The Bulls beat the Utah Jazz in a fashion that you envision
home games against lesser opponents—even when they’re missing three starters.
But again, the resilient squad showed why they’re still one
of the best in the league. Derrick Rose was in cruise control hitting targets
like Kyle Korver and Carlos Boozer with an ease that you just won’t see in the
playoffs. Yet, it’s kind of an argument against the “Derrick Rose isn’t a great
distributor, he’s not really a point guard” world. I think Chris Paul is as
wonderful all-around point guard you’ll see in the NBA, but Derrick is still
clearly a tier above him, albeit unconventionally. Derrick had scorers to play
with Saturday and vacillated between
aggressor and distributor in the way many of us envisioned a few years ago.
And that circles me back to this week: I am curious to see
if Derrick Rose feasts on Jeremy Lin at home in front of a national audience. While
the Linsanity thing has simmered and the New York Knicks have slumped back to
the middle-dweller that they are. They don’t play defense and barely rebound—a recipe
for getting bounced in the playoffs with ease.
You win with rebounding and defense in the NBA. You hope you
have two stars to carry the scoring burden and then the eventual closer, if the
deficit is small near game’s end. It’s a generic formula, kind of blasé really.
But it’s true: The Knicks have the best scorer in the game, a many-time
all-star power forward, a big-money center and of, course, Jeremy Lin who looks
like he’s regressing back to the player who he is.
The Bulls are wounded, but I don’t suspect them to be lacking
any kind of bite this week. Miami is on the schedule and it does become meaningful
when you know you’re facing the high school bully, the one team that is oft
considered your superior around the league despite the bouquets heaped at you
repeatedly.
While I think Derrick will have his A game this week, we
really need to keep an eye on guys like Joakim, Carlos Boozer and Kyle Korver.
This troika was battling injuries or just plain withered in the playoffs last
year, making the scoring and rebounding burden that much more difficult for
Derrick, who was also masking chronic pain.
(This week keeps getting better. Knicks and Heat this week,
the NBA trade deadline, paired with the NCAA orgasmic frenzy that is the
tournament, coupled with NFL free agency. By the way, if I’m the Bears, I go
after true blue-chipper Mario Williams and hope to grab Michael Floyd in the
draft. Vincent Jackson is good, but he’s 29 and free agent receivers can be
tricky.)
Boozer has been efficient to pretty good this season, with occasional
bouts of awful peppered in. But his defense deficiencies really stand out
against guys like Amar’e Stoudemire and Chris Bosh. It really won’t help the
Bulls if Luol Deng is still sidelined as well. I think part of what makes
Boozer so frustrating, is that he actually shows an occasional dunk or spin
move from the post, but regresses back to holding the ball for three seconds
and then lofts a 13-footer that may or may not go in.
Korver simply won’t get open like he had on Thursday, but
you can see that he is a different player when he is being aggressive. Yet, it’s
not like Tom Thibodeau has been holding him back. Korver knows he’s a limited
player, he knows that defenses will smother him and he is expected to hit every
three pointer. So it will be interesting to watch how he plays against the
Knicks and Miami—or if they can even afford to keep him on the court.
We know this one: Joakim has to be Joakim. I’m talking like
10 offensive rebounds to beat the Heat. I’m not exaggerating. The Bulls need to
add possessions to their offense to really matter.
By the way, I think Derrick goes off on Jeremy Lin on
Monday.
Contact Mike Mitchell at michaelkennethmitchell@gmail.com
4 comments:
On the NFL, I'm with you on Williams. Williams and Peppers would be nice, but the Bears WRs are a joke right now. An injured Knox (a good 3rd WR at best when healthy) a useless Hester and an embarrassingly bad Williams is probably equivalent to having no WRs on a roster, so it's an understatement to say that the Bears need some damn WRs. Put differently, if the NFL were a country onto itself, fit with laws, a system of justice, courts, etc, then Jerry Angelo would have been charged with criminal negligence for the way he failed to outfit Cutler with viable WR weapons. By the way, is there a good blog or two on the NFL/Bears?
I think the Knicks' struggles are disappointing. Are we witnessing a repeat of history here with Melo undergoing the same problems that beset Marbury after he was also traded to the Knicks? What is it about stars forcing their way to NY only to have the entire effort blow up right in their face? By the way, I think Marbury's game is the closest to Rose's in terms of multi-dimensional PGs go. That's one name (Marbury) that I don't think receives a lot of attention when it comes to comparing Rose to past players.
