January 3, 2008 Chicago, IL
Tonight was a very special night to be at the United Center in Chicago. The Portland Trailblazers came to the Second City and looked like a team with vision, a mission, and with the help of budding star Brandon Roy, they looked like a team that has found their true identity and maybe, just maybe it is all in their name. As I sat amongst brothers ten rows behind the Bulls bench, I witnessed a game which was one for the ages. Two teams on a mission to prove their worth to the league, unfortunately for the Bulls, it was the road team that managed to escape with the W.
From the moment the the Bulls controlled the tip off, my voice could be heard ten rows in front of me and then some in back of me. Many fans chose to suppress their emotions during the game, I on the other hand don’t have a voice left, because I left it in the stands. I started out by getting on Ben Wallace’s case for leaving a finger-roll short when he could have thrown it down the way Big Ben use to know how. The second half began and the Bulls were up by twelve, early on the Bulls controlled every aspect of the game, but then I noticed that Luol Deng wasn’t in the game. Not only was he on the bench, but he was sitting on an elevated chair that did not resemble any of the seats that his teammates were sitting on. So Deng stuck out like a sore thumb and when the Bulls blew the twelve point lead in the middle of the third I started to talk to Deng too. “Hey Luol, We need you man! Adrian Griffin needs a break, he’s never been in the game for so long! That Chair your sittin’ on kind of looks like a throne, but the Kings are comin to town on Saturday night!” Deng heard me and looked a bit embarrassed, but definitely didn’t feel like talking so he just sat there and stared at the court. He never reentered the game after the first half, but that detail was quickly forgotten as the Bulls fought hard and gave the crowd a game for the ages, even without pulling it out in the end.
Late in the third and early in the fourth quarter my attention turned to talking ever so calmly to the referees who had called the game. One could hear me shouting “What are you lookin’ at number fourteen, it wasn’t even your call to make! Hey number fourteen, how much you got on this game anyway!?”
Fourty two minutes and fifty seconds of the game belonged to one player. This Bulls PF misplaced $100,000 worth of jewelry in a hotel room (January 15th 2007) and portrayed Connie Hawkins in the movie “Rebound” which are random facts most people don’t know……on this night Joe Smith lived up to being the #1 draft pick almost thirteen years ago and just needed one layup or monster slam to set the Bulls up for a victory. Instead Smith layed the ball up soft and the ball didn’t go in. Later at the foul line all everyone in the crowd thought out loud and to themselves was “Why the F*** didn’t he dunk the ball?” Was it because 1995 was more than a decade ago and he doesn’t have enough stamina to play much more than his average of twenty-one minutes a game? So, yes Joe Smith might have been fatigued during his 45th minute of playing time, and even though scored thirty one points and grabbed eleven rebounds for the first time since February of 2005 (which he did by the way in just twenty eight minutes of game action) he needed to make a dunk and consecutive free throws and he just couldn’t do it. The stigma of never living up to number one draft pick expectations got the best of him on this night, and the Joe Smith is an under achieving head case, may indeed define his post College Park MD career.
“Can’t Go on, Must Go On, Can’t Go On, Must Go On” – Larry David Curb Your Enthusiasm
This statement best describes our Bulls power forward Joe Smith, because life will go on and Joe Smith will live another day in the NBA. And yes, he will do some great things once in a while, but he will never be the go-to-guy at the end of a game, especially when he plays twenty five minutes longer then he usually does!
The Last time Joe Smith scored thirty points in a game he did so against Allen Iverson and the Sixers. Joe was then traded to the Nuggets and then was traded in the sixers deal that sent AI to Melo in Denver. Has the waundering power forward finally found his niche as a Bull? Well, for forty four minutes in a thrilling double overtime game, with his silky smooth jumper, Smith was transformed into the Mail Man, and at the same time he was as aggressive on the court as Ben Wallace use to be. Yet because he has never sealed the deal in the past, he couldn’t muster up the charisma to become great. Only the Greats come to play at the United Center, and if you don’t believe that you’re the best player on the court then that heart wrenching free throw that you’ve over analyzed in your backyard since you were seven will never go down.
One cannot blame Joe Smith for this loss, or the horrible referees that continue to pollute the game. Instead we must ask why my voice could be heard from such far away places in the United Center? Where were the thousands of fans sitting in the lower 100 levels during the third and fourth quarters? Why couldn’t the majority of the oh so privileged fans (sitting in the lower levels) forget about their appearance and remember the success of the Bulls of the past? The fans keep a home team’s spirits alive and the five of us did our job, but who in their right mind would leave an NBA game early when the score is 88-86 with 2:48 on the clock? More than 50 people left the United Center early and all of these imbeciles did so to beat the traffic!
Its been a bumpy ride for the Bulls so far this season, but not only did I lose my voice, and was caught dancing like a maniac on the jumbo screen for more than A minute during a TNT tv timeout, but I got confirmation from Officer Edward Mann of Customs Border Protection in San Luis, Arizona that indeed Henry Bernstein’s mug with a handmade poster that read “Chuck, Its my B-day! Will you be in my 5?” actually got on TNT during the halftime show. Chuck was unfortunately still in the bathroom when the clip of Henry and friends was aired.
Though the Bulls didn’t win, a birthday wish came true, I got on the Jumbo tron at my first ever Bulls game at United Center and got on the NBA on TNT in the same night!
I only wish Ernie, Kenny, and Chuck (and sometimes Magic) saw my best robot gone Alfonso Ribeiro (Carlton Banks) impression from the fourth quarter. I guarantee you they would be making fun of me for weeks with replay after replay of the stupid white suburbanite jew-face who is a cross between Tamir Goodman and Carrot Top. Don’t you love that Carrot Top? He is just so god darn funny!
So Joe, when you’ve got the roadsideblues from never being the player everyone thought you might have been, just sit back on a Thursday night and watch Ernie, Chuck, and Kenny (and Sometimes Magic). If they don’t make you laugh at all, then you ought to seek help from a psychologist and begin the process of forgiving Kevin Mchale and Kevin Garnett for taking your soul away from you in Minnesota.
Tonight I’m on official business of Homeland Security inYuma AZ, and as I say goodnight to this city near the Mexican border, may God bless Officer Edward Mann, the only person who has confirmed seeing us on the NBA on TNT.
