No Rose: A fact ... and a lame excuse

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Long-time readers -- all 9 of you -- know that I abhor injury-related excuses. Shaddup, line up and play; that's why you get the big bucks. 

Having said that, I do make exceptions because there are excuses ... and then there are facts. When a team loses a Tom Brady, a Justin Morneau or, yes, a Derrick Rose, it is a fact that the team simply cannot function anywhere near as well as it did when it had its MVP-caliber superstar.

The moment I learned Rose blew out his knee, I knew the Bulls no longer could win the NBA title.

What I didn't know was that Rose's teammates were going to fail to come out of the locker room at halftime of Tuesday's playoff game. The Bulls somehow managed to get outscored 36-14 in the third quarter by a mediocre 76ers team, and they went on to get humiliated at home.

Where was Luol Deng, an All-Star? Where was Carlos Boozer, the big-money forward? Where was Rip Hamilton, the supposed final piece to the puzzle? I'm not going to blame C.J. Watson and John Lucas III -- Rose's point-guard replacements; there's a reason they are career backups. I'm blaming Deng, Boozer and Hamilton for not showing up. And I'm blaming Tom Thibodeau for not having his team ready to play.

Yes, losing Rose was a horrible break for a team seemingly poised to win it all. Still, on the same night Deng & Co. spit the bit against the Sixers, the Celtics managed to win despite playing without suspended point guard Rajon Rondo (a top-five MVP candidate this season) and injured 2-guard Ray Allen (one of the great shooters in basketball history). Playing at Atlanta against a Hawks team that is decidedly better than Philly, the Celtics prevailed because Paul Pierce put his team on his back and carried it to victory.

Pierce, apparently, didn't get the memo about choking because the star point guard wasn't playing.

The Celtics could have used the absence of Rondo and Allen as an excuse. Had they lost, nobody would have been surprised. Instead, Pierce played wonderfully and got lots of support from his teammates. Instead, they won.

Unlike the Bulls.
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Dopey discourse about Rose and Thibodeau

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Plenty of folks actually think Tom Thibodeau is to blame for Derrick Rose's torn ACL. Apparently, a coach is supposed to take out all of his best players with a 12-point lead and 1:20 to go in a playoff game.

If so, Erik Spoelstra must really be an idiot. The Heat led the Knicks by 12 with about a minute to go tonight, and LeBron, D-Wade and Bosh were still playing. It's a miracle all three weren't hurt by a falling scoreboard or three banana peels on the court.

Stupid Spoelstra. Coaching to win. Coaching to make sure his team wasn't victimized by a remarkable comeback, kind of like when Reggie Miller scored 8 points in 9 seconds against the Knicks back in '95 ... or, hey, like when the Clippers came back from a 27-point fourth-quarter deficit just 24 hours ago.

Dopey Spoelstra. Dopey Thibideau. Even though there isn't a coach in the entire NBA -- and probably not in major-college basketball, either -- who feels safe with a 12-point lead with 80 seconds to go, they should have had all of their scrubs playing.

Fools. It's a wonder they even have coaching jobs.
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A damn shame: Rose finished, and so are Bulls

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Derrick Rose planted his left foot and "heard something pop."That something was the Bulls' title chances.

I'm neither a Bulls fan nor a Bulls hater, but I hate this. I hate that Rose's season had to end this way. And I hate that a Bulls team that was good enough to win it all now has little hope to do so.

Like life itself, sports ain't fair.

Ask the Carolina Tar Heels, who lost their point guard just as they were starting to look like a championship team. Ask Peyton Manning's Colts, who learned this past season about the fragile line between being a title contender and a laughingstock. Ask any team that thought it had a legitimate chance at a special season only to see it blown apart by an injury to a star player.

And Rose wasn't just another star. In a league of great point guards, he was the best last season. Hell, he was the best player at any position, easily winning the MVP. This season, the Bulls built a team around him that was ready to go for the gold. Even though he had to miss a couple dozen games nursing a variety of injuries, I thought the Bulls would be OK because, unlike many players during this compressed season, he would be relatively fresh for the playoffs.

