Bethlehem Says

I have to be careful what I say about Derrick Rose. My opinions on him are heterodox, stubborn, and probably relevant to no one but myself. Basketball is sometimes best kept to one’s self, like shit you tell your therapist or your cat. However, today something dawned on me: How much of the Rose-for-MVP narrative is about him being the anti-LeBron? Derrick Rose has emerged as the Good Son figure, over the summer, Kevin Durant was being groomed for. Oh high irony, that Rose was there, all along, in Durant’s shadow in Turkey. Now Rose is everybody’s favorite player, a new kind of point guard, and the flash point for the stats vs. gut war that I though the NBA got over before it started. Rose can seemingly do no wrong—if he’s less than perfect, well, damn it, he deserves credit for improving or trying. Durant, on the other hand, is looking less like a transformative figure, and more a very tall, classic SF who scores a lot for a very good team.

I wonder, though, if the Chicago-ness of Rose gets in the way of his filling this (prophetic) role in quite the same way Durant was meant to. Durant could belong to everyone because, in a sense, OKC as a basketball town remains a work in progress. Especially to the outsider looking in. LeBron was a league-wide villain; Durant was ideally positioned to counter that, showing great faith to a small market that, to many, was more symbolic than anything else. Rose’s South Side story perhaps gives him an even closer bond to the team, but it also makes him much more the the property of that city, those fans. And let’s not forget, Rose came to the Bulls a decade after Jordan left, with some good, if ultimately disappointing teams, in between. Chicago can’t help but be in the equation; Chicago may also be standing in the way of Rose’s ecumenical appeal. Rose couldn’t possibly be more adored, and yet who is he fighting for: NBA fans writ large, or the Bulls, who will then make converts of the world just like they did under Jordan?