Derrick Rose: The Windy City Assassin

There is always the same face in the crowd.

No matter where the shot comes from or who takes it, there is always the face. As one set of players celebrate and the others slowly walk off the court, the face is always there, despairing and wishing the futile thoughts.

It can't have happened. It was too late. There's still time.


But it did happen, there was time, and now there isn't.

The face always tells the story.

The face was in Gund Arena on May 7, 1989, as a young man leaped into the air while his counterpart slumped to the wood, hands over his eyes.

Craig Ehlo.

It was there on the Spurs' bench on May 13, 2004, as a disbelieving Fish raced into the locker room.

 

Bruce Bowen.

Now, it's forever frozen on the face of a man in the Bradley Center last Wednesday night, as he looked skyward at the giant screen in bitter amazement.

Some random dude.

The face is never quite horrified or stunned. It's a mix of both, combined with that moment before anguish really hits home.

It is the face of defeat.

A killer inside

Almost exactly a year ago, an article was published in Sports Illustrated (click the jump to read), detailing exactly how Derrick Rose had risen to the top of the NBA's elite. The piece talked about Rose playing cutthroat after dark with his roommates in a north suburban gym and how he took his competitive edge from that gym to the courts of the Association. It was an engrossing read on its own, but the article was punctuated by a quote from (who else), the White Mamba:

There are the guys who get you the need baskets," says Bulls reserve forward Brian Scalabrine, referring to the vital hoops that stop runs and close out games. "I have a different word for killers. I call them mother-------. And right now, Derrick Rose is the baddest mother------ in the league by far. He is the reason we win.

Regular beat writers, sabremetricians, and Dan LeBatard would argue that this statement from Scal wasn't true a year ago, much less today. I would agree with them two weeks ago; Kevin Durant and LeBron James were clear front-runners for the MVP award. Even Rajon Rondo was doing more to carry his team than Rose, who had sat out with various maladies for some time this year.

Then Rose sank an impossible, hang-in-the-air, rainbow floater from behind the backboard over the outstretched arm of Andre Iguodala to lift the Bulls in Philadelphia. He and Luol Deng combined to payback the Pacers, and last week, Rose sank Milwaukee at the buzzer.

Last year, Rose wrested control of the game from the Bucks in the fourth quarter as easily as pulling a ripe apple from a tree. This year, with the threat of overtime on the road looming, Rose calmly dribbled between his legs, crossed over Brandon Jennings, took a hop-step backward and drained a 24-footer over Jennings' outstretched hand.

It was, as Bucks color commentator Jon McGlocklin noted, the first jump shot Rose had taken that night.

The NBA: where evil reigns supreme


In Conan the Barbarian, the Mongolian general asks Conan, "What is best in life?" and he delivers the famous line (borrowed from Genghis Khan): "To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you and to hear the lamentations of their women." So it is in the gladiator arena known as American professional sports. We wish to see our side thoroughly defeat the others so as they'll never be able to return from it. We lustily scream when fights and fisticuffs break out and boo the referees who come between them. We cheer when an opposing player or coach is ejected, and only go home happy if the other side can taste utter defeat while our guys relish in the day's victory.


American professional athletes have to straddle a fine line between mannered and grotesque. We want our players to "play nice" until crunch time comes. Then, we foam at the mouth for the earth-shattering dunks, long jumpers and blocks that will completely demoralize the other team. We, the screaming denizens of the cheap seats, want complete and final victory.

There are men who've realized that, and were elevated to hero status for it. Pete Rose played baseball with a motor constantly at 8,000 revolutions-per-minute, damn Ray Fosse's shoulder. Lawrence Taylor ended a man's career...and went on to star in movies. Michael Jordan talked about Bryon Russell in his Hall of Fame speech as if Russell had just challenged him to one-on-one in the parking lot.

All these men were reasonable men who turned into monsters when they stepped between the lines. And that's just what we wanted. As I said in the "The Kevin Durant Problem", we especially thirst for these cold-blooded ballers in the NBA. Men like Iverson, Shaq, Kobe, Magic and Bird who delighted in crushing their enemies on a daily basis further served to satisfy our visceral urges.

Bad mother-----s, as Brian Scalabrine would say. Now Derrick Rose is among them.

Linsanity arrives


Jeremy Lin showed a glimpse of the killer instinct fans crave when he dropped in a spot-up three over Jose Calderon and the Raptors a month ago, and when he turned Lakerland on its head by outdueling Kobe at Madison Square Garden. Still, the young man from Palo Alto has undergone some growing pains recently and the Knicks can't seem to get around being a break-even team.

Still, I defended Lin in this space, and will continue to do so. He is what purists such as Shaquille O'Neal and Zachary Casson Berg have been wishing for in the era of Rose and Westbrook: a traditional point guard. He can shoot the jumper, drive and score, pass well and hit free throws when fouled. But in this matchup with Derrick Rose, I will surprised if he comes out alive.

