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onbeinganangel · 3 years

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okay so @eat-yearn-cry and @tackytigerfic asked for a wee liveblog of me reading capri so i am here to embarrass myself

here are my notes from a five-ish hour reading sesh yesterday (thanks @the-starryknight for witnessing this live and sending me your fav capri art for visual references —read: thirst — as i read along)

if you think there is going to be any clever analysis here, please go somewhere else now, this is pure, unhinged screaming (i’m serious, none of this makes sense, it’s a whole mess and i redacted like 50 ‘oh my god???????’s, 30 ‘jesus/mary/joseph/christ’s and 20 ‘oh fuck’s already)

here we go

- a character list!!!! it’s like they know i have a wasteland for a brain and i’m gonna need to come back to that a million times

- okay so far we are feeling very sorry for damen but he’s fiery (big fan)

- he’s a hardheaded bastard, gimme like half an hour and i’ll probably be willing to die for him lmao

- me reading the character list and wondering why it just says ‘pet’, me three lines into the first chapter like OH PET LIKE PET PET OKAY GOT IT omfg mari

- “an astonishingly lovely face” “arrogant and unpleasant” “self-absorbed and self-serving spoilt” (it’s either a description of me or i’m in love)

- “what’s your name, sweetheart” okay FINE

- “i speak your language better than you speak mine, sweetheart” I SAID FINE (here for the polyglot representation we deserve lol)

- all of this is problematic and i shouldn’t find it hot but hey ho

- “something obscene about someone with a face like that speaking those words” indeed

- oh laurent is only twenty yikes

- boot kissing, thank you gods, mari is v pleased (also just glossing over the /bad/ because double yikes)

- unsure how to feel about Damen going off in his own language which only Laurent (?) understands and then Laurent twisting his words? is Laurent protecting himself? agreeing with Damen? which is it?

- oh

- unlacing

- oh

- flogging but of the bad kind

- okay

- if these two don’t stop calling each other sweetheart i’m calling the police

- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh 🚨 omfg

- “I was on the field at Marlas” ”It’s your countryman who taught me that. You can thank him for the lesson.” ”Thank who?” ”Damianos, the dead Prince of Akielos” hahahahaha okay

- the regent is back an hes brought back the other two guys, yea? and they’re all conspiring against laurent? but laurent doesn’t like kastor???? THEREFORE, jumping to conclusions like a circus cat through hoops, DAMEN LIKES LAURENT bc if you hate the same people you’re immediately pals that’s how it works

- so we’ve got a hotheaded brunette who’s a bit of a brute with a cause and a clever snarky blonde ready to subtly fuck shit up??? idk why anyone would have thought i’d be into this

- “the aloof, untouched Laurent was at this moment delivering a precise treatise on cocksucking” STUFF JUST ESCALATES OUT OF NOWHERE IN THIS BOOK DUNNIT

- Damen asking Erasmus about how he’s treated and after the other slaves???? ”Tell me everything that has happened to you since you left Akielos” 🥺 this is it, it took me hours, but we are hERE, i am willing to die for Damen

- oh no

- oh nooooo

- i am gonna go off

- NOT ERASMUS

- protect his tiny head and beautiful curls pls i will do anything

- also fuck, not Damen promising obedience in exchange for a guarantee that the other slaves will be treated well 😭😭😭

- Laurent is a scheming little bitch and i love him

- also should have mentioned earlier but Nicaise can get fucked (considering the themes of this book i should probably consider how i express my dislike for characters but you get the point, he’s a dickhead)

- THE FORK

- torveld/erasmus, okay 🥺

- Nicaise is the regent’s pet???? ofc he is jfc the little shit

- damen is talking to torveld, the baby back in akielos is totally his, i’m calling it now

- also torveld told him he looks a bit like kastor !!!! and boy oh boy is damen shitting himself rn

- oooh hunting

- wait LAURENT IS NICE!? tbd

- also damen just admiring how fucking stunning laurent is and he’s just his type but it’s such a shame the good looks are wasted on such an unpleasant person lmao

- when you think about it, without the rape and the slavery and the violence, they just sit about on silk pillows and scheme and eat, it’s a pretty good deal

- DAMEN HAS BEEN SUMMONED TO LAURENT’S BED????? or so they say, i’m unconvinced,

- OH SHIT

- oh shit

- the boys have finally reached third base: committing murder together (first base is when you get sucked off by someone else via your lover’s strict instructions, second base is when you eat off your lover’s fingers, don’t @ me i don’t make the rules)

- so the idiot really decided it was a great idea to try to escape post murder attempt???? even though Laurent told him what would happen AND IT HAPPENED

- he’s saved!!!!!!!!!

- ”You must be the fuck of a lifetime” sir they have barely touched

- i am Nervous

- this is a fucking trip

- oh no the regent is bad and trying to fuck it all up who could have seen that coming 🙄

- okay alright so — fuck — first damen tries to escape but laurent gets him back and then they still want to arrest/kill damen but laurent defends him and then laurent wants damen to be stuck in his room for months while he’s away but then he sends for him and they’re off to war together?????? my brain isn’t here anymore sorry

- “He was dressed in Laurent’s colours, and bearing his insignia” hhhhhh i’m stupidly into this

- also Nicaise and the earring and whatvs? i’m sure there’s something there, more than Nicaise simply being an arsewipe but i can’t figure it out rn, thoughts later but he’s a shit stirring cunt i can tell you that

- SO THAT’S JUST IT!?

and this is where i messaged Starry and asked her to stop me from starting the second book at 10 to midnight, thank you Starry lmao

off to ignore my responsibilities and start the second book now

#mari reads capri #capri #cw rape #cw violence #cw slavery #(they're just mentioned i ain't going into details here but just in case you don't know what capri's main themes are...)#m babbles

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thehollowprince · 5 years

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It will never cease to amaze me the amount of hoops that people who claim to love Steve jump through to justify their utter contempt for anyone who is in any way unhappy with that bullshit ending. And also the sheer number of hoops they demand we jump through to justify not liking Steve's ending.

I mean, let's be real here; a lot of us have been very critical of the MCU from CIVIL WAR and on, because they took what was supposed to be the last Captain America movie and turned it into, at best, another Avengers film, and at worse, another Iron Man tribute. If we've done nothing else in the subsequent years, we've criticized Feige and the Russos and Markus and Mcfeely and their choices for these movies, especially because those last four had almost sole control over Phase 3 of the MCU and which direction it took. But suddenly I'm just supposed to put all that on hold because a character I liked got an OOC happy ending from those same people? Since CW, there have been countless metas on who Steve is as an Avenger, as a soldier, as a friend and as a man, and suddenly we're just supposed to discount all of that, all of his character growth, because he got the laziest written happy ending in the MCU? All just to get Evans out of the MCU so they could "move on" with the next batch of superheroes?

I don't think so!

And the thing is, you can't just say "I didn't like Steve's ending" without a group of people descending on you and demanding to know Why. "Why are you so disappointed in his ending?" "Were you ever a fan of Steve to begin with?" You point out your reasons why, but if there's even a hint of another character in that reason, you're decried as a fake fan and so on and so forth. Why isn't "I didn't like Steve's ending" a valid enough excuse as that? Why do I have to explain in minute detail why I thought it was bad only to be told that my argument is invalid because it doesn't meet a set of criteria that I don't know about? Its extremely counterproductive and a real disservice to the fandom that built up around Steve since THE WINTER SOLDIER. We've spent countless hours discussing Steve's relationships with those around him, particularly his friends and teammates and how they help define who he is as a person, but now they're not valid because it just says that "you only like Steve because of X character."

