{"id":727851,"date":"2026-05-07T07:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/727851\/"},"modified":"2026-05-07T07:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T07:03:17","slug":"thats-the-way-basketball-was-meant-to-be-played-mike-bibby-on-what-made-chris-webber-different-from-other-superstars","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/727851\/","title":{"rendered":"“That’s the way basketball was meant to be played” – Mike Bibby on what made Chris Webber different from other superstars"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Mike Bibby<\/a> was traded to the Sacramento Kings in 2001, he joined a franchise already on the brink of greatness. At the heart of that surging Kings era was Chris Webber<\/a>, an established All-Star power forward who had transformed the team from a perennial underdog into a legitimate championship contender.<\/p>\n

Right from the jump, Bibby was well aware that Webber was the Kings\u2019 main guy. Despite that, C-Webb never let Bibby feel that he was superior to everybody on the team.<\/p>\n

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Bibby admired Webber\u2019s leadership style and how he carried himself as a superstar. According to the former Kings point guard, Webb did not embody the typical traits of an entitled and demanding franchise cornerstone.<\/p>\n

Instead, C-Webb prioritized collective success over personal recognition, while maintaining his reputation as the leader of the team.<\/p>\n

“Webb is an alpha dog,\u201d Bibby told<\/a> CBS Local’s DJ Sixsmith in 2020. \u201cEverybody knew that was what made our team so special. I played on teams where if guys didn’t get their points, they weren’t the same guys. When I played with Sacramento, it didn’t matter who scored the points. As long as we won, the guys were the same way. That’s the way basketball was meant to be played. Even though Webb was the alpha dog, he didn’t have an ego.”<\/p>\n

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C-Webb let Bibby have his moment\u200b<\/p>\n

Bibby played almost four seasons with Webber in Sac-Town<\/a>. Along with the sharpshooting Peja Stojakovic, defensive specialist Doug Christie, smart and seasoned big man Vlade Divac, and bench firecracker Hedo Turkoglu, Bibby and Webber formed \u201cThe Greatest Show on Court,\u201d a fitting moniker for the early 2000s Kings\u2019 squad.<\/p>\n

For Bibby, the Greatest Show on Court wouldn\u2019t have been as synchronized and unstoppable as it had become if it hadn\u2019t been for C-Webb\u2019s unselfishness. In fact, Bibby still has a vivid recollection of how Webber\u2019s team-first mentality enabled him to pull off one of the greatest plays in Kings history: his game-winner against the Los Angeles Lakers in the final seconds of Game 5 of the 2002 Western Conference Finals that lifted Sacramento to a 3-2 lead.<\/p>\n

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It\u2019s worth noting that Bibby made that shot off a handoff from Webber.<\/p>\n

“I remember coming out the huddle and telling Webb if you don’t shoot it, give it to me and I’ll knock it down,” Bibby remembered. “That’s the way our team was. Webb felt comfortable enough to pass me the ball and I could take care of my business. That’s the way our team was.”<\/p>\n

C-Webb\u2019s career altering injury<\/p>\n

Apart from the great memories, Bibby also remembers the bad ones, including the play that tore Webber\u2019s ACL. According to Mike, it happened during their two-man play in Game 2 of the Kings\u2019 2003 Conference semis duel with the Dallas Mavericks.<\/p>\n

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Webber instructed Bibby to throw the ball up after he spun out of his defender. Bibby did exactly that, but C-Webb got hurt and went down. For Bibby, that was the exact moment that ended the King\u2019s title hopes.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs soon as I threw it up and he went to grab it and he came down, I was like, damn, you never know. It went there that quick. I knew it wasn\u2019t the right thing to do at that time but you\u2019ve got Chris Webber telling you to throw the ball up, you throw it up,\u201d Bibby once recalled.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that, it kind of hurt our hopes of going back without our superstar alpha dog,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

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Bibby was right. C-Webb was never the same player after that ACL injury. The Greatest Show on Court eventually collapsed as the core players got traded to different teams, Webber included.<\/p>\n

Still, Bibby considers his time with the Kings as the best years of his NBA career. Stating the obvious, Webber was one of the reasons why.\u200b<\/p>\n

Related: “We tore the mall down” – Stephen Jackson recalls blowing his first $25,000 NBA paycheck with Mike Bibby<\/a><\/p>\n

This story was originally published by Basketball Network<\/a> on May 6, 2026, where it first appeared in the Old School<\/a> section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Mike Bibby was traded to the Sacramento Kings in 2001, he joined a franchise already on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727852,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3792],"tags":[7,90308,8411,149,4056,150,2244,6,986,477,4055],"class_list":["post-727851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento-kings","tag-basketball","tag-c-webb","tag-chris-webber","tag-dallas-mavericks","tag-kings","tag-los-angeles-lakers","tag-mike-bibby","tag-nba","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-kings","tag-sacramentokings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116532019424426332","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727851"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727851\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}