FROM MY LIVING ROOM--For years we’re told that college is a haven for unselfish,
sound play—a purist form of the sport where kids simply play for the love of
the game.
Puke.
This romanticism has been lost for some time. College
basketball simply isn’t the vehicle for basketball enthusiasts it was once was.
And it’s important to note that—basketball enthusiasts, not gamblers or passive
fans. It’s a great event that is must-see TV until the actual championship game
takes place.
The lack of stars and quality of play isn’t anything to be
puffy-chested about it either, but I’m not in the mood to bash the NCAA, I’m
using this juxtaposition to highlight how, well, incredibly team-oriented the
Chicago Bulls are.
Their MVP is sitting on the bench, their offseason free
agent acquisition has retired from the regular season and the Bulls have only
one scorer left on the roster (Carlos Boozer), considering Luol Deng is
battling a wrist injury that won’t subside.
On Monday they where in their best Tom Thibodeau mode,
moving on second and third efforts. Kyle Korver found his counterpart in JJ
Reddick going over screens, leaving his feet from 27 feet out to get Reddick to
look for a dump off. Carlos Boozer, who again had what was one of his best
games as a Bull, was crafty on both sides of the ball, using jab steps to see
which side Dwight Howard was shading him. He also was using his body to wall
off Howard on easy offensive rebounds, even stripping balls from Howard’s hands
as he attacked the rim.
It’s games like these that you develop this wonderment about
Thibodeau and this roster. You wonder what it would look like if Vinny DelNegro
were still here. Would this team even be a sixth seed? Would Derrick Rose even be the MVP? Would John Lucas III even be in the NBA?
As lucky as the Bulls were when they landed the ping pong
ball in the lottery to grab Derrick, they were almost as lucky to bring in Tom
Thibodeau.
Typically, a Rose-less game (a term that needed to be
crafted for this season as he’s missed a quarter of the season) is not very
watchable, but this one (reminiscent of the effort against the Boston Celtics
earlier this season) was a joy. Even Stan Van Gundy, who is one of the most
candid voices in the sport, said that no one has done a better job than
Thibodeau in the last two years.
And remember, he’s only been here for one and in a half
seasons. It wasn’t long ago that we saw Luol Deng stand in the corner and do
nothing on offensive sets, as Derrick Rose ran high screen and roll with one
option. That was the DelNegro era.
You have to remember, that the Bulls bypassed an interview
with Thibodeau to hire DelNegro, which made everyone feel like he was the under
qualified son-in-law who was banging one of the alderman’s daughters. Someone
had to get the guy a job—a really good one, no less.
I read a lot of fiction and watch a lot of movies and there
is something fascinating about watching good writing in a movie or TV show. You
can almost sense it (most recently Game
of Thrones). The characters are so dynamic, so compelling, that you’re
almost sure they had to be based on the writer’s upbringing.
Just about everyone in Bridgeport, Taylor or Melrose Park,
knows someone who flashes the many idiosyncrasies of Paulie Walnuts from The Sopranos. Have you ever seen a character as compelling—who
spoke as little—than Robert Deniro in The Deer Hunter?
As Roger Ebert once penned, a great story isn’t just about
the plot; rather, it should be the other way around: the characters should be
compelling enough to carry the plot.
In a way that’s my soft analogy for this Chicago Bulls team.
Some fans—foolishly—cling so hard to this Bulls squad, that they could never
imagine shipping out Joakim Noah for a Dwight Howard. However, it would almost look
awkward if Howard were in the middle of this roster because he doesn’t imbue
their seriousness, their genuine joy for another’s success or their “coach-ability.”
Fans seem to love all the silly one-dimensional
characteristics of a Ronnie Brewer, Gibson, Omer Asik, John Lucas III, Kyle
Korver and Noah. Indeed, they play their ass off. They do all those things we think that
college kids are supposed to do.
In the NBA, you win with stars and history shows that to be
the case. The Bulls have an incredible player, who stands 6’2 and has had a
confluence of injuries that has kept him sidelined for a healthy portion of the
season.
The good guys don’t always win at the end of the movies
either, but the Bulls are certainly the good guys in this epic. They’re everything
you’d want to see in a team, particularly at a professional level. With this
cast of characters, you find yourself drawn.
It all makes for a great story.
Contact Mike Mitchell
at michaelkennethmitchell@gmail.com.
3 comments:
This is a good piece. There was an article some time ago, and I don't remember its author or the sports team on which it focused, but the point was to ask whether or not the supersized expectations of fans (championships matter, nothing else does) robs us of experiencing the joys of teamwork, effort, strategy, etc. In other words, the degree to which you enjoy your team's performance should not depend on the team's success or failure to obtain a championship, and these championship expectations ruin the experiences of entire fan bases.
Now I know you're not making a similar argument here, but I think much of what you mentioned about the Bulls and the way in which they work with one another, hustle, defend, win against all odds, etc., is precisely what the article's author had in mind. In a way I think your post presents a challenge to the author's argument because it demonstrates that you can expect your team to contend for a championship while simultaneously enjoying all the intricacies of team sports.
