[Old General Record] The bell rang, and the draft was defeated!

Born in the Virgin Islands but raised in Florida, Lagar Bale has never been the focus of attention in the basketball world before he stood firm in the NBA. After graduating from college, this young man with average talent was unsuspectedly defeated in 1999.

In the following time, Bale traveled to major leagues like a wanderer. In 2000, he also signed with the Spurs briefly, but was cut by the team without playing in the regular season.

For many, such a career start seems to be doomed to be ordinary. But it was these difficult years that tempered Bell's resilience and laid the groundwork for his later opportunities.

In April 2001, the 76ers who were preparing to compete for the playoffs found Bale, and this seemingly ordinary signing changed his fate.

At the beginning, Bale was no different from other temporary workers, and he had very little playing time. After all, Iverson was at the peak of his career. No one expected that this unknown young man was stepping onto his own stage step by step. After entering the 2001 playoffs, the 76ers passed the game and Bale's chances of playing gradually increased. He seized the opportunity to play at the critical moment of the sixth moment of the Eastern Conference Finals against the Bucks, making 8 points and 3 steals; he played in the seventh game in less than 10 minutes and scored 10 points in a single quarter, helping the team reverse the opponent and successfully reach the finals.

Under this series of outstanding performances, head coach Larry Brown began to vote for him, and Bale gradually stood firm in the rotation position. In the finals, Bale was arranged to Kobe's defensive position. Although the 76ers eventually lost 1-4, the scene of Bale pestering Kobe in the whole game has become a classic that fans talk about.

For Bale, this is the starting point of the story between him and Kobe, and he even knocked on the NBA door for himself.

After staying for a year with the 76ers, Bale moved to the Mavericks in the 2002-03 season and became teammates with Nash for the first time. After a year of training, he gradually developed an accurate three-point projection. Bale then switched to the Jazz, and officially became a stable player with double score per game in two years.

The next two years of transfer to the Jazz, officially becoming a high-quality green leaf with double-digit scores per game. Although the Jazz wanted to continue the cooperation between the two sides in the 2005 offseason, Bale, who had basically had a basic salary in the first four years of his career, also began to plan for his future.

The 2004-05 season tied the team's best 62 wins, but the Suns, who had obvious flaws on the defensive end, obviously needed to strengthen their weaknesses in the 2005 offseason. After using Quentin Richardson to trade Kurt Thomas to consolidate the penalty area at the end of June, they opened a five-year, 24 million yuan to strengthen the perimeter defense against Bale as soon as the free market started in July.

A small episode worth mentioning was that Bell's agent Herb Rudoy was Ginobili's agent. It is rumored that Ginobili also called to inquire:

"Bell is the most troublesome person on the defensive end. How can you let him join the Spurs' competitor!" At that time, many voices said that the Suns signed Bale just to fill the three-point gap after Joe Johnson left, but this was not the case. When signing Bale, it was not yet confirmed whether Joe Johnson left the team, and Bale himself said it didn't matter to start the bench. Perhaps it was this professional attitude that laid the groundwork for his later story early.

Bell, who joined the sun, quickly proved his worth with his actions. To borrow D'Antoni's joke:

"Joe and Quentin missed 450 three-pointers last season, can you shoot them all?"

and then Bale delivered a perfect answer, with a three-point shooting percentage of 44.2% in the first season, and ranked first in the league with 205 three-pointers in a single season.

In the 2006 playoffs, the Suns met the Lakers led by Kobe in the first round. The two teams unexpectedly fell into a tough battle. After winning the first victory, they lost three consecutive games, and entered the fifth game with a 1-3-departure. In this game at the Suns' home court, Bale and Kobe were full of gunpowder since the start of the game, and their physical confrontation became more and more intense. Until the middle of the fourth quarter, when the Suns opened the score 93-79, the classic scene appeared:

Bale hit a life-saving three-pointer in overtime, and then raised his arms and shouted.

It is worth mentioning that since Bale's name means "bell" and "bell", Bale will add a bell to the home broadcast in addition to reporting the player's name during the Suns. For Suns fans, the most impressive bell was the fifth game of the second round of the 2006 playoffs, Bale made a life-saving three-pointer in overtime.

Looking back at the series, the match between Bale and Kobe brought a lot of sparks. Although we discourage this dangerous move, especially the evil offenders caused Bale to be suspended in the next game, and Kobe scored 50 points in the sixth game where Bale was not absent. If it weren't for Tim Thomas' life-saving three-pointer, he would have been eliminated.

But fortunately, everything went to a better position later. In addition to the Suns' thrilling pass, Bale and Kobe gradually moved from hating each other to sympathizing with each other. The scene of Bale knocking down Kobe has also become a classic moment in the hearts of many fans.

In 2008, Bell was traded to reunite with his mentor Larry Brown. Although he performed stably at the beginning, the high load years made it difficult for him to maintain the frequency of playing games in the future. In the 2009-10 season, Bale played only 5 games, then went to the Warriors briefly, leaving only 1 game record and was fired. In the 2010 offseason, Bale returned to the starting point and signed a three-year, 10 million contract with the Jazz. But two years later, the relationship between the two sides gradually deteriorated. Bale left the NBA in 2012 and never returned since then.

After retiring, Bale did not leave basketball immediately. In the summer of 2014, he was hired as a player management position by the Cavaliers to assist in team operations and young players' growth. At the end of 2015, he chose to leave during the Cavaliers' championship season, hoping to have more time to spend with his family. Since then, he rarely appears in public, but only occasionally participates in some interview programs.

Looking back at Lagar Bell's career, from the teenagers of the Virgin Islands to the stealth fighters on the NBA arena, the story is full of ups and downs and tenacity.

Opportunities won't knock on the door easily, but when they come, only those who are prepared can grasp it. Like his most classic mantra:

"Fight! Like a man!"

(Fighting, Like a MAN.)