After all, Rose has proven himself to be an assassin in his young career. Every good assassin saves a bullet for the tougher targets.

And when Lin goes down, somewhere in New York, there will be the face.

The face is always there at the end.

See you in the cheap seats.

JS

Basketball: the Beautiful Struggle

It's a March afternoon at Rainbow Beach. Trees are still leafless and lifeless, the grass is worn and patchy, the sky a dreary gray. A cold wind blows from the lake and scatters leftover trash. The beach is deserted, save for a few seagulls and the languid surf that laps at the shore.

There is nothing here to suggest what the future will bring: dozens of children running for the sand, the smoky aroma of barbecue, perhaps a softball game or two.

But the gloomy picture is broken up by the bounce. The steady bounce.

The steady, rhythmic bounce of a basketball on the asphalt. The clank of the rim as a shot goes awry and every once in a while, the soft swish of the worn nets as the roundball drops through the hoop.

Amidst a forlorn urban landscape, there is beauty, some small piece of paradise.

There is beauty in this blacktop.

America's pastime

Sports is a business. We all know it. I talked about how I accepted that fact long ago in my last post. Professional sports is an economically-driven vehicle where the primary focus is making money for someone. Not the entertainment, but the money.

Even so, all these sports we watch on television are games at heart. The Olympics were born from a simple footrace. Soccer was birthed in the mountains of South America. Baseball started in open fields and became famous in the alleyways of New York.

All those sports have their own special qualities. Every sport is born from the idea of human sacrifice and exertion, the idea that something has to be given up for something to be gained. Every sport says, "you must push yourself to win, to gain victory."

But no sport is more resonant with the human condition today than basketball. Especially for Americans.
Wordless poetry

In 1891, Dr. James Naismith hung a pair of peach baskets at opposite ends of a YMCA gymnasium in Connecticut, and basketball was born. About the same time, Scott Joplin's ragtime music was moving across the country, paving the way for the earliest forms of jazz.

Unlike the more traditional forms of music, where melody was even and rigid, jazz broke the norm. Time was out of sync to the casual listener and melodies were short riffs that could be thrown from instrument to instrument. Ragtime and jazz were an affront to American traditional society that was used to classical, folk and other "sit back and relax" forms of music.

Basketball, while it started slowly, took the same route. The game was played much the same way until 1954, when the shot clock was introduced to the NBA. Soon, basketball evolved from teams sitting on the ball for an entire half to a fast-paced, wildly rhythmic game that took fans from their chairs at home to their feet in the stands.

It stands to reason that just as jazz is recognized as the only truly American musical style, basketball is the only truly American sport. While you need a lot of equipment and space to play baseball (and, in a related way, classical music), basketball needs a ball, a hoop (or a milk crate) and two people who want to play. Basketball players and jazz musicians operate with a similar style: at once frenetic and languid, moving in abrupt starts and stops, improvising through planes that make sense to them and only to us once the end result is reached.

It's not enough to say these things. Basketball is a visual sport, and must be seen to be appreciated, just as jazz must be heard to be fully realized. For there are artists in both genres that we will never have the chance to appreciate in person ever again: Elgin Baylor, John Havlicek, Bill Russell, Earl Monroe. Kareem, Pete Maravich (the greatest pre-MJ player to wear #23), George Gervin. Magic and Bird, Hakeem Olajuwon, Michael Jordan. Compare them to Louis Armstrong, Charlie Parker, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Dexter Coleman, Thelonius Monk, Max Roach, Buddy Rich, Jaco Pastorius.

All these men crafted art without brushes, prose without words, poetry in pure motion.

The beautiful struggle

Baseball has long been called "America's pastime". But basketball is the child of Americans, from Indiana to New York, from Los Angeles to Boston, from Chicago to Phoenix. The cities, the suburbs, the towns, the rural pastures—it's hard to find a place without a basketball hoop in the driveway or on the garage.

Why does basketball resonate with us? Because that simple act of trying to put an 18-inch sphere through a 36-inch hoop is a great reminder of our own personal struggles. We have a small window of opportunity to aim for, and though there maybe obstacles in our path at any given time, usually the greatest force acting against us is ourselves. Just as we may shoot baskets for hours and miss many more than we take, often we miss more opportunities than we make good on.

But just as it's inifinitely satisfying when we do finally succeed in life, it's just as sweet as when we finally drain that jump shot. Those kids at Rainbow Beach know, even as the sky dims to black, the wind blows harder and the rain starts to fall.

There is beauty in this blacktop.

JS

The Kukoc Conundrum

Set aside everything you know about Toni Kukoc. Forget about the slick passes, the mop of hair, the streaky shooting. Forget about the Sixth Man Awards, the funny accent, the three rings. Forget all of that.

In 1.8 seconds in 1994, Toni Kukoc converted the most important shot in Chicago Bulls history.

