[Old General Record] Jamal Mashburn: A misplaced scorer!

Looking at NBA history, we have seen many combinations that are difficult to match, and among them, the 3J combination of the Dallas Mavericks in 1995 may be something that many fans have no memory.

Among the three talented young men, Jason Kidd, Jamal Marshburn and Jim Jackson, Jamal Marshburn is a very special one.

Born in Marshburn, New York, he entered Kentucky, a prestigious basketball school in 1990. Under the leadership of famous coach Rick Pitino, Marshburn played a very successful college career. In 1992 and 1993, the average score exceeded the 20-point mark, and in 1992, he led the team back to the NCAA Championship, which was a four-year absence, and even reached the semi-finals in 1993 after ten years.

After the end of the 1993 season, Marshburn won the best player in the league and was selected as the All-American team. With his outstanding results in college, Mashburn also participated in the NBA draft after the end of the same season.

Looking back now, the talent in the 1993 draft was actually not high, but the candidates in the first few picks were not ordinary. The No. 1 pick at that time was Chris Webber, the top five-tiger in Michigan, and the Tanhua Show was the most popular Anthony Hardaway.

Mashburn was finally selected by the Dallas Mavericks with the fourth pick, and he did not disappoint the team. The rookie averaged 19.2 points, 4.5 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game in the first year of the game, and was successfully selected for the All-Rookie First Team.

Although the Mavericks at that time had poor record all year round, after entering the early 1990s, Jim Jackson, who was selected as the fourth pick in the first round in 1992, chose Jamal Mashburn in 1993, and Jason Kidd the next year, forming a group of young core lines. Also, because the first letters of the three were J, the media gave them a loud nickname "3J combination".

In the 1994-95 season when the three players first collaborated, the Mavericks won 36 games. This number of wins may seem bad now, but you should know that in the two years before that, the Mavericks only won 24 games in total. This comparison is enough to show the span of progress this season. Marshburn's performance was also quite outstanding. He played 82 games in a single season, averaging 24 points per game. He even visited Chicago at the start of the season. He scored 50 points against the defense of Scott Pippen, the second-man in the world at that time, shocked the American basketball world.

Unfortunately, the good times didn't last long. A romantic storm broke out in the Mavericks. Jason Kidd and Jim Jackson were jealous of singer Tony Blackston, which led to a very bad atmosphere in the locker room. Nelson, who was then the general manager of the team, made a deal with all the 3J combinations. Marsh was dragged down under this situation and was sent to Miami in February 1997.

However, in hindsight, no matter whether there is this romantic dispute or not, how long this 3J combination can last is still a question mark. From the perspective of playing style, Kidd is good at full-game conversion offense, while Marshburn and Jackson are good players in the half-court position battle.

All three need the ball rights. In the short term, the Mavericks' game may be exciting, but sooner or later this combination will encounter a tactically bottleneck. The lovely incident only makes the lineup problem explode early.

A few years later, they did get better answers, and the Nets' period also proved that players like Richard Jefferson and Kenyon Martin are the more suitable partners for Kidd.

Marshburn also revealed the inside story in an interview with a local radio station in Dallas many years later. At that time, Blackston agreed to have dinner with one of them after just one game and turned down the invitation from the other. In fact, it was no big deal.

The problem that really caused the 3J combination to fall apart was mainly because the three of them were too young and arrogant back then. In addition, the veterans who did not have enough weight in the locker room eventually led to the outbreak of conflicts, which directly made Nelson choose to cut the mess quickly, breaking up this talent combination that had been working for less than three years. The story returns to the route of Marshburn. After Pat Riley joined Miami, the Heat successively asked Mooning and Tim Hardaway to form the basic team. Riley originally hoped to let Marshburn, an alumnus who also came from Kentucky, serve as the ball-handling forward, thereby maximizing Hardaway's offensive firepower in the backcourt.

From the regular season perspective, Riley's strategy is not a problem. In Marshburn's three and a half seasons in Miami, the Heat won the first place in the Eastern Conference in the 1998-99 season, and were also second in the Eastern Conference in the other three seasons. Unfortunately, the outstanding regular season record cannot be replaced by the playoff results.