I've said this before and I honestly shouldn't have to say it again, but a large part of the blame goes to the Russos and M&M for their numerous interviews post CW where they downplay the importance of Peggy in Steve's life and continously hyped up Sharon and Steve's other relationships in the present over his "what might have been" with Peggy. These four men have had sole control of Steve's character from TWS and onward (with the sole exception of AoU) and they backtrack on everything they've said at the last minute and try to act like that was their plan all along. It's bullshit! Its insulting to fans of not just Steve, but every other character that he had any kind of meaningful connection with.

Peggy in particular.

I've seen so many hot takes defending that ending against any kind of criticism specifically by using Peggy (and yes, the irony of that isn't lost on me). Die hard defenders of Endgame love to point out that there is no canon proof that Peggy married Sousa, but I always feel the need to counter with the fact that there is no canon proof that she didn't. And that's the biggest thing with the St*ggy relationship at the end of the day, it was never flushed out or explained, at least not at the same level as his friendships with Bucky, Sam and Nat. These people cry out that just because THE FIRST AVENGER didn't show Steve and Peggy interacting over the course of the war doesn't mean they didn't. "Just because you want it to be true doesn't make it canon", which works both ways, but no one wants to hear that.

I made a joke once about these diehard Endgame Steve supporters being the new T*ny stans, but the more I look at it, the more I think that's the case. This blind adherence to making sure that Steve's ending is unblemished is remarkably similar to T*ny stans throwing a fit anytime anyone points out the various horrible things he's done.

At the end of the day, I find myself asking whether or not I ever actually liked Steve or if I just liked the version of him built up by the fandom post TWS. Was it just Evans acting that made me like a character that I never really liked in the comics? I wanna say no, because out of the Big Three, he was pretty consistent, with a few obvious exceptions, the biggest being CW and Steve just sitting there and letting himself get berated by Ross, of all people. I mean, Steve fighting Bucky even though it caused him great pain, consistent. Steve refusing to kill Bucky, consistent. Steve willing to burn down everything he believed in the moment he found out it was wrong, consistent. Steve sticking up for Wanda, and then Bucky, consistent. Steve willingly becoming a fugitive just to rescue his friends from an illegal prison, consistent. Steve willing to risk everything on a throw of the dice in the hopes that they can fix what Thanos did, consistent. Everything about Steve up until he went to take the stones back was consistent with who he was as a character, with how he was written. That whole "Man Out of Time" schtick felt more like something Whedon wrote then what the Russos had given us over their movies.

Bottom Line: I hated Steve's ending and that isn't going to change.

#sorry #i thought i was over all of this but appatently not #just saw one post come across my dash and it brought all of this up again #anti endgame steve #anti endgame steggy #anti endgame #not my steve rogers #not my steve #anti russo brothers #anti markus and mcfeely #long post

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ty-talks-comics · 5 years

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Best of DC: Week of June 19th, 2019

Best of this Week: Teen Titans #31 - Adam Glass, Bernard Chang, Marcelo Maiolo and Rob Leigh

Lobo came to bring the pain.

Starting off with a bang, Lobo completes a contract on a Dhorian at the behest of Kanjar Ro, blowing up the disguised alien’s bodega before shooting him right in the face for his cash. After completing the contract, he receives a job from The Other to take down the Teen Titans. After an initial rebuff of the job, his interest is piqued after he's shown an image of Crush, the only other living Czarnian. (not counting Twink Lobo that should still be trapped by Larfleeze)

Cutting back to the ending from the last issue, Lobo confirms that Crush indeed her daughter and proceeds to absolutely DESTROY the Titans. All of my love comes for this book comes from just how amazingly dominant Bernard Chang makes Lobo look and how terrifying Glass scripts him.

All of the Titans rush the Main Man with Roundhouse being the first to face his wrath. Lobo takes Roundhouse, who has taken the form of a ball, and uses him to BEAT THE OTHERS. He slaps Kid Flash with his best friend, he smacks Red Arrow upside her head, Robin dodges, but his cape is used against him as he’s crushed between Roundhouse and Lobo’s hands. Kid Flash tries to come back with a flurry of punches, but Lobo has none of it and decks the Kid in his face.

Djinn teleports him into Crush’s room and he sees her wall of pictures and articles about her dad. Djinn tries to bind him with magic, but he uses a mirror to turn it against her and just as he’s about to kill her, Crush saves her in the nick of time, suplexing him out of the Titan’s hideout. Lobo, unaffected, uses her as a basketball, throwing her into the backboard before using his hoop as a bat and hitting a home run with her as the ball. Throughout the carnage he has nothing but a smug grin, like he’s playing with these kids; because he is.

Lobo has killed a lot of things, including his own children, so killing the Titans would be nothing to him. At the very least, he’s jovial and having a fun time beating their asses. Chang draws him as being kinda relaxed and casual about his violence. He’s still rippling with muscle and almost appears to be showing off a little, it’s really charming in a sick way.

Catching up to Crush, he shows no restraint against her. He breaks her ankle to test if she has his healing factor, grabs her by the hair and smashes her into a train. The impact is hard and brutal with the train crumpling as Crush’s face kisses it. Back at the hideout, Djinn has the idea to loose Crush’s chain, Obelus, as it might be the only thing that can save her. Crush, however, is not a fan of the idea because the chain came from Lobo and may not obey her. In her anger, she crushes her communicator and LOBO CRUSHES HER WITH A TRAIN.

This splash page made me lose it. Lobo just leans on the train car as Crush is pinned underneath, reaching out in pain and the bottom is EXPLODING in a hail of debris and fire with a deep red and some blood spatter effect acting as the background to the insanity. Lobo taunts her, saying she was lucky that he wasn’t around to mess her up for all of her years, but that there was still time for him to let her down. The absolute CHAD hasn’t been in her life at all, comes back and IMMEDIATELY threatens to ruin it, absolutely. I can’t believe how callous and brutal it is.

Crush spits blood in his face and just as Lobo is about to deliver his coup de gras by smashing her head into a fine red past on the ground, Kid Flash swoops in and saves her, setting up Round 2 for the next issue.

This issue was absolutely insane thanks to The Main Man. Lobo just brings out the crazy in everything that he’s in and introduced the Titans to a WORLD OF PAIN. Crush was absolutely an overpowered member of the team because almost nothing could hurt her and to see her absolutely dominated like this was astounding. One thing that truly stood out was her anger when seeing Djinn in danger because of her, pun intended, crush on the young Genie. She had a burst of rage and actually slightly overpowered Lobo, but of course he continued the beating.

Lobo’s ferocity stood out in a way that we haven’t seen in any of his fights with Superman or his time in the Justice League of America. He wasn’t angry at all, but was having fun. While he could have swatted any of the kids into dust, he played with them, dragging out their pain. His fight with Crush was hard to read/watch at times with his banter. It was almost scary how ready he was to straight up murder her to keep his rep as the last Czarnian, (again, not counting the pretty boy) but at the same time he was weirdly fatherly in his own murderous way.

