The Player Most Deserving of Being Thrown into the Trash

On November 22, 1998, the Lakers were about to face the Vancouver Grizzlies on the road. The Lakers party was flying to Vancouver.

"Several of this year's rookies have been playing very well." Pelinka held a batch of data from Mamba Sports and placed it in front of Kobe.

"I'm guessing they're all our guys," Kobe said with a slight smile.

"That's right. Vince Carter has put up a historic rookie perimeter stat line of 20+5+5. More importantly, his style of play is insanely popular with fans! He's practically a young Jordan! Even in a freezing place like Vancouver, countless fans are willing to line up all night just to buy tickets to watch him play."

"Not bad. Vince has enormous potential."

"However, his relationship with Chauncey Billups has deteriorated. NBC has already ranked Billups first on its list of the five players most deserving of being thrown into the trash."

"Who else is on it?"

"Billups, Steve Nash, Damon Stoudamire, Juwan Howard, and Shawn Bradley."

Kobe could not help but laugh. Interesting. This old monk had made the list too?

He was a future MVP!

Although this season, he was still only putting up 11+7, and it would take quite some time before he fulfilled his potential.

Mighty Mouse's height really was a fatal weakness.

After landing that massive contract, Uncle Horry had been playing like a thirty-five-year-old veteran.

The Nets had established Shawn Bradley as their interior cornerstone, but he was still only averaging 11+8+3 this season. Three blocks per game looked impressive, but most of them came from abusing his height advantage.

"I heard that aside from Don Nelson being determined to keep Nash, the other teams are all trying to sell those players off."

"Nash and Nowitzki—if those two play together, the Mavericks' defense is going