[Old General Record] Noisy Soul: Darrell Armstrong!

Darell Armstrong received a handwritten letter in the offseason in 1999, sendered by the team's new coach Doug Rivers, with only one question:

"We want to be the best team in the league to defend, will you do it?"

This was the first exchange between Doug Rivers and the team leader before the start of the season.

Magic are a very special team. If you look at the team history, they have had several superstars at the best team level in the league, have had several peak stages, and have also had star players at the top level in the league. The team has entered the top ranks of the Eastern Conference and has also reached the finals.

But in the dark, it is like illusory magic. These players once led the magic to shine, but it is also fleeting like meteor magic. And if you want to talk about the most impressive label representatives of this team and will be missed in the future, it is easy to think of several special players and special times. If the time is limited to 1999-2000, the Magic's label player is nothing more than Darrell Armstrong.

The Magic in the 1999 stage should be a very unique existence in the long history of this team. They have neither gorgeous flying geniuses nor super monsters that bomb the penalty area. The team's starting center John Amech has just rekindled his fighting spirit to challenge the NBA from the British League. Ben Wallace has not played the team's starting lineup at that time. Before starting forward Monty Williams was abandoned by the Nuggets the previous season, he only played for six minutes throughout the season. The main substitute scorer Chucky Atkins was still playing as a substitute in the overseas league the previous season. The team's salary was only 17 million, which is completely a second-rate team composed of a group of marginal players in the league.

Armstrong was one of the few players in this magic at that time who could be named, and he just represented the characteristics of the magic this year. Although they were not favored, they were still working hard.

For Armstrong, he did not have very outstanding resume, nor had the qualifications and backgrounds of a prestigious university in colleges and sports, and his talent advantages were average. He even reached the age of 26, and he had the first time to cross from the European League to the NBA.

Compared with most NBA players, Armstrong's career started a lot more bizarrely. He was not a basketball player at the earliest. He was a football player in high school. He didn't start playing basketball until his senior year and officially joined the basketball school team in his senior year. After graduating from high school, he chose Fayetteville State University in his hometown, and he wanted to join as a football player at that time.

His career turned around in his freshman season. He failed to try out the rugby team that year, but basketball coach Raymond McDougall fell in love with his athletic talent and asked him if he was interested in joining the basketball team. Due to his failure to join the rugby team, he had no choice but to choose the basketball team and began to serve as a substitute water dispenser on the sidelines.

Soul season, team coach McDougall resigned and left the team, and the team replaced new coach Jeff Capel. Borrowing Armstrong's later interview, he had many unique impressions of the new coach:

"The encounter between us is probably," From today on, I will be your new head coach. "It was him who told me that he knew that my basketball would not only go to college, and I could continue to play as long as I worked hard enough."

For a defender who became a monk and only made up his mind when he was in college, he was given this expectation before he officially stepped onto the court, which once gave Armstrong great confidence.

averaged 13.7 points per game in his sophomore season. In his senior season, he graduated with an average of 16.4 points and 4.7 assists per game. At that time, such data was not prominent in second-level universities and basically would not be directly attracted to the NBA. He could only start his career in the secondary league.

In 1995, he returned to the United States from the Spanish League and returned to China with a joint scoring champion who averaged 24.6 points per game. At that time, he was already a top player in the Spanish League. But in addition to honor, his overseas career is more like a homeless man. He participates in the secondary league everywhere to make money when he comes to the offseason. During his years in the United States, he basically played in the USBL league.

One day in the dark, John Gabriel, who was then the general manager of the Magic, went to watch a USBL game on site, and was attracted by Armstrong. According to Gabriel's later memories:

"In that game, there were only 20 players except for the players, including the record station, but a defender attracted my attention. He ran away like a lifeless person. He rushed to the top of the field. One, offense and defense. I think if he joins the Magic, it will definitely be very interesting and will definitely help the team positively. So I didn't think much about it. During the suspension, I went to talk to their coach. The coach said it was okay, but it only had one minute of pause."

"Do you want to come to our team?"

Gabriel went straight to the point, and Armstrong didn't think much about it, and immediately agreed. For a player like him, he is always ready for the opportunity to come, and he has been waiting for this moment for a long time.

When he came to the NBA, Armstrong's career was not smooth. He started from the bench and had very few opportunities to play. The Magic happened to be the top team in the Eastern Conference in those two years, but these basically had nothing to do with Armstrong.

Joined the Magic in April 1995. In the first year, he only played three games in total for 8 minutes. In 1996, he only played 13 times throughout the season, with a total of 41 minutes. If it were now, many players would basically choose to go to overseas leagues, but Armstrong still held on.

