If you're a white insider, jumping high and running fast, and often being named by the opposing military on the defensive end, if you want to survive in the NBA, a league full of talent, then I suggest you learn Matt Bonner.
Matt Bonner, an infrequently mentioned name, survived in the NBA for 13 years. If you don't pay attention to the Spurs, you won't know that there was such a person in the league, and if you read my article and want to know about his game, then you will never like him. Because he is so ordinary, except for shooting, no technique is up to the league standard, as an interior line, he only averaged 3 rebounds per game in his career, even the guard is higher than him, as for dribbling, Popovich pu said such a famous saying: "If Matt dares to dribble once on the court, then he will not want to play in the next game." This also reflects how bad his dribbling is, of course, with so many shortcomings, he can survive for so long, which just proves from the side how reliable his shooting is.
Bonner entered the NBA Draft in 2003 when he was selected by the Chicago Bulls with the 45th overall pick in the second round and was subsequently traded to the Toronto Raptors. But he did not rush to enter the NBA, but crossed the ocean to Italy's Sicilya, averaging 19.2 points and 9.3 rebounds, and began to play a real price. In September 2004, the Raptors, who saw Bonner's potential, decided to sign him.
Bonner's Raptors career is not much bright, except for a rebounding process, the clash with then-league superstar Kevin Garnett is impressive, basically there is no sense of existence, so that in the later stages can not catch any playing time, but at this time, a trade completely changed his career.
In 2006, after the Spurs struggled to win the championship last year under the Pistons' iron barrel defense, they slowly realized the importance of team space and began to strengthen the team's interior line, so matt Bonner appeared in the Spurs' field of vision. On June 21 of that year, the Spurs sent Nathrovic and part of the cash, from the Raptors trade matt Bonner, Eric Williams and a second-round draft pick, so that Bonner's brilliant Spurs career officially began.
As Duncan's substitute, Bonner made up for the lack of space in the team very well, and with his superb shooting skills, he was often able to find a good opportunity to find a vacancy around GDP, and then he was able to enter the soul, a hugely rich Spurs tactical system, so at that time, he also gained the reputation of nuclear weapons. As for the role of Bonner that can be more clearly demonstrated, it is the game with the Thunder in the 2014 Western Conference Finals, when the Spurs were pulled twice in a row due to the comeback of the Thunder Ibaka after winning two consecutive games, watching the team follow in the footsteps of 2012. As a result, in the crucial fifth game, Bobo waved a big hand, directly removed Split, sent Bonner to start, this change directly made the Thunder players confused, although in the end he did not score a single point, but because of his strong three-point ability, Ibaka had to defend out of the box, which also pulled out space for the breakthrough of Ginobili and Parker, the tactical significance of which is quite huge, and finally the Spurs won the game with a 28-point difference, and finally eliminated the Thunder, entered the Finals, and won the championship with 4:1 revenge Heat.
Years later, Bobo said of Bonner: "Matt is a particularly good player, although he always can't shoot under the basket, but as long as he stands outside the three-point line and there is no one within two meters, you let him shoot a hundred times, he can shoot a hundred and one times." 」 This remark also fully illustrates Popovich's affirmation of Bonner, and eventually Bonner successfully played 11 seasons at the Spurs, until 2017, when he left the team and retired.
Years later, when it comes to Matt Bonner, his success tells us a truth. We can't all be the pride of heaven, we may be very ordinary, we will have a lot of shortcomings, but as long as we dare to face it, and play our own strengths to the extreme, we can be successful, Matt Bonner has done it, hasn't it?