Honestly, this issue was just a ton of fun. I love Lobo and any chance that I get to see him act like a madman, I enjoy. Adam Glass wrote him so very well that it kind of feels like a callback to Giffen and DeMatteis’ series and Change makes him look like an imposing freak of nature that eats nothing but protein and drinks rage. Seeing Crush express even a little bit of fear was fun because all we’ve gotten out of her is anger and snark. I can’t wait for the next issue and her eventual win just to see what she’ll be capable of. High recommend.

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Runner Up: Superman: Year One #1 - Frank Miller, John Romita Jr., Danny Miki, Alex Sinclair and John Workman

That's the approach visionary writer and sometimes crazy person, Frank Miller, took when writing the great, but flawed, Superman: Year One. The book is a masterwork on the slow burn that builds excitement and tension for a character that has all the potential to be exciting, especially as a young child.

Beginning with the destruction of Krypton from the toddler Kal-El's point of view, the boy is rocketed from his dying home. He watches as his parents get further and further away, engulfed by the fire and explosions of the dying Krypton, scared and alone until he reaches his new home; Earth.

TW: Attempted Sexual Assault

Slow and steady wins the race.

This presentation feels a lot more personal through his eyes. Though his inner monologue is a bit jarring for a toddler, it speaks volumes that he doesn't know what's happening. He's terrified that his parents are leaving him alone, that he may never see home again. His hands press against the glass in fear.

Pa Kent just happens to pass by, noticing the rocketship land with this strange child in it. The baby Kal exhibits a strange telepathic suggestion ability and makes Pa Kent think that taking him home is all his idea. Ma Kent is introduced as the ideal small town mother and the majority of this book expands on Kal-El's life in Smallville.

This comic acts as the absolute ideal in what Superman's life as a kid could have been. It's hokey in a way that the Kents are just simple farmers and the perfect parents with Clark learning the values of how to be a good person. He defends his nerd/outcast friends from bullies and gains the love from the always awesome Lana Lang.

The books flaws, however, are as awful as the entire thing is good. Things get a bit jarring as the bullies go from simple name calling and egging to physical violence and attempted rape after Lana takes pictures of their actions. If anything should have been cut, it should have been this gross depiction of near violence against a teenager.

This and the fact that there's no real comeuppance after the fact, aside from Clark just beating their asses, and leaves a bad taste in my mouth and the plot is dropped from there. It shifts to his relationship with Lana Lang after he reveals his powers to her and gradually makes up his mind about his future. In his late teens, instead of going to college or to Metropolis for his common origin of becoming a reporter, he decides to join the US Navy.

I am a little biased because his experience was much like my own from people questioning the decision, to telling my girlfriend at the time that I'd come back and what not and the teary goodbyes. Of course everyone who joins may have the same story. It just felt very personal to me and stood out as the most glaring change to how Clark Kent becomes Superman. I felt kinship and traumatic flashbacks when seeing John Romita Jrs. representation of RTC Great Lakes.

Speaking of the amazing artist, his art for the book is absolutely stellar. Capturing the vibe of the dry heat of the American Midwest, Romita Jr pulls you into every scene. The sense of scope is grand in space, it feels home-y in Smallville and the road to Illinois feels desolate and empty and yet full of hope and joy.

The line between adult and children's faces, however is very thin. Clark's faces run the gamut of emotions from joy, to surprise to near rage, but between each time jump, it's hard to tell just how old he actually is. Ma and Pa Kent age with the subtle graying of hair and maybe a few wrinkles, but Clark is forever having the face of his three year old self.

Despite covering ground that's been trodden millions of times, Frank Miller's found a way to inject a bit of interest into a familiar origin story. I love the new angle of Clark Kent becoming a Sailor and fighting for America, not exactly knowing what kind of person that it will change him into. Though I hope we get a more focused and less Crazy Frank Miller in the next issue. Attempted rape is disgusting as a simple storytelling device and depending on what kind of accounts he's gotten from Sailors on boot camp, things could go either way.

I am excited for the future of this series, however, and can't wait for the next one. High recommend!

#comics #dc #dc comics #teen titans #robin #djinn #crush #lobo #kid flash #roundhouse #adam glass #bernard chang #superman #superman year one #frank miller #john romita jr.#dc black label #possible trigger warning #trigger warning

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junker-town · 4 years

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The legend of King Handles and The Notic

The rise and fall, and rise again, of one of streetball’s greatest crews

Almost everyone who played a pickup game in Vancouver in the 1990’s tells the same story: Joey Haywood, a 6’1 teenage guard with a slender frame, innocently dribbling around multiple defenders, many of whom are at least a decade older than him. He goes behind his back in a flash, leaving another defender at mid-court in his rearview mirror. “He would just teleport and leave people behind,” says Dean Valdecantos, who used to play in those open runs.

At any pickup game, you are bound to see a streetballer who makes you jump out of your seat. Haywood didn’t just do it sometimes. He did it every time. He conquered every local court and community center run. Soon, people stopped referring to him by his real name. At the age of 16, he simply went by ‘King Handles’.

In Vancouver, that name still sparks memories, not just of his legendary game, but of a streetball movement that grew from something entirely local into a global phenomenon. The Notic was a group of young Canadian ballers who only had basketball in common at first. They met haphazardly through a pair of filmmakers. The name, The Notic, came from Kirk Thomas and Jeremy Schaulin-Rioux, the tape’s producers who took it from a track off the 1996 The Roots album, Illadelph Halflife.

The players were King Handles, David Dazzle, Johnny Blaze, J. Fresh, and Goosebumps, among many others. David and Johnny were brothers who pushed each other on the courts growing up. David was the more unpredictable one. Johnny was known for his signature low dribble (“I’ve never seen anyone dribble as low as him,” Haywood says). J. Fresh and Goosebumps were known for their freestyling moves.

What started as a pet project became a viral sensation with the help of early internet message boards. The Notic were the kind of underground success that you rarely hear about anymore, immensely popular within a tight-knit circle of streetball fans, a if you know, you know situation. Their moves were modeled in NBA Street. They were invited to cameo in movies. In time, The Notic became a massive accidental enterprise, one that threatened to slip out of control.

Before all of that though, The Notic was about a group of teenagers who loved basketball, and the creativity and individuality it encouraged. They weren’t looking for fame, and they didn’t think what they did on playground courts would translate into a financial windfall. The Notic was born out of a simple desire among a group of young men to change the way basketball was viewed and played on their local courts.

“I remember seeing this guy put the ball around somebody’s head, held the ball on his shoulders with his elbows and just made the ball vanish,” says Mohammed Wenn, who was known as Goosebumps. “I did that move in eighth grade and the guy [guarding me] was so lost he didn’t know where to look and everyone just went nuts. I felt that feeling. It was different. From then on, I wanted to feel that feeling again.”

The Notic chased that feeling together, right up to the brink of collapse. Everything happened so quickly, and just as fast, it was gone.

Joey Haywood, AKA ‘King Handles’, defending Johnny Mubanda, AKA ‘Johnny Blaze’

In 1999, a small group of family and friends gathered at the Don Bosco Youth Centre in Surrey, British Columbia, to screen The Notic, a 30-minute streetball mixtape a year in the making. The footage was grainy, but it didn’t stop several people in the crowd from jumping out of their fold-out chairs. For many in the room, it was their first time seeing Haywood and his friends show off their moves.