With 23 points, 9 rebounds and 9 assists, Rose looked plenty fresh (albeit a little rusty) in Saturday's dismantling of the 76ers. But with less than a minute and a half to go, his knee gave out. Torn ACL. Season over.

The Bulls did amazingly well when playing without Rose this season, but let's be real. There's a reason C.J. Watson and John Lucas III have been backups their entire careers. 

After beating the Sixers, the Bulls will have a difficult time in the next round against either the Celtics or Hawks. And if they somehow survive that series, their luck surely will run out against the Heat in the Eastern finals.

And that's a damn shame.

With Derrick Rose, the Bulls were good enough to send LeBron and D-Wade packing.

Without him, they're just another team destined to end its season with a question that starts with the words "What" and "if."

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Jordan's Bobcats: "We're No. 1!"

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The NBA has been around for so long that there were lots of Jewish players in its early years but no black players.

And in all that time, no team ever had finished with a winning percentage lower than .110.

Until now.

The Bobcats -- my home team -- became the suckiest suckers in pro basketball history Thursday, when they wrapped up their NBA season with their 23rd straight loss. With owner Michael Jordan watching from on high, the Bobkittens were trounced by a playoff-bound Knicks team that rested everybody this side of Dan Gadzuric.

M.J.'s freckle-faced lads finished the lockout-shortened season at 7-59 for a winning percentage of .106.

Or, if you prefer, a losing percentage of .894.

Once upon a time, Jordan was the ultimate winner. Now he is the king of the losers.

Maybe he just needs to bring a few Jewish players aboard.
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Wilt's 100 was amazing, but I'll take his 50.4

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Today is the 50th anniversary of Wilt Chamberlain's 100-point game. It was an amazing feat and it's a beautifully round number. Still, I don't think it's his most impressive statistical accomplishment.

And no, I'm not talking about the 20,o00 ladies he claimed to have boinked. (Though that is incredible. I mean, it's almost three times my career total!)

In 1961-62, the same season in which he had that 100-point game, Chamberlain averaged -- AVERAGED! -- 50.4 points.

As stupendous as his 100-point game was, it also was something of a fluke. For one thing, Wilt was 28-of-32 from the free-throw line. A notoriously bad foul shooter, he shot them granny-style in that and many other games that season. The opponent that day, the Knicks, didn't bother to play defense in a 169-147 game that Wilt's Warriors led big from start to finish.

In many respects, Kobe Bryant's 81 points in a relatively low-scoring 2006 game (122-104) that was close until midway through the fourth quarter was at least as impressive. It's not Wilt's fault that he was taller than just about everybody else back in his era, but it is a fact. Kobe had no such advantage. And Bryant didn't score mostly on dunks and layups. (Then again, Kobe did benefit from seven 3-pointers.)

Averaging 50.4 points over an 80-game season? There's nothing even remotely fluky about that. It's an astounding display of consistent excellence, even moreso when you factor in his 25.7 rebounds per game.

Michael Jordan, generally considered the greatest player ever, topped out at 37.1 points -- which is only 73.6 percent of Wilt's standard. (By comparison, Kobe's 81-point game represented 81 percent of Wilt's 100.)

That 37.1 average by Jordan in 1986-87 was the sixth-highest ever recorded. Four of the five averages ahead of him were posted by, of course, Wilt Chamberlain. (The other was Elgin Baylor's 38.3.)

Yes, 100 points in a game is amazing, incredible, astounding, you pick the adjective. But you know what? It wasn't even double Wilt's average that season.

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So I guess this means McNabb's not going to St. Louis?

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The Bald Truth

When Rush Limbaugh says he wants to buy half of the Rams, we have to assume he's talking about the white half.

The Balder Truth

Word out of Memphis is that new Grizzlies guard Allen Iverson has a partially torn hamstring. He must have gotten it while partially practicing.

THE BALDEST TRUTH

Jeez, DeRo, nice throw!

Somebody please tell Mark DeRosa he's no longer with the Cubs and therefore is not contractually obligated to choke in the playoffs.

