Being from Chicago, loving the game, and graduating in 2007, I feel a special connection to Rose that I've only felt with a few other athletes ever. It's hard to say he's a role model (he's about 5 months older), but his true passion for the game, competition and success is akin to Howard Rourke in Ayn Rand's classic, The Fountainhead. He is literally everything that is right about basketball, sports, capitalism, and the human spirit. Get well soon, and I hope you come back like so many other athletes have. I think he'll be fine.
Another quick note: there was no outrage like what we've seen against Nike designer Jason Petrie when I posted about how I thought adidas was responsible for Rose's injury woes Is adidas to blame?
His comments were totally inappropriate. I'm a big Nike fan, and I think he's a legendary designer, but wtf bro?
But let's get back to what's going on in this series. We now lead 1-0, with no real competition from Philly in game 1. If you didn't hate Evan Turner before, tweeting nonsense about how he was happy to play the Bulls, how he was "better" than Derrick Rose, and how he was a dick to Mark Titus and the rest of the Ohio State squad: Link to Titus' book, I'm dying to read it... you probably should now. I wouldn't be surprised to see a little scuffle this series.
Anyways, more pertinent, is how can we beat the 76er's without last years MVP. And I think that's fairly easy. Our stable of point guards gives us a bit of everything. CJ's a great 3pt shooter and can facilitate decently. John Lucas III is instant offense when he's hot; we've seen him single handedly swing games thanks to his ability to get great separation and hit clutch jumpers. And my personal favorite: MJ...or Mike James. He is old. He skips when he runs. But the man still has plenty of game. I've never seen anyone so slow cut SO quickly, and take much faster guards off the dribble. Mike has a fairly reliable jumper, and can get to the rack better than any point guard on the team. It baffled me and Bulls Passion contributer Corey Hickman every time they decided not to sign him. Also, why the Heat passed on him, if not to block us from having him, is beyond me, but sae la vie.
Take a look at his stat lines when he ACTUALLY got playing time: Wow, they're pretty good. It'd be ignorant to think that he'll really push CJ for too much playing time, but he is certainly a valuable contributor who's been completely overlooked.
I'll have another post up on why we're still the best team in the NBA...and how we'll go about beating the Heat.
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