All Time Greats and The Chicago Situation

Last night Marieta argued with me to change the channel during the lottery because we had to pack after eating dinner and wanted to watch something we would both enjoy. I said as soon as I find out the Bulls pick (figuring 7, 8, or 9). You should have seen me light up with the move up, followed by the number one pick in the draft. Now, after reading a lot of conjecture about who Chicago should pick (a lot of system fitting, paint scoring, and trade talk) I have come to my conclusion about why the bulls need to take Derrick Rose.





When someone asks you for all time greats who comes to mind? Jordan, Magic, Bird, Kareem, Bill Russell, Walt Chamberlain, Oscar Robertson, and possibly Shaq. They are the only sure fire all-timers. Now you may disagree but look at the transcendies of these players.




  • Jordan is the only guard to lead a team with no post threat to a championship - let alone two threepeats!


  • Magic is a 6-9 all in one player who killed Dr. J in his rookie year finals debut series. He defines the 80s.


  • Bird was a shooting revelation, motivation king, rebounding, jumping, energy freak.


  • Kareem has five championships, took two franchises to the heights of the sport, scoring record, ahead of his time in talent to this day.


  • Bill, 11 championships


  • Walt, anything he wanted to do on the floor he could do, and eventually learned to change his game when his body changed


  • Oscar, averaged a triple double for the first three years of his career.


  • Shaq has been to the finals 8 times of a 15 year career with 3 finals mvps.


That list is dominated by centers, which Rose and Beasley are not. Michael, Magic, Bird are the outliers. Freaks. Position defiers. So if we look at Rose and Beasley who has a better chance of transcending his position and/or becoming a modern game wonder? Its no secret, in the modern game what do all champions need? Guards, but more importantly Point gaurds. Tony Parker, Chauncey Billups, Derek Fisher, Ron Harper, Avery Johnson... they may not all be amazing point guards but they were solid enough and specialized enough that they didn't take over the offense and pushed their offense.


The Bulls need to take Derek Rose. The Western conference is showing what next in the league. Every team (except for the nuggets) in the western playoffs has an assertive PG; Lakers-Fisher, Hornets-Paul, Spurs-Parker, Jazz-Williams, Rockets-Alston, Phoenix-Nash, Mavericks-Kidd (although they should start Terry), and as stated earlier the Nuggets are trash. If the Bulls take Rose in two years they would be a top two team in the East. Its obvious the Cavs only need an O-Coordinator and their set for three or for years, But the Pistons and Celts both have really solid PGs.


Now power forwards have been really impressive over the years but their names don't come to mind as easily as the above list. Beasley will be good, maybe great; but just like in football, the person who touches the ball the most needs to be damn good. In my opinion if John Paxson does anything than select Derrick Rose he needs to be fired.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

This book should not exist

Image
It's late on a mid-October 2015 night and I am struggling with whether I should buy a $1,200 last-minute ticket to California to be with my family for my mother's emergency brain surgery. A week prior everyone was together in my house for an adventurous weekend climbing a wind turbine and celebrating my grandmother's 90th birthday, now we are on the eve of my mom going under the gamma knife for emergency brain surgery. Turns out she has a size-able tumor growing on the surface of her brain.   It's a bit of miracle that the tumor was discovered in the first place as my mom's routine cancer screenings didn't usually include brain scans; however, she had been complaining of blurry vision and balance issues, plus she had become quite irritable having been pushed to take FMLA from work to deal with what she thought was post-cancer "brain fog." Thankfully her doctor had the good sense to add it all up and include her brain in her next cancer scan. Sure enou
Read more

Finding "Clarity" in 1999

Image
I distinctly remember Tuesday, February 23, 1999. I was still living in Iowa and immediately after school let out I road with a friend to Best Buy so he could pick up Eminem's freshly released second album. Always down for a hang, I road along as there was one album I had read about and wanted to see if it was in stores. That album was Jimmy Eat World's Clarity . On the ride home I didn't bother asking to put in my purchase as my friend was not a rock fan. So for the next hour or so of cruising we blasted Slim Shady at painful volumes. For those uninitiated, this was the "Hi! My name is (ticka ticka) Slim Shady" album. I was indifferent to rap so it got a little long and tiresome by roughly the third time through the album. When I finally listened to Clarity it underwhelmed. Nothing on the album is lyrically hook centered on kinetically riff focused like later Jimmy Eat World releases. For a 16 year-old ska and pop punk super fan, Clarity go
Read more