OK, OK ... DeRo also got three hits in the Cards' Game 1 loss to the Dodgers. And that's as many as Alfonso Soriano and Aramis Ramirez combined for when the Cubbies got swept by L.A. last year.

But still ... nice throw, DeRo!

As Marv would say: Yesssss!

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Five Stumpers

(Hint: The answer is the opposite of no.)

5. With the Miami Hurricanes once again bad (the good bad, as opposed to the bad bad of recent years), is it time to hide the women and children?

4. When even Jody Gerut becomes a Cubbie-killer, isn't it really time to pull the plug on Lou's Losers?

3. Isn't Michael Crabtree the only one fooled by Crabtree's bluff that he'll re-enter the draft?

2. If the NBA and its refs don't avoid a contract dispute, won't Sir Charles have to find some other old coot to race?

1. Is Jerry Jones' ego the only thing on the planet larger than the Cowboys' new digs?

Bo-ring!

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The day after the MLB All-Star Game is the worst day in sports.

No major league ballgames. 

NFL training camp hasn't opened yet.

It's offseason for the NBA and NHL (and well after the opening of free agency in those leagues, so there isn't even much news).

Wimbledon is over and The Open Championship hasn't started.

When WNBA games, Brett Favre silliness and speculation about Allen Iverson signing with the Clippers are the day's big-ticket items, well, we might as well have slept in.

The beautiful thing: The siesta is a short one. Even as I write this, Tiger & Friends are mere hours away from teeing it up over the pond. 

Baseball will be back, too, replete with folks talking about their team being only x games out "in the loss column" and y games out of the wild-card lead. (Or, in the case of the Nationals, zzzzz games out of fourth place.)

Soon enough, the All-Star festivities will be but a distant memory ... and humidity will descend upon St. Louis with enough force to curl those porn-star 'staches the Cardinals are growing.

Yes, all will be right with the world.

In the meantime ... hey, how 'bout that Chamique Holdsclaw, huh? With her putting 28 points on the board for the Dream, those lamentable Lynx never had a chance!

Managing to seem idiotic

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The Bald Truth

Lou is No. 1! Ozzie is No. 2!  And apparently, if they were managers, then would come Kim Jong-il, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Satan.

According to a Sports Illustrated survey of 380 ballplayers, Lou Piniella was chosen as the worst guy to play for (26 percent), followed by Ozzie Guillen (21 percent).

"I take that as a compliment," Lou said.

I take it for what it is - silliness. 

Ever since Piniella became the Cubbie skipper, players from every corner of the baseball world - even Japan - have begged to join Lou's Lovable Losers. Maybe it's despite him, maybe it's not, but they sure have wanted to take the Cubs' money to be on Lou's crew.

What is supposed to be so bad about Piniella anyway? He's certainly not the kind of guy who constantly gets on his players. Yeah, he called Milton Bradley "a piece of (poo)" last week. And yeah, he has given up on Stevie Ire and a few other guys. 

Mostly, though, he has been a big-time enabler. He has threatened to make changes but hasn't done so; instead, he has taken to making excuses for his players and his team. 

Fact is, Piniella's biggest fault has been that he's become too little like the Lou who threatened to kick Rob Dibble's butt and too much of a 65-year-old teddy bear.

As for Ozzie, he'd be near the top of my list of manager's I'd most like to play for. I'd know that as long as I show up on time and play hard, he'd have my back. And even if I sucked, he'd say so much goofy stuff that the headlines would be about his outrageousness and not my suckiness.

Oh, and Joe Torre finished fourth in the survey. Not only is he one of the all-time good guys, but he's a four-time champion who hasn't missed the playoffs since Clinton's first term.

Yeah, who'd want to play for a bum like that?

The Balder Truth

Scuttlebutt says Larry Brown had so much fun coaching Allen Iverson in Philly that he's ready for one more go-'round with AI in Charlotte.

Which leads to these two all-important questions:

Practice? You talkin' 'bout practice?

THE BALDEST TRUTH

Boy, the rest of the National League sure will be in deep doo-doo as soon as The Great DeRosa actually gets a hit!