The Notic was meant to document a moment in time, and nothing more. The year before, Thomas and Schaulin-Rioux had just graduated from high school. After watching a copy of the first AND1 streetball mixtape that Thomas brought home from a trip to France, they decided they wanted to make their own.

A chance meeting with Haywood at the 1998 Hoop-It-Up tournament, a three-on-three streetball tournament featuring Vancouver’s best ballers, changed the direction of the mixtape. Initially, it was an excuse for Thomas and Schaulin-Rioux to make something that they could watch among friends. They brought a video camera to their own pickup games and filmed hours of footage, but no one was particularly good at basketball.

At the Hoop-It-Up tournament, Thomas and Schaulin-Rioux realized they could do so much more.

“We stumbled upon this holy grail of creativity,” Schaulin-Rioux says.

Haywood still remembers the encounter, one that would chart the course of his basketball career for the next two decades. At the time, he thought nothing of it when Thomas and Schaulin-Rioux asked if they could follow him around the city, recording him as he played. “We didn’t know what was going on,” Haywood says. “We were just playing ball. We were all like, ‘Why not? This could be cool.’”

The tape opens with the instrumental version of “Act too (The Love of My Life),” a track from The Roots’ fourth studio album Things Fall Apart, as a montage of The Notic members flashes on screen. It cuts quickly to a highlight reel backed by more hip-hop instrumentals.

The film quality doesn’t come close to the hi-def reality we’re used to. But you can see the appeal, even if you have to look closely to make out The Notic dribbling around their opponents during a night game at the playgrounds, or how the Hoop-It-Up crowd ate up every single one of King Handles’ crossovers and no look passes.

The Notic more resembled a home video for family and friends than something for public consumption. No one thought much about the mixtape after the screening. It was a fun high school project. The VHS tape would probably end up a souvenir in either Thomas’ or Schaulin-Rioux’s future homes.

Then the two filmmakers posted a 30-second trailer of the mixtape to a streetball message board. Every time they refreshed the thread, the page count multiplied. Everyone was asking where they could get a copy.

Joey Haywood

The footage made its way around the world, all across North America and to parts of Europe, the Middle East and Australia. Thomas and Schaulin-Rioux set up a website so they could accept mail orders. Thomas, working at a local video rental chain called Rogers Video at the time, collected empty cassette cases so the two could dub copies of The Notic. In total, around 800 copies were mailed. Thomas and Schaulin-Rioux realized the mixtape was becoming a phenomenon when they went online and saw bootleg copies popping up on eBay.

Suddenly, The Notic was a household name in streetball circles, both on online message boards and in Vancouver. Haywood’s childhood friend Yash Zandiyeh told him that someone had reached out on AOL Instant Messenger in hopes of connecting with King Handles so he could break down some of his dribbling moves. The request came from Estonia. “We were like, ‘where the heck is Estonia,’” Zandiyeh says. “They didn’t teach us that in geography class.”

The Notic became Vancouver celebrities.

“One kid came up to me, asked for my autograph and said, ‘you’re my favorite player in the world,’” Johnny Mubanda, AKA Johnny Blaze, remembers. “I was like, ‘what are you talking about? Michael Jordan is out there.’”

The Notic was suddenly more than just a group of basketball junkies who wanted to see themselves on tape. Fans were tracking their every move. They were beloved simply for living their regular streetball lives.

This was just the beginning.

For the group, and especially Haywood, the success of the mixtape felt like vindication for everything they believed in. They all viewed streetball as a credible way of playing basketball, to the chagrin of some of their high school coaches.

Haywood modeled his game after Rafer Alston, who rose to streetball fame as Skip 2 My Lou and later played in the NBA. But in Vancouver, Haywood’s penchant for turning organized games into his own one-on-one showcases often rubbed coaches and players the wrong way. Many saw him as undisciplined, selfish and a showboat. It didn’t matter if he was clearly the best player on the floor.

“Not a lot of people had that style of play in Vancouver,” Haywood says. “People tend to look at you like you’re playing rap ball or something. They say you’re just a streetball guy. You can’t really play basketball. You don’t really have fundamentals. At the same time, I was still killing top-level players on the court but it still didn’t matter. It was hard for me.”

Mubanda saw the criticism that Haywood faced firsthand. “We got so much hate when we were young,” Mubanda says. “That’s the one thing [Joey] has been fighting against all his life. It was love on the street, but once he brought it into the regular game, people were hating all day.”

Galvanized by critics and the success of the first tape, the group quickly got to work on a second mixtape, The Notic 2. The tape was more structured. The guys studied what worked the first time, and coordinated what moves they wanted to pull off before the cameras got rolling. Everyone had a clear idea what they wanted to showcase. When it was released, the tape sent the group’s fame into the stratosphere.

EA Sports invited The Notic to help create streetball moves that would end up on the video game franchise NBA Street, released in 2001. Today, Schaulin-Rioux still hooks up the Playstation 2 just to bust out some of Haywood’s signature tricks.

“I remember telling the guys, ‘Imagine playing a video and when I press a button I could be doing one of your moves,’” Schaulin-Rioux says. “Four months later, I was sitting with Joey and Mohammed at a motion capture event for NBA Street and we were laughing, like, ‘Wow, this is really happening.’”

The Notic were invited to play streetball tournaments in the United States, and even received boxes of shoes and apparel from AND1 as tokens of appreciation. “Jeremy and I received the package and piled everything in the back of our car and told the whole crew to meet us,” Thomas says. “We opened the trunk of our cars and shoes just fell out. Everyone lost their minds. They were in high school. They couldn’t afford any of it. Now they got to have all of this stuff. It was so cool to see their excitement.”

For a group of high schoolers, this was the apex. By pursuing their collective passion for streetball, The Notic had become stars. They thrived just by being themselves.

“There was never any business plan,” Thomas says. “The only plan we ever had was to film ourselves playing basketball. We loved basketball and we loved making videos.”

Mohammed Wenn, AKA ‘Goosebumps,’ left, and David Mubanda, AKA ‘Dazzle’

By that time, AND1 Basketball had exploded into the mainstream. Streetballers were earning a living and appearing on ESPN. Everyone in The Notic thought the same thing would happen to them.

And while opportunities came, no one in The Notic thought about how well they were parlaying their popularity into financial stability. It was cool enough to be performing streetball moves in front of a green screen for a video game franchise.

In retrospect, everyone agrees they could have been compensated better if the group had just sat down to discuss a long-term plan.

“But when you’re young,” Haywood says, “you don’t expect a whole lot.”

As the group began work on a third mixtape, even showing up to the pickup games to capture footage became a challenge. They didn’t have the time nor resources to support the work that their popularity demanded. Thomas and Schaulin-Rioux were recent university graduates with full-time jobs. Simply picking up a video camera and driving to the park wasn’t as easy as it used to be.

“I couldn’t call into work and say, ‘The weather is nice, there’s a game happening today, I’m not coming in,” Thomas says.

The ballers also started feeling less motivation to show up. Some of them had graduated high school and moved out of Vancouver. Their numbers dwindled. Those who remained in the city had their own education and bills to worry about. Pulling off dazzling dribble moves at the park wasn’t at the top of their priorities anymore.

Slowly, the group dissolved. By the mid-2000s, everyone went their separate ways. The Notic officially broke up.