You know, in regards to the NFL, I wondered that same thing. I’m as big of a Chicago Bears fan as I am of a Bulls fan, and there are about eight or nine writers I follow who also observe the team—but none really when it comes to the Bears.
Dan Pompei and David Haugh are banal in most cases (though Pompei has been pretty convincing in you might want to be careful about picking up Vincent Jackson argument). Hub Arkush doesn’t write and isn’t a particularly fun personality, but he is full of insight. The rest are pretty much beat writers. Mike Mulligan is the only voice that I truly look forward to hearing, but it’s now mostly through radio—not print, where he is really gifted. Zach Zaidman and Larry Mayer of Bears.com might as well host a 1970s fan club show with the auburn and orange color set.
Other than that, I don’t see someone out there with the proper level of cynicism and intellectualism that I want to read consistently.
I really would like to do something myself, though I don’t have a mastery of the x and os (not that you need it) or the time. But it’s draft time and I love this stuff.
The whole I want to go to a bigger market thing doesn’t make sense at all for any NBA player to me. Somehow this has become their logic: “I go to a major city, finally get on ESPN more, rack up endorsements and bank.” Never mind that 60 percent of NBA players end up in bankruptcy and many of those that don’t, are fetching cameos in China to make $100. Wouldn’t the responsible and sensible thing to do is win a title in Utah, Memphis, Charlotte or Milwaukee and build your fan base and locality out of that. Some basic money management skills and these guys should never worry about money.
I mean why do they have to live like a king in New York when you can live like a king outside of Milwaukee? The sport isn’t played outdoors, you’re mostly traveling during the season (first class, private charter) and it’s 2012 where people can watch games on their smart phone. You don’t exactly need to live near Madison Avenue in New York to get some national appeal.
When it comes to demanding trades to New York, I don’t get it. Has anyone ever been in a $700,000 home near Oklahoma City? What the hell else do you need? How much time are you spending in your home anyway if you’re a professional athlete and celebrity? What if you had a $2 million home (paid off in) near Memphis? You’re not exactly living the hard life by not living in downtown Manhattan.
This is why the Carmelo, Howard thing is so perplexing: Why are you so determined to play in a big city, what about a major urban area is so much more appealing for you if you’ve “made it” in your profession.
This is all exemplary of Dwight Howard’s maturity. He is an often unfocused player who—while great like Carmelo—loses focus easy. It’s what makes Kevin Durant and Derrick Rose so unique.
To throw another bouquet at Derrick, he said his major shoe deal was a blessing and that he doesn't have to worry about money anymore. But none of them should and this whole big market thing is really the "grass is greener" sham.
Totally agree with your comments on Arkush, Haugh, Pompei and Zaidman. Zaidman really doesn't have anything interesting to say, and when he's specifically called upon to give insight, his obtuseness exhibits itself. He tends to give odd and defensive responses to substantive criticism levied against the front office that really don't engage the criticism, so I begin to think that he's either defending his access to office personalities or just plain dumb. I do think Arkush can give "must listen" material from time to time, but he tends to be too absolutist and doesn't appear to care or be aware that he contradicts himself frequently. That being said, I do wish the Bulls would have an Arkush or Stone type personality/expert that would provide really incisive commentary from time to time. Sam Smith seems to openly mail his columns in and has become a sort of self-parody. I guess the guy I really like when it comes to the Bulls analysis (and Bears) is Bernstein. But in the absence of a legitimate print voice, I think we're left with Adrian Wojnarowski and his national perspective.
I think you're right on when you point to the prevalence of media saturation in an age of technological advancement and globalization. The era in which we live would seem to obviate the desire to place yourself in a city which maximizes your marketability. That being said, I do think there's something to be said about the "prestige" of big cities, and probably place someone like Howard's desire to play in NY within a context of a self-aware subjective desire to play in a prestigious city.
Certainly it helps to play in a bigger city, but I think these guys are sabotaging themselves and even the league when they’re so hellbent on going elsewhere.
Sam's emails are the most dissapointing forum for his opinion. He basically lets fans feel special and then says how impatient they are and that he wouldn't change anything, but it's mostly just a two-way for opposing fans and he plans faux middle man.
That is so accurate on Arkush: he constantly contradicts himself--maybe more than any "expert" out there.
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