Rose

Opening weekend of the playoffs is suppose to be about excitement, about the anticipation of matching our expectations of teams and players formed throughout the season against actual results, and for some of those players to surprise, most of the teams to disappoint, and allow conversations to break out into every direction imaginable.

While the first day did give us those prerequisites — Miami asserted themselves, the Knicks continue to have nothing figured out, Dallas possibly losing their chance at winning their series, Indiana not looking as playoff ready as I expected — it’s the season ending injury to Derrick Rose that hovers over all of that like a black cloud.

Can an injury end the championship hopes of a team? One of this magnitude, to this caliber of a player? A definite yes.

Will it change that player’s entire career going forward? A wait and see I suppose, but definitely a question worth asking for now.

It couldn’t have happened to a better player, someone who deserved to have his exit from these playoffs determined by his performance on the court, and not by an injury in the last minute of the first game where his team led by double digits.

This is the same player who actually lives the basketball never stops slogan, who never got over last year’s Conference Finals loss to the Heat, and went through an injury filled season to get to this point again, to face the challenge once more, with a supporting cast seemingly more equipped to wage battle with their rivals in Miami.

It’s a huge letdown for basketball fans who viewed the first two rounds of the Eastern Conference playoffs as the under card before the main event.

Over the past two seasons, Rose and his entire team became the antithesis of everything that the Miami Heat stood for.

It was talent versus teamwork. It was team constructed through an overnight accumulation of talent versus the blue collar, no nonsense mentality that we could all identify with; or simply chose to do so through a means of latching on to a belief that this is the proper way of going about winning.

All of that is perhaps magnified now, as we reconstruct our arguments for the Bulls’ chances at a championship.

But in one play, it would appear that all of that went out the window, at least for these playoffs.

We’ve seen several injuries this year that abruptly ended great stories. Jeremy Lin’s injury didn’t feel as devastating if only because the momentum of his rise was already on the downside, and he wasn’t in the grand scheme of things the most important player on the team. Ricky Rubio’s injury halted the Wolves’ chances at a playoff appearance, but because the team had a considerably lower ceiling, the disappointment was more associated with the lost enjoyment of watching his ascent happen at a faster pace than it is when he’s not on the court.

In Rose’s case, it’s a bit darker and carries with it considerably greater amount of sadness, if only because he was the centerpiece to a contending team with aspirations of winning it all; and because players of his makeup deserve to construct their own endings on their own terms.

When you take that away seemingly at the very start of a journey he waited all year for to begin, it makes it that much more difficult to accept.

Footnotes:

You can read all my 2012 NBA Playoff related posts by clicking here, and by following me on Twitter for in game musings and on Facebook for other great reads, videos and links throughout the post-season.

Posted on 29 April, 2012

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  13. baller-lifestyle reblogged this from stevenlebron and added:
    rose :(
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    Such a heartbreaker!
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    :( Good bye Chicago
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