The Croatian Sensation

In 1991, Kukoc was one of the top players in Europe. With the success of Vlade Divac and Drazen Petrovic, NBA teams were frantically scouting across the Atlantic for the next Euro star, and as Sam Smith detailed in The Jordan Rules, former Bulls GM Jerry Krause was absolutely fixated on Toni Kukoc.

Unfortunately, this made Kukoc the second-most hated man for Chicago that season (just behind Krause himself). With John Paxson and budding star Scottie Pippen both lobbying for new contracts and Michael Jordan considering retirement, no one on the Bulls wanted to see Kukoc make his Bulls debut.

That year, of course, Kukoc stayed in Europe and the Bulls won their first NBA championship. But the stars of Kukoc and Pippen had become intertwined.

Life after Michael

In 1994, Kukoc finally signed with Chicago as the Bulls prepared for life without Jordan. With a couple of new additions and Pippen able to shine in his own right, it appeared they might be all right without MJ. Three Bulls made the All-Star team, and the Bulls finished with 55 wins, only two less than the previous season. Pippen led the Bulls in points, steals and assists per game and finished third in MVP voting.

As for Kukoc, he averaged 11 points, 4 rebounds and 3 assists per game—and hit a few shots like this one.

To the surprise of some, the Bulls appeared set to defend their championship after sweeping the Cavs in the first round. However, a familiar foe awaited in Round Two: the New York Knicks.

The Refusal

In Game 3, the Bulls were down two games to none and Patrick Ewing had just made a hook shot in the lane to tie the game at 102. Chicago's lead had dwindled away and with 1.8 seconds left in regulation, Phil Jackson knew the Bulls couldn't afford overtime. The obvious choice to take the final shot was Pippen, the superstar, the team leader. But Jackson, the ever-cerebral coach, called the play for the rookie Kukoc.

Pippen, angered beyond belief, sat on the bench and refused to go back into the game.

The rest is history. Kukoc made the improbable shot for the win, Pippen famously posterized Ewing in Game 6, the Knicks won Game 7 and went to their first Finals since the '70s, and Jordan came back midway through next season to continue the Bulls dynasty.

So what happens in Kukoc's shot doesn't fall?

I wonder...

Pippen's heart and toughness had always come into question over his career. The Pistons routinely took Scottie out of the game by knocking him around during games, and Dennis Rodman's taunting of Pippen was as important to Detroit as Isiah Thomas. When the Pistons fell, the Knicks imported their strategy and drafted Xavier McDaniel to get inside Pip's head. But Scottie's refusal to go back into the game was on a different level. Lifetime Bulls fans who had watched Jerry Sloan and Norm Van Lier play undoubtedly were appalled.

This whole idea was borne from the mind of a Peoria friend of mine name Rodger, who said that the Bulls were considering trading Pippen after this stunt. Hard to believe after the Hall of Fame nod, but back in '94 with Jerry Reinsdorf at the reins, anything was possible. So consider Kukoc misses and the Bulls let go of Pippen. Here's some scenarios to consider:

1. With no Pippen to take the pressure off, Michael Jordan flirts with a permanent retirement.

2. No Jordan and no Pippen obviously means Dennis Rodman stays in San Antonio.

3. No Bulls nucleus = no Bulls dynasty. Chicago stays in the top eight of the Eastern Conference, but the Knicks, Heat and Pacers rise to the top.

4. Oops, forgot something: with no Jordan revenge in '96, Shaq stays in Orlando and matures with a healthy Penny Hardaway, giving the Magic a likely shot at a championship.

5. Knicks' "beat-'em-up" basketball stays in vogue without the Bulls' finesse game to beat it, meaning the rules enacted in the 2000s to open up the game (the no-charge circle, defensive 3 seconds, the modified illegal defense) probably are written even earlier. (In an unrelated story, a 22-year-old Kobe Bryant scores 103 points on the Vancouver Grizzlies.)

6. Speaking of Kobe, what does he do without legit superstar like Shaq to give him a cover to mature under?

7. Phil Jackson's 11 rings and "best coach ever" title? Gone. Phil's good, but he learned as much from his second three-peat players as they did from him. That experience of winning with an aging squad was absolutely necessary.

8. As for Scottie Pippen: he plays well for another team, then another team and maybe another team, none of which is Chicago. Hall of Fame is not a lock and neither is his title as "top all-around forward of all-time".

9. Finally, think of all the top players who either had to wait 'til after their prime to get a ring or never got one because of the Bulls: Barkley, Ewing, Malone, Stockton, Miller, Mourning, Starks, Payton, Drexler. Imagine that.

And to think, all because Toni K was a little off on his stroke.

Revisionist history

Without Kukoc's shot, the Bulls don't stretch the Knicks to seven games, the image of Pippen standing over Ewing after that epic facial never occurs, and Kukoc's star doesn't rise to Sixth Man of the Year potential. After the shot fell, people mostly glossed over the incident.

So even though all this is a stretch, it's always fun to ask "what if...?"

Just ask Bill Simmons.

JS