Haywood wondered where his streetball career would take him next. He continued to hit local courts in Vancouver during the summer when he wasn’t traveling around the world to play in streetball tournaments. In 2008, Haywood went to Kitsilano Beach, one of the more popular beaches in Vancouver, to play pickup. A bit older now, Haywood was still the stand-out player on the court.

Playing against him that day was Howard Kelsey, a member of Team Canada’s Men’s National Basketball Team for 11 years and previously the head recruiter at the University of Victoria. Kelsey considered himself an encyclopedia of Canadian basketball prospects, so he was surprised to find out he had never heard of Haywood.

Mohammed Wenn and David Mubanda on the SkyTrain in Vancouver

What Kelsey did know was his scouting instincts weren’t betraying him. In Haywood, he saw one of the most skilled players he had ever come across locally. “He had guys triple-teaming him and he’s going through their legs and putting it over their heads,” Kelsey says. “I have never seen anybody at any level handle the ball better than him.”

As a streetballer, Haywood had proven himself in every way possible. Defenders feared him. Fans adored him. The Notic cemented his reputation. But now he was an adult who needed to turn his basketball hobby into a living. Among The Notic, Haywood was the only member who had the skills and the drive to pursue a pro career.

But organized basketball never jived with Haywood’s free spirit. After high school, he attended Langara College in British Columbia and played point guard on the men’s basketball team, but lasted just a few months. Haywood and his coach didn’t agree on his playing style. Even when Haywood felt like he was playing well, he still wasn’t getting a lot of run. Taking on a reduced role was too difficult for his ego to swallow.

“I just wasn’t used to sitting on the bench after starting my whole life,” Haywood says. “I felt like I deserved to be a starter and that was my mentality.”

For the next half decade, Haywood traveled the streetball circuit, flying around the world to tournaments, open runs and elimination challenges. Haywood tried out for AND1 and didn’t make it. He competed in a $100,000 tournament and came up short. The high school phenom was now a streetball vagabond in his mid-20s trying to figure out what was next.

Kelsey was matter-of-fact about what Haywood should do: play pro ball, because streetball doesn’t pay the bills.

“You can be All-Rucker Park,” Kelsey told Haywood. “But if you’ve never played college, the legitimacy is just not the same. You have to be legit. You have to be able to make it in college.”

Those words stuck with Haywood. Shortly after their meeting, Haywood played in a streetball tournament in Halifax and caught the attention of the Saint Mary’s University coaching staff. Ross Quackenbush was the school’s men’s basketball head coach, and happened to be friends with Kelsey, who vouched for Haywood when Quackenbush called him for a scouting report. Haywood was offered a scholarship.

“I let the coaches know, ‘Listen I’m for real, I wanted to change my style of play,’” Haywood says. “‘I didn’t want to come in here and do streetball stuff. I wanted to work on my fundamentals.’”

Haywood kept his word and became a household name again, setting Saint Mary’s single-season scoring record. In his senior season, Haywood was the nation’s leading scorer, averaging 28.8 points per game. He was first-team All-Canadian and the Atlantic University Sport Player of the Year.

The Notic crew asleep on a road trip

Mohammed Wenn

But Haywood, then 27, was graduating college at an age much older than everyone else, and didn’t have an NCAA Division I school or any professional basketball experience on his resume. He didn’t attract any interest from the NBA, and was forced to wander in search of courts again, playing for the Aalorg Vikings of the Danish Basket Ligaen, the Grindavik men’s basketball team in Iceland and the Halifax Rainmen of the National Basketball League of Canada.

Approaching his mid-30s, Haywood, who failed to make the Raptors 905 D League team at a tryout in 2016, admits he struggled to accept that NBA teams weren’t interested.

“I’ll watch some highlights, and then I’ll stop and be like, ‘Fuck man, I wish I was there,’” Haywood says. “I can see myself there. Every day I wish I’d get a phone call or email.”

But even in times of frustration, Haywood is grateful a couple of streetball mixtapes allowed him, in a roundabout way, to play basketball for a living. “It was all The Notic,” Haywood says. “None of it would have been possible without it.”

Haywood does wonder if The Notic would have continued if they had put a business plan in place, and whether he could have spent his 20s traveling around the world with the group, earning large paychecks and watching their celebrity grow over time.

“If we were more business-like and had the right manager and agent, we could have done camps, clinics, streetball tours across Canada,” Haywood says. “The Notic fell off because we didn’t know the business side of things. We never really capitalized on it. We did it for the love, which was great, but we had these tapes, and by the time we sat down to think about how we could eat off it, it was too late.”

Members of the group still kept in touch with Haywood and followed his journey. “I love King,” Mubanda says. “He just kept doing it.” The thought of Haywood carrying the legacy of The Notic by himself was hard to digest.

“I felt as though I let him down sometimes,” Mubanda says. “Before, he had a squad. He had all of us. Now, he was out there by himself.”

Although Haywood never made the NBA, and The Notic never reached their full potential, he found contentment within the career he had. Perhaps he never reached the heights of fame and success he imagined for himself once, but he proved he could persevere and thrive in both street and organized ball.

And just when it seemed like Haywood had nothing left to chase, streetball came calling again.

The Notic crew

In 2017, a hoard of basketball fans arrived at a local basketball court in Tokyo to get a glimpse of their favorite streetballer. Almost two decades after the first Notic tape made its way around the world, Haywood was there to put on a show. Later, fans in the audience asked their idol to sign DVD copies of The Notic 2 and pose for photos.

When a friend reached out about opportunities in Asia to re-enter the streetball scene, Haywood did not hesitate at all. After all these years, the passion that fueled him as a 16-year-old kid at the local community centre had returned. “It’s a rebirth,” Haywood says. “I’ve coming back to the roots of where I started.”

Joining him in Tokyo was Mubanda, who now coaches high school basketball in Vancouver. Mubanda was overwhelmed by the turnout in a foreign country. He could finally see The Notic’s legacy. “You might not be LeBron James,” Mubanda told Haywood. “But look at the impact you’ve made.”

Years after The Notic failed to capitalize on their fame, Haywood is doing it for himself. He has built an online presence and runs his own own YouTube channel, where you can still see him competing in streetball tournaments and holding clinics for younger players around the world. The Notic lives on through Haywood, who still goes by King Handles and features the group’s logo prominently at the start of his videos.

Thomas and Schaulin-Rioux have kept in touch with Haywood, and are proud to watch him carry on The Notic.

“Joey is the best flag bearer for The Notic and for streetball,” Schaulin-Rioux says. “When he steps on the basketball court, you can’t look away. When you meet him after the game, he makes you feel like he’s your best friend. He’s brought people together through the love of basketball.”

They’ve even approached Haywood about making The Notic 3. Thomas and Schaulin-Rioux envision it as one part back-to-basics Notic streetball highlights, another part retrospective of Haywood’s basketball journey over the past two decades. “There’s still a couple of streetball moves I’ve never seen anyone do that’s sitting on some Hi8 tapes at my dad’s house,” Schaulin-Rioux says.

Where Haywood’s basketball journey goes next is hard to say. But he likes the possibilities.

“When you’re a pro, you’re getting paid, but you’re not really marketable,” Haywood says. “I think this route is a lot better for me. I can give back to the guys and shape the way the streetball game is played by the next generation. I can give back now. I have so much more passion giving back to streetball than playing at the pro level.”

