Saturday Night Fever is Iconic, so don’t give me that “I’m
too young to have seen it” bullshit excuse, the movie had to have come up at
some point (minus curse words) in your life while watching TV. Did it age
poorly? Yeah, but while you were sitting there poking fun at the bellbottoms
and Travolta doing the hustle ONE scene stuck with you –the fight scene. The
reason it stuck out is because it doesn’t matter if you went to school in the
80’s like me or your rocking skinny jeans YOU have a fight story to tell. And
you can remember who stood up and who folded like it was yesterday. We all have
“that homie”, he’s cool on many levels, you can drink with a brotha and chase
girls but when something jumps off you sees a whole different side of him. When
“Bobby C” jumped in that car and sped away while his homies were getting bloody
you felt the betrayal, because if you’re “with” some cats and one of you gets
beat down, you all get beat down. You may be 60 years old right now but the way
he behaved that night back in 1973 probably tilted the scales when if it came
time to choose a best man for your wedding - I mean, can you call that dude
when she takes half your shit and cheats with your boss?. NO. So When fists
start flying or things get rough you want a dude who is down for whatever, and I’ll
bet everyone reading this knows “that guy”- he may not be your number one ace
but for lack of a better term Reggie Miller calls him a “dark alley” guy.
If need be NBA teams who are in a tight spot like to know the
best player can be a “dark alley” guy. Picture Isiah Thomas limping up the
court in the 1988 finals on one leg while the league’s premier perimeter defender
(Michael Cooper) had no chance of checking him.
The Chicago Bulls have that guy, and his name is Joakim Noah
but the problem is last night he was in a dark alley back to head with “More
Heart than Height” Nate Robinson and it shouldn’t have to be this way. Yeah I
know; us Bulls fans are supposed to whisper and be mindful not to rattle the soft-spoken
humble hero Derrick Rose and we certainly don’t want to provoke Michael Wilbon
into calling us Neanderthals-but why the hell not?. Clearly Wilbon is just
being condescending, and he seems to forget a young man who came back from a
broken foot with a far worse team than this one and dropped 63 on arguably the
best team of All Time. It’s not like
Derrick knows what we’re saying anyway, and it’s not like his teammates who were
pucking their guts out ten feet from him last Thursday night made an impact-because
he’s in the tightest bubble his contract can afford. Saturday night the Bulls
went to Brooklyn shorthanded and came out bloodied but victorious and like Bobby
C in Saturday Night Fever Rose just stared off in the window impervious to
struggle. What they got for winning that street fight is a date with LeBron
James who let’s face it gives Rose the creeps even when healthy. I understand
his concerns; they’ve been beaten into our heads since he was cleared to play
TWO months ago. I even liked seeing him on the bench and loved hearing about
his progress but how much is too much? I’m pretty sure if I were a player
fighting for my life I wouldn’t take kindly to a teammate who is killing me in
practice just tagging along to my funeral in Miami. If Rose can hint at playing
then guess what? He can play, and that’s all a guy needs to do to let his team
know he’s a dark alley guy-just ask David Lee.
The Bulls don’t need his Pyrotechnics and Acrobatics, they
need his heart, just ask Willis Reed.
Reggie Rose may talk a good game, but I doubt he understands
the building blocks of Michael Jordan’s greatness, he’s too young to understand
that Jordan’s fate was sealed in that 63 point outburst in a loss
against Boston. Michael didn’t have a brother come out and bitch about Charles
Oakley at the trade deadline, he got after it. The commercials fail to convey
that Jordan was determined to foretell the future and display (for the first
time) his legendary defiance. Nobody is asking Rose to “be D-Rose” nor to beat
Miami, we merely want him to lay the groundwork for the future and establish
himself as the leader in that locker room. Max Deals aren’t doled out to cover
long bouts of insecurity, this isn’t Boxing, there’s no time to go back to your
old neighborhood and grow a beard because the streets are watching and mental
frailty will be pounced on until you defeat it- just ask LeBron. When Jordan
showed the grit to come back from a broken foot and destroy the Celtics he was
sending a calling card; he was letting the Basketball Aristocracy know he was
coming and it was only going to get worse for them. He’s still the biggest
brand in sports but back then that was the last thing on his mind, he
understood that if there was anything mental going down he would be the one
imposing it, if only Isiah Thomas had gotten the memo.
How are LeBron James and the Miami Heat in 2014 and 2015
supposed to have any reservations about a team led by a guy who can sit there
and watch his boys getting housed with no response? How can he sit there after
what the Bulls were able to accomplish as a GROUP against this team in Game 1
and worry about aesthetics and your former dominant self? A diminished Rose
needs to get out there and run some off guard (while Nate goes all “Nate”) in
limited minutes and get used to being a ball mover because clearly Miami has
zero problems dealing with the ball dominant version of himself that he’s
waiting on. Fighting isn’t about winning; it’s about a willingness to fight
which is why the Celtics were able to turn a 3 year project into 6 years.
Joakim Noah Is Derricks “brother” and he’ll protect him till the end but you can’t
tell me he isn’t wondering if he may have to be the big brother from here on
out.
If this is the case that’s fine, but if it is please don’t
ask us to invest in the idea of someone who has been obviously miscast. It isn’t
hard, and it isn’t even a threat to this amazing future Rose’s people seem to
presume is going to occur since he’s won the MVP- fighting is more muscle
memory than anything going on in his knee. Luol Deng didn’t project the spinal
tap situation going off the rails but everybody in that locker room knows he
made every effort to knuckle up. Kirk Hinrich may not be worthy of Rose’s older
brothers respect but damnit he’s willing, so despite what Miami brings he isn’t
on that “Bobby C” shit, if he can practice he’ll be there. Dwayne Wade was hurt
last year and everybody said he was finished but LeBron knew he was more hurt
than he let on. LeBron is looking at a banged up Wade this year as well but
he’s comforted by the fact that Wade will dig deep when he has to.
James has never benefitted from a healthy Dwayne Wade, and if
he re-signs with Miami after 2014 he never will. But I’m not sure health is
what he values in Wade and I can easily see him resigning despite the physical
frailties of his road dog because he will never have to deal with what the
Bulls are dealing with now. Because despite the funny glasses and the fact that
Wade dresses and plays a pampered athlete on TV his core is all Chicago, at his
core when the going gets tough Dwayne Wade is a two fisted “Dark Alley Guy”.