In these arguments about fans, expectations, and so on, I've thought it useful to think in terms of categories that attempt to reflect the diverse ways in which fans experience the ups and downs of their respective teams. Two broad classifications come to mind: the "intellectual," or "big picture" fan, whose interest extends beyond what happens on the court and into off-season acquisitions, the merit of which are based on how said acquisitions align with the team's long-term or short-term strategic goals of winning a championship. For this fan, wins and losses on the court/field cannot be separated from how those wins/losses factor into the bigger picture of team building and organizational philosophy.
Then we have the "simple" fan, one whose primary interest revolves around individual wins and losses, irrespective of long-term outlook, championship/playoff chances, winning percentage, etc. This is the type of fan you see passionately rooting for the Bears in their season finale against the Vikings last year, even though both the Bears and the Vikings were already eliminated from the playoffs and it was the only game on the NFL schedule that didn't impact playoff seeding. Each game is a type of isolated experience in which a win or loss is not judged against any other consideration (playoffs, etc.) except the win or loss as it unfolds in front of your eyes.
Now I know there are probably subcategories and that this not a neat dichotomy since fans can float in, out and between these categories, but I thought it was a start. In fact while I would place myself in the "bigger-picture" category, I probably will resemble some aspects of the second "simple" category this season as a White Sox fan, but even then I'm hoping some of the youth on the roster can form into viable pieces of a future contender. And if I am personally convinced that the Bulls are going nowhere this season, as I almost am, then perhaps it's better for me to shift hats and become the "simple" fan in order to experience how brilliant they've been the past two seasons.
Don't know if that made any sense...
We’ve been dialoguing for two years and that is one of the funniest lines you’ve uttered about the passionate fan hoping the Bears can top the Vikings in a game less meaningful than the preseason. That victory cost them six spots in the draft, which may have put them in a strong position to draft the left tackle from Ohio State, Riley Reiff from Iowa or more importantly, Michael Floyd from Notre Dame to give Jay Cutler the equipment to succeed.
It was the only game I didn’t watch last season. I’m more excited about mock drafts than that game.
We all know those fans. They’re the ones who don’t know another player on another team’s roster (“Jason Pierre Paul? Is he good?”) and aguish over beating the Green Bay Packers but don’t realize the significance of actually making the playoffs. They often lobby for backup quarterbacks, like Caleb Hanie, and believe that running backs are more material than offensive tackles or defensive ends.
This isn’t immersion; this is seclusion from the day-to-days of the business—what offseason moves they’ll make, who is in control, whether or not they have enough defend those in their division. This happens more in football because of the nature of the sport. There are more surface fans who can tune in on Sunday and return to their lives on Monday through Saturday, with a cursory interest in fantasy football.
The NBA, MLB and NHL don’t operate that way. There are a ton of games. You might have some bandwagoners in the playoffs but mostly it’s fans who are more intimately attached to their teams and their trajectory. I’m not saying there aren’t incomplete, dumb misnomers about their team’s possibilities at a championship, but at least their attachment to the team is more sophisticated.
My test for knowing how keen a Bears fan is, is by asking them if they knew who Dan Bazuin or Gaines Adams was (two monumental second-round flop moves by Jerry Angelo) to really gauge their disgust and where it should be channeled. They often dismiss and say he’s good at finding mid-round defensive players (which has only happened three times) but bad at firsts (which is true) shows me a level that I cannot relate to.
In a way, back to your point and the author you’re referencing, when can we enjoy a team? Does it have to mean they win the whole thing?
That’s a philosophical quandary. One saying I heard, and I don’t think it was intended to be bleak, was: “Life is what happens in between the moments you expect to happen, but never do.”
We’re living. A championship is the highest of highs, but I don’t remember any championship the Bulls winning anymore than the next. I just wanted more. Sports lends itself to greed because there is only one result we are reaching for. It’s not like you can be rich, and the other guy be rich, and you’re both happy because there is enough to go around—expect the greedy fuckers at banks.
Can I really look at a game like last night and forget all the other variables and obvious odds against this team’s chances for title? Probably not. I can’t completely suspend my beliefs.
But, it’s a muscle I’m learning to develop because we live only for a short while: be in the moment, enjoy this, this is why we watch.
Isn't life about the journey? I'm learning.
lol on the comment about rooting for Caleb Hanie. That hit me on a number of levels since some in my family began rooting for Hanie even after it became clear that he sucked and sabotaged the Bears' playoff chances. I guess we could also include into this category the fans who clamor for Love Smith's dismissal on the basis that he doesn't yell whenever he's randomly shown on FOX sideline cameras.
I've also thought about the NFL's weekly schedule as opposed to the more condensed NBA/MLB schedules. Perhaps that is one factor among many that help explain the NFL's dominance over other sports. It's become a sort of weekly holiday with fixed timings (12PM, 3:15PM or a Monday/Thursday night) that both casual and serious fans can enjoy.
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