Haywood’s story won’t include an NBA appearance, nor will many basketball fans be able to recall his career. But that doesn’t mean he didn’t succeed.

“I’m so proud of him,” Mubanda says. “He just kept going. He kept The Notic alive. He kept us alive. Through him, we’re still living. Forget the fame. Forget whether people know us. What we had together, that was love. It was a moment in time and it was precious, man.”

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mastcomm · 4 years

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Kobe Bryant Saw His Greatness Mirrored in Gianna

The N.B.A. on Thursday is scheduled to announce the players chosen by Eastern and Western Conference coaches as All-Star Game reserves. On the internal calendar I keep, this is traditionally the ideal time to unveil my unofficial All-Star selections.

That won’t be happening this time.

In the wake of the horrific helicopter crash on Sunday that killed the legendary Kobe Bryant and eight others aboard, normal operations have been pretty much suspended for anyone who has anything to do with the N.B.A.

Bryant’s worldwide stature is obviously a huge part of that. He was one of the giants of this game, an immense figure globally, revered by the overwhelming majority of current N.B.A. players — and incomprehensibly struck down at the age of 41. Grief like this will not fade quickly.

It is doubly true in this case because Bryant’s 13-year-old daughter, Gianna, was on that helicopter with him.

Beloved by members of the University of Connecticut women’s basketball program, which she dreamed of joining someday, Gianna received a moving tribute from the team on Monday when it placed flowers and a UConn jersey bearing her No. 2 on the bench for an exhibition game against the United States national team.

“Mambacita is forever a Husky,” the school posted on Twitter, referring to the nickname that Kobe Bryant, the self-styled “Black Mamba,” had given the second-born of his four daughters.

Also on board were two of Gianna’s teammates from the AAU squad coached by her father: Alyssa Altobelli and Payton Chester. The lives of three teenage girls with so much to look forward were taken in the crash, along with those of Bryant; Alyssa’s parents, John and Keri; Payton’s mother, Sarah; Kobe’s assistant coach, Christina Mauser; and Ara Zobayan, who piloted the helicopter.

The list gets sadder every time it is recited.

Kobe Bryant was 17 when I met him, then freshly acquired by the Los Angeles Lakers. On Monday, I wrote about how he was convinced, from the first minute of his pro career, that he was bound for the Hall of Fame.

Bryant was equally convinced that Gianna was likewise destined for greatness. She was his ever-present companion at countless games in recent years — to watch her W.N.B.A. heroes, or the Huskies, or maybe on a special trip to see her favorite N.B.A. player: Trae Young of the Atlanta Hawks.

Perhaps by now you have seen the clip of Kobe from his visit to the “Jimmy Kimmel Live” show in 2018, telling the world that Gianna bristled any time she heard a fan suggest to her father that he and his wife, Vanessa Bryant, needed to have a boy to uphold Kobe’s legacy.

“She’s like, ‘Oy, I got this,’” Bryant said of Gianna, then 12.

The last time I saw Kobe, on Dec. 29 at Staples Center, he had never looked more joyful. Wearing a bright orange hoodie and a green ski cap to rep his hometown Philadelphia Eagles, Bryant was sitting courtside beside Gianna as they watched — make that studied — the Lakers’ LeBron James and Luka Doncic of the Dallas Mavericks going head-to-head.

Also in the building that night was God Shammgod, whose extraordinary dribbling ability made him a New York playground legend. Despite the briefest of N.B.A. playing careers, Shammgod has landed on the Mavericks’ staff as a player development coach — yet he remains so revered for his ball handling that, even in a coaching role, he has his own Puma signature shoe.

Days after that Lakers/Mavericks game, never realizing the sorrow that was looming, Shammgod told me some moving stories of his workouts with father and daughter — how he had the extraordinary opportunity to coach them both.

“I knew him when he wasn’t this Kobe,” Shammgod said. “He knew me when there was no Shammgod moves.”

In their high school days, Shammgod — then known as Shammgod Wells — wound up at an ABCD youth camp with Bryant in New Jersey. Kobe had spent some of his formative years in Italy, where his father, Joe “Jellybean” Bryant, was playing professionally, but Shammgod said Kobe’s fellow campers knew only that he had mostly played abroad somewhere.

“The boy from France,” Shammgod said. “That’s what we called him. After the first game, guys were saying, ‘Who’s this guy who actually thinks he’s Michael Jordan?’ He’s walking like Jordan, he’s doing every Jordan move, shooting all the balls.”

Bryant was clearly a special talent, but his ball handling was a weakness. Joe Bryant had noticed Shammgod’s slick handles and asked the 16-year-old if he could help Jellybean’s 15-year-old son.

Shammgod told the elder Bryant that he would be happy to work out with Kobe — at 6 the next morning. “I was thinking, ‘He’s not going to show,’” Shammgod said. “I get there and he’s already there.”

A bond was forged, and the two remained close. The friendship endured even as Bryant rose to stardom and his dribbling mentor was forced to scour the globe for jobs (in Poland, China, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Croatia) after an N.B.A. career that lasted just 20 games with the Washington Wizards in 1997-98.

During the All-Star break last February, Shammgod received an urgent summons from Bryant to Southern California. Kobe was now coaching Gianna’s travel team and wanted to introduce her and the rest of the squad to the move known in hoop parlance as “The Shammgod” — which requires the dribbler to bring the ball to the side with one hand to get the defender off balance, then snatch it back with the opposite hand to execute a crossover dribble. Oklahoma City’s Chris Paul and the Nets’ Kyrie Irving are two of the most accomplished modern practitioners.

Shammgod spent two days at Bryant’s Mamba Sports Academy in Thousand Oaks, Calif.

“When I say that’s all he wanted to do is dribbling, that’s all he wanted to do,” Shammgod said. “From 10 to 12 in the morning, then from 2 to 4. These girls were dribbling four hours straight without shooting the basketball.”

One-on-one tutorials with Gianna would soon follow. Shammgod said they had worked out about a dozen times over the past year. Kobe wanted to fly him in more often, but Shammgod said he had to remind him occasionally, “I work for the Mavs and I can’t leave.”

When the trio huddled at that Dec. 29 game at Staples, Gianna excitedly told the story of how she “did the Shammgod on this girl” in a recent game.

“She was so locked in,” Shammgod said. “Her mind-set was just like his mind-set.”

That was evident in a 2019 glimpse of Gianna on camera with the Las Vegas CBS affiliate during a trip to watch that season’s opener for the W.N.B.A.’s Las Vegas Aces. Explaining her fascination with film study, Gigi could not have sounded much more like her father when she said, “More information, more inspiration.”

Those of us who were there for the start of the Kobe Bean Bryant experience and watched him grow up can’t help but flash back to those early days now. Even though the journalism handbook says we’re supposed to be detached and unemotional — even at times like this — Bryant’s sudden death has been a gut punch for many scribes like me who covered him closely over the past two decades.

What messes me up most, though, is when I start thinking about Gianna Maria-Onore Bryant, her two teammates on that chopper and the shattered families that have to try to move on without them.

Gianna, Alyssa and Payton — gone at an age just a few years younger than Kobe was upon his league-shaking arrival in the N.B.A. So, so unspeakably cruel.

This newsletter is OUR newsletter. So please weigh in with what you’d like to see here. To get your hoops-loving friends and family involved, please forward this email to them so they can jump in the conversation. If you’re not a subscriber, you can sign up here.

