting small forward.
After the trade was made, the Lakers won two more championships, and the whereabouts of an old shooter didn't matter to them. And Rice? In New York, he became the third gun in addition to the "double gun", and with good hand feel, Les, who played as the sixth man, still averaged 12 points per game in less than 30 minutes of playing time. Of course, the 33-year-old Les no longer has the heart to compete, and playing is just a job for him.
A year later, Rice was traded again, and the new owner was the Rockets, who were in the midst of a rebuilding period. In his two seasons in Houston, Rice started more than half of the games and performed poorly, occasionally appearing on television because in 2002 he had one of his teammates named Yao Ming.
In 2003, Rice was traded again, and of course, he was already numb to it. At the Jazz, he was bought out without playing a game, and the only thing to be thankful for was probably the unearned salary. Rice's last team played for was the Los Angeles Clippers, and after 18 games, the worst team in the NBA abandoned him, and Rice had only one way to retire.
The early days of his career had a smooth ride, but the late stages deteriorated, and he was fortunate to meet two of the greatest head coaches in NBA history, but became a "superfluous person" in the eyes of two famous coaches, he won NCAA and NBA championships, with a total of 18336 points, but did not get the corresponding respect, and he himself never complained about this... Glenn Rice's career can only be described as "puzzling."<
Many years later, when we mention Glenn Rice again, we can describe him like this: No one scored more than him around O'Neal and Kobe Bryant, and no one put his career to an end after game 1000 like he did.
Also, he's a true shooter (career shooting percentage: 47.2%, career true shooting percentage: 55.1%)