Coincidentally, Marshburn played four playoffs with the Heat and met the Knicks every time, which happened to be the team Riley coached before. The two teams have similar styles of play, both emphasizing fierce confrontation and strong defense; but except for the first encounter in 1997, where a large number of main players of the Knicks were suspended due to the conflict between the two sides, the Heat advanced, the remaining three times were the Heat who were counterattacked by the Knicks at a high pick.

Especially in 1999, the Knicks played a strong black eight miracle, and Marshburn did not perform well in these rounds of the series, so he was naturally criticized and reviewed after the game.

For example, in the second meeting between the two teams in 1998, in a five-game three-win series, Marshburn scored only single digits in four games, and the combined assists in five games were even only 9 times; in the last match in 2000, Marshburn only scored 15 points in the final sixth and seventh game, which not only allowed the team to be reversed after leading 3-2, but also was replaced by Alan Houston and Rutel Spreville in his team position.

This sluggish performance at critical moments eventually led to Riley launching the nine-person deal with the Hornets in the summer of 2000, mainly focusing on Marshburn as a bargaining chip, and the transaction was exchanged for Eddie Jones, Anthony Mason and others.. Looking back after many years, he should not be responsible for Marshburn's embarrassing Heat career. The Heat's use of Marshburn was always inappropriate, and Riley never found the instructions for this Kentucky junior.

As a natural scoring machine, Marsh was a good player in the ball-holding attack, and the team's offense should be initiated with him as the core; but during the Heat, Marsh was the third choice after Mooning and Hardaway, most of the time he was the pass-by point after Hardaway broke through, or as a weak side off-ball shooter.

This style of play that is completely unsuitable for him has largely limited his offensive value, resulting in many cases even if Marshburn successfully received the ball, but it is not within his offensive rhythm at all, so it is naturally difficult to have the desire to take a stable move, which also makes him the target of key criticism for many fans.

But on the other hand, the Heat could not beat the Knicks back then was not simply a tactic or a Marshburn issue. If it weren't for the injury, the Knicks' lineup talent was actually not inferior to the Heat. The double-gun combination of Alan Houston and Spreeville, as well as Larry Johnson, brought the mobility advantages that the Heat did not have. The elderly Ewing could largely limit Mooning's performance by relying on his height and body shape advantages.

From this perspective, the Heat, who performed well in the regular season, fell into a disadvantage when they met the Knicks in the playoffs, and there is not no reason to follow.

As for Marshburn, when he came to the last team of his career, his personal abilities were fully released. At that time, the Hornets were considered a new team at the beginning of the rise. The new generation of small steel gun guard Barron Davis was embarking on the road to stardom. There were big men such as Elden Campbell, Jamal Maglor, and PJ Brown in the frontcourt position. At that time, the Hornets urgently needed Marshburn as an offensive engine to organize the entire team.

And Marshburn did not disappoint in the end. Whether it was the Charlotte period in the previous two years or the New Orleans period in the next two years, they averaged more than 20 points per game in a single season, including more than 5 assists per game in two seasons, both of which were career-high.

The Hornets successfully led the team to the playoffs in the first three seasons, especially in 2001, to defeat their old club Miami Heat. With outstanding results, Marshburn was selected for the first All-Star in his career and the best team in 2003. Under Lenovo, as a talented player who was famous all over the United States in college, he won the second personal award again in a ten-year ten years after Best Rookie. This is really a pity that people are lucky.

Perhaps because of his overly strong body, Mashburn only played more than 65 games in his 11-year NBA career. He was troubled by injuries throughout his entire career. He was on the injury list throughout the 2004-05 season. After being traded to Philadelphia in February 2005, he was unable to play for his new club. He finally announced his retirement early after the end of the 2006 season.

After saying goodbye to an unsatisfactory career, Mashburn unexpectedly started the second spring of his life. As for this second spring, it is another story of him...