In tribute to Kobe Bryant and his second of two jersey numbers, we present a 24-item assemblage of standout statistics from his career with the Lakers.

Bryant was the youngest player in N.B.A. history when he made his regular-season debut for the Lakers on Nov. 3, 1996, at 18 years and 72 days old. A future teammate with the Lakers, Andrew Bynum, eventually became the youngest player in league history at 18 years and six days old when he made his debut in 2005.

Only four players — all big men — made the jump directly from high school to the pros before Bryant and Portland’s Jermaine O’Neal were selected in the 1996 N.B.A. draft. Those four predecessors: Moses Malone, Darryl Dawkins, Bill Willoughby and Kevin Garnett. Shawn Kemp sat out a year after graduating high school in 1988 before he was drafted in 1989 by Seattle.

1,346

Both of the Lakers’ rookies selected in the first round of the 1996 N.B.A. draft — Bryant (1,346) and Derek Fisher (915) — rank in the top five in club history in games played.

Bryant started only seven games in his first two N.B.A. seasons.

Bryant’s four air balls in a 1997 playoff game in Utah — one at the regulation buzzer and three in overtime — came against the same Jazz franchise he riddled for 60 points in his final N.B.A. game on April 13, 2016.

The Lakers’ championships in three consecutive seasons — 1999-2000, 2000-01, 2001-02 — represent the league’s only three-peat this century. The Michael Jordan-led Chicago Bulls had three-peats twice in the 1990s (1990-91 through 1992-93 and 1995-96 through 1997-98).

38.3

A conversion rate of 38.3 percent in 2002-03 marked Bryant’s most successful season from the 3-point line.

35.4

Bryant’s highest single-season scoring average was 35.4 points per game in 2005-2006, the Lakers’ second season after trading away Shaquille O’Neal.

16,866

Bryant scored 16,866 points and won three of his five championships wearing No. 8 through his first 10 seasons.

16,777

He scored 16,777 points and won two championships wearing No. 24 over the final 10 seasons of his career.

Bryant’s 20 consecutive seasons with the Lakers left him one shy of the N.B.A. record for playing with only one team: Dirk Nowitzki’s 21 seasons with the Dallas Mavericks.

No other Laker played more than 14 seasons (Jerry West and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).

Bryant scored 81 points against the Toronto Raptors on Jan. 22, 2006.

Bryant’s eruption against the Raptors, the second-highest scoring output in league history behind Wilt Chamberlain’s 100-point game in 1962, came just 33 days after Kobe scored 62 points in three quarters against the Dallas Mavericks.

220

Bryant appeared in 220 career playoff games, which equates to more than two and half seasons of extra wear and tear.

The Lakers missed the playoffs in each of Bryant’s last four seasons.

35.6

Bryant averaged just 35.6 games played over his final three seasons following his torn left Achilles’ tendon in April 2013.

The 60 points Bryant scored in his farewell outing beat the previous record for an N.B.A. player in his last official season by 11 points. Boston’s Larry Bird scored 49 points on March 15, 1992.

Bryant is the only player in league history to have two jersey numbers (No. 8 and No. 24) retired by one franchise.

Bryant’s 18 N.B.A. All-Star appearances are one shy of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s record 19.

Bryant was voted in by fans as an All-Star starter in his third season with the Lakers and in each of the subsequent 17 seasons.

$328,238,062

The value of Bryant’s contracts over 20 seasons with the Lakers, according to Basketball Reference, was nearly $330 million.

Bryant and LeBron James never met in a playoff game. James has made nine trips to the N.B.A. finals, winning three titles.

5-2

Bryant posted a career record of 5-2 in the N.B.A. finals, winning five championships in seven appearances.

Hit me up anytime on Twitter (@TheSteinLine) or Facebook (@MarcSteinNBA) or Instagram (@marcsteinnba). Send any other feedback to [email protected].

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grazianosportsreviewgroup · 5 years

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Final Non-Fiction Essay

Ron Graziano

Nonfiction Expository Essay

2/12/19

Damaged Petals

As I got out of my dad’s Jeep, and stepped into the frigid Chicago weather in the middle of December, I started on the all too familiar two block walk from the parking lot to the entrance of the United Center. Tonight at the U.C. the Bulls would be hosting the Minnesota Timberwolves. Halfway into my walk I stopped to notice my surroundings; to my left, and only a few miles away, the magnificent Chicago Skyline gleams in the darkness. A city that was once burnt to the ground and since built up bigger and better than ever. The skyline is something more than simply pleasing to look at, to a true Chicagoan it carries with it a message of hard work, possibility, and success. Even with living in or near the city my entire life, every time I see the skyline it still gives me goosebumps. Then I turned to my right and looked down the opposite direction on Madison street. What I see is the beginning of a much darker more sinister side of the great city, only a few blocks down, start the gang infested projects of Chicago.

It’s no secret that Chicago’s west and south sides are home to some of the most dangerous street gangs in America. According to Forbes, “Since 2001, Chicago has experienced 7,916 murders (as of September 06, 2016). The number of Americans killed in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was 2,384 and 4,504 respectively since 2001.”(McCarthy Niall). Due to this extreme violence in the city, Chicago is referred to by many as Chiraq. As you can imagine growing up on these streets, simply surviving day to day can be difficult, let alone trying to better yourself and family with these disastrous circumstances. However, again right smack in between these two drastically different sides of the city sits the United Center. Acting as a secret portal for a very select few of lucky individuals to move from one side of the city to the other; from poverty and violence to success and fame. How do you access this secret portal, it's quite simple, be one of the best basketball players in the world.

Tonight one of Chiraq’s own, Derrick Rose, would be returning to the United Center with vengeance and in hopes to prove he still deserves access to the secret portal and the success and recognition that is awarded on the other side. As unlike many, as quick as Derrick was able to use his freakish athletic ability and talent to reach the portal, it closed on him due to numerous devastating injuries that left him no longer able to perform at the same level. Derrick’s return ladies and gentleman is why myself and a fair amount of die hard Bulls fans decided to come out to the United Center on this cold December night.

Let’s first rewind 10 years and go back to the 2008 NBA draft, and when the portal first opened for Rose: “With the 1st pick in the 2008 NBA draft the Chicago Bulls select Derrick Rose from the University of Memphis.” (David Stern). It was the perfect story, almost too good to be true, at a less than a 1% chance the kid from streets of Englewood Chicago and best player in the 2008 NBA draft class would be coming home to save the struggling Bulls. Ever since the end of the Michael Jordan era the Bulls couldn't seem to get over the hump of mediocracy, now there was a newfound sense of hope in the organization and the city of Chicago. This hope soon turned into a strong sense of belief after Rose lived up to all of the hype and then some, seemingly unguardable off the dribble due to his elusiveness and freakish athletic ability he easily claimed rookie of the year his first season and then at the age of 22 became the youngest MVP in NBA history, while carrying the bulls to the conference championship series for the first time since MJ. Arguably quicker than anyone before his time, Derrick gained tremendous fame, recognition, and financial benefits. However as quick as the game of basketball brought all this Success Derrick’s way it was all taken away equally as fast.