In 1996, Armstrong finally began to wait for his own chance. When O'Neal went away to Los Angeles, the Magic became Hardaway's team, the coach of the team was replaced by Bob Hill, and Armstrong became the team's substitute ball control choice, relying on hard defense and desperate attacks, coupled with the outside firepower gradually stabilized and rotated.

This is what Jeff Capel suggested to him back then: keep fighting and practice shooting well, and he can stand in the NBA.

According to the new coach Bobby Hill's words:

"The Magic were a strong team at that time, and of course they were very solid in practice, but with Armstrong's practice, it was completely different. It was simply a test of the other four people, because for others it was a practice, but for Armstrong, it was every opportunity to prove that he belonged to the NBA."

Borrowing Bob Hill's memories, other senior players in the team, including Penny Hardaway, hated Armstrong during training. At that time, the forward of the team Jeff Turner once said:

"Once Hardaway came to Armstrong against Armstrong, and was so pestered by him that he shouted: Hey, let it go. But don't think about it, how could Armstrong relax? That's how he played in the NBA. At that time, for training, he even brought his former college football helmet to the locker room."

Now when it comes to Armstrong, many people mention that in the first round of the 1997 playoffs, the Magic of the East, facing the 61-win power Heat, the team was forced to fall behind 0-2. Then Hardaway stepped up and beat the Heat's defense line for two consecutive games, and scored 42 points and 41 points in the god-level performance.

But for many fans, they seem to have forgotten that in addition to Penny Hardaway, Armstrong should also be on the list.

In the first two games of the series, Armstrong played only 5 minutes and 17 minutes, and then was ordered to stand on the court in a dangerous situation. The acting coach Ricci Adubato, who took over the team in the middle of the season, told him clearly:

"Darell, I know what you can do. If you go up, just pester Tim Hardaway. Just get him done." In the last three games of the series, Armstrong averaged more than 40 minutes per game, handing out 15 points, 6 rebounds, 4.3 assists and 2 steals. However, compared to his performance, the more important thing is Armstrong's defense. He made Tim Hardaway, who averaged 16.5 points and 11 assists per game in the first two games, fell sharply. Under his encirclement, his shooting performance dropped to only 14 of 48 shots.

Borrowing the words of teammate Penny Hardaway:

"He is like a spark plug in the game. As long as he is on the court, the team will be better."

It was at this moment that the unknown man who officially became a monk from a second-level university and became an indispensable key role in Magic in one battle.

Looking back at that time, when I received the letter from Rivers, the Magic of that year were not only a group of shrimp soldiers and crab players, but coach Doug Rivers was not a good coach who was favored. Rivers, 38, was the youngest head coach in the league. Before coaching the NBA team, the only team he coached was the community team of his daughter's elementary school.

The American Sports Illustrated ranked the top 300 league players before the season. With the 29 teams in the league at that time, no one in the Magic was included. For such a team, who can be optimistic about them?

But throughout the season, the Magic team was like Armstrong's player career. Although they were not favored, they still fought hard. In the first season of Doug Rivers and Armstrong, the latter scored a career-best average of 16.2 points, 6.1 assists and 2.1 steals that year. The Magic won 41 wins and 41 losses, ranking ninth in the league in defensive efficiency, and was only one victory away from the playoffs.

Today, in Doug Rivers' interview, he still believes that Armstrong is one of the best players he has coached:

"Even after coaching for so long, Armstrong's performance is still very few players who can be better than him. He has many places like Garnett, the smaller one."

Although his coaching career has been questioned, Doug Rivers has a very good reputation among players. Until now, no matter what players he has, he seems to have continued the magic's bad spirit. No matter what good or bad lineup he faces, he can still reuse many ordinary players, and it seems that it is the seeds that Armstrong has planted in his heart early.

On February 21, 2020, Armstrong was inducted into the Magic Hall of Fame, entered the NBA at the age of 26, and played until he was 40 before choosing to leave. He devoted more than half of his career to Magic, and before him, only four people were able to enter the Magic Hall of Fame, namely O'Neal, Penny Hardaway, McGrady, and Nick Anderson.

As a role player who temporarily joined the team as a secondary league player in 1995, he only had one first-time Best Sixth Man and Fastest Progressive Player in Personal Honors. Perhaps no one thought he would be able to be with superstars such as O'Neal and McGrady one day, just as he said when he was inducted into the Magic Hall of Fame:

"I have been waiting for this moment for a long time. I will always dedicate part of my soul and sincerity here."