Fast forward to the playoffs of the 2011/2012 season, and we see the beginning of the closing of the portal for Derrick. In round 1, game 1 against the 76ers with 2 minutes left, and the Bulls up 12 points, Derick jumped up on a routine drive to the basket, coming down awkward on his knee and then hitting the ground: "Rose came down bad on his left foot, holding on to his knee, holding on to his knee and down!” (Broadcaster). The days following the injury the entire city of Chicago held its collective breath hoping the injury would be diagnosed as mere sprain. However, the devastating news would arise that the reigning MVP had torn his ACL. The heartbreaking fact is that Rose had absolutely no control over the injury; a torn ACL is a freak injury that can happen to anyone at any time. Rose would miss the entire next season, however he remained strong throughout the recovery process and pledged to come back bigger and better than ever; the portal would remain open for Derrick upon his return.

My family and I entered the stadium and found our seats, right before the player introductions. The Minnesota Timberwolves being the visiting team were announced first. Rose’s name is announced and a fair amount of fans paid their respect and clapped for their former MVP; nothing compared to the support during his MVP caliber years. The game starts and Rose wastes little time, quickly impressing on his once home court. After dishing out a few pretty dimes, Rose then scored his first point of the game attacking the hoop getting knocked off guard by the defender and somehow getting a fade away floater to fall from what seemed like behind the backboard. An amazing finish from one of the leagues once best finishers.

After Rose sat out an entire year due to rehab for his torn ACL, Rose would return back to game action in the 2013/2014 season; Unfortunately this return wouldn’t last as long as he’d hope. Only a few months into the season Rose would suffer another devastating torn ligament in his knee; this time tearing the meniscus in his right knee. While not as bad of an injury as the ACL, Rose would still be put in the I/R and not return for the remainder of the 2013/2014 season. Now, with two torn major ligaments in less than two years suffered by a player who predominantly relies on his freakish athletic ability and quickness, many were wondering if the league's youngest MVP would be able to return to the same level of play. Knowing these devastating injuries may inhibit Derrick’s future ability to successfully perform, the question now becomes, how much longer should/can management and Bulls fans afford to leave the portal open for Rose.

Later in the first quarter Rose continued his dominant play by sifting through the entire Bulls defense and going up and over Chicago big man Lauri Markedden. Already, Rose had penetrated the paint and scored 3 times, and it started to feel as if someone had turned back the clocks to the old D-Rose Bulls fans used to watch on a nightly basis at the U.C.

Now in the 2014/2015 season Rose and the Bulls would be in must-win mode after having 3 lost seasons due to injury. However, mid way through the season the unthinkable happened: Rose suffered a slight tear in the same meniscus he tore last season. He would return later in the season, however Chicago would only make it past 1 round of the playoffs. After a mediocre following season where Bulls missed the playoffs for the first time in 8 years, the Bulls would proceed to trade Rose to the Knicks; giving up on their once hometown hero, and believed to be next coming of Jordan. In New York, Rose would now have to attempt to access an even more inpenentral portal called the Madison Square Garden.

Still in the first quarter and Rose is absolutely showing out. Rose off the dribble during transition pulls up for a mid range jumper and banks it in off the glass; a shot he didn't have before the injuries and that he was able to develop during his time spent in rehab. Then Rose absolutely blew by Kris Dunn, point guard on the bulls, for an easy teardrop layup, giving him 8 first quarter points. With Rose leading the Wolves to an 11 point lead after the first quarter many fans in the stadium seemed to increasingly care less about the state of their struggling Bulls, because of the amazing show their former MVP was putting on.

Now playing for the Knicks, Rose struggles out of the gate only showing flashes of his old self, however considering the change of scenery and injuries he’s had to deal with this was expected. Finally, against all odds, in the second half of the season Rose began to adjust and started playing at a high level again, averaging 18 points a game. In April however, Rose would tear the meniscus in his other (left) knee. Again knocking him out for the remainder of the season, and not only striking doubt in his athletic ability upon return but whether or not he could/should even continue playing the game considering the beating his knees had taken in such a short amount of time.

In the second half Rose picked up right where he left off. After posting 14 first half points Rose started off the 3rd quarter knocking down a contested three; the 3 point shot being another newly developed aspect in Rose’s game. After hitting this shot you got the sense that Rose wasn’t just playing to get the win for the Wolves but he wanted to put on a show for his old city and prove to everyone who doubted him, everyone that counted him out, he still has it. Could Rose do the impossible and potentially re-open the portal after it had been seemingly closed for good by the Bulls organization and their fans?

Now in the 2017/2018 season, the portal in New York closes and Rose is forced to search for another organization to give him a chance. Rose ended up reaching a deal with the Cleveland Cavaliers, however one that would significantly decrease the benefits on the other side of the portal. The former MVP of the league from only 5 seasons ago, would just make 2.1 million on a comical 1 year deal, where a starting role wouldn’t be guaranteed. Rose’s stint with the Cavaliers would end up being a complete trainwreck; Rose would reach rock bottom of his basketball career in Cleveland. He hardly played for the team due to more injuries, and even ended up stepping away from the team for an extended period of time to consider retirement. Later in the season he ends up returning to be traded to the jazz and then immediately dropped. At this point the story of Rose’s career is perceived to be all but written; a player with once one of the greatest potentials and raw talents in NBA history whose career would be unfortunately cut short due to a plethora of horrible knee injuries. The portal is now closed by all NBA organizations as rose is now regarded as a washed up player with no value/ability. However, near the end of the season Rose is given a 10 day contract by the Timberwolves.

Now in the 4th quarter with the Timberwolves up 17 points on the Bulls, Rose scored his final bucket of the game and boy was it a memorable one. Rose put a nasty spin move on Kris Dunn allowing him to get to the rim, where he somehow managed to make the layup while being hacked by a help defender, displaying his famous ability to take a hit and contort his body in mid air all while having the strength, focus, and soft touch to finish the layup. As Bulls broadcaster Stacy King used to describe him in his MVP days: ‘Too big, too strong, too fast, too good!’.

At the line something truly amazing happened, some Bulls fans began giving rose the M.V.P. chant, and before you knew it every fan still in attendance, joined in and was yelling M.V.P. M.V.P. M.V.P… Rose, gave a quick smile to his once hometown crowd and drained the free throw. Rose now realizing that the portal that he once used almost on a nightly basis to bring all his success and fortune was successfully reopened for one more night.

Whether or not Rose can consistently play at this level, and like the player he once was before the injuries is anyone's guess. However what we do know is in an effort to regain recognition, Derrick will never give up and stop striving to be the best basketball player in the world, as this very dream is what awarded him his success. While as rewarding and lucrative this dream is for Rose and anyone who has the ability to utilize the sports portal to gain success, it is important to remember that if one does not possess the increasingly difficult abilities they will never be granted access in the first place, and arguably worse, like in Rose’s case it can easily close due to uncontrollable/external factors. In the words of Tupac Shakur: “We wouldn't ask why a rose that grew from the concrete (had) damaged petals, in turn, we would all celebrate its tenacity, we would all love its will to reach the sun, well, we are the roses, this is the concrete and these are my damaged petals, don’t ask me why, thank god, and ask me how.” (Tupac Shakur) Due to the unpredictability and lack of security in the current available options for the ‘how’, maybe it’s time we start asking why.

Citations

McCarthy, Niall. “Homicides In Chicago Eclipse U.S. Death Toll In Afghanistan And Iraq.”

Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 